Here’s a recent job I did for The Wall Street Journal. The article dealt with people who, while researching their ancestry online, discovered less than flattering ancestors. One ancestor was a murderer, another a Civil War coward, there was a bigamist and back during the Salem witch trials one woman was accused of being a witch—twice.

I illustrated each story, using techniques from the appropriate era. Everything from a Photoshopped photo for both the Civil War soldier and the bigamist in jail to a woodcut of the accused witch and an engraving of a bar room murder from the late 1800s.

Below you can see a preliminary I sent to Pete Hausler, an art director at WSJ. Once he and the editors took a look they thought the guy in the jail looked too lecherous and the witch had too large a nose. (Click on both images to see larger versions.)

I made the changes and finished the engraving of the bar room murder. I also decided to add a headline under the engraving to make it look more like a real newspaper.

It was great fun to work on this.