https://johnleedraws.tumblr.com/

Sharon Apple

Thu, 05 Jun 2025 11:32:41 -0400

Sharon Apple

Degas bronze and a Zaku II F2 Type

Fri, 30 May 2025 11:45:17 -0400

Degas bronze and a Zaku II F2 Type

Alexandra Trese, Babaylan-Mandirigma of Manila, Sixth Child of the Sixth Child

Tue, 05 Sep 2023 13:08:10 -0400

Alexandra Trese, Babaylan-Mandirigma of Manila, Sixth Child of the Sixth Child

Another one for Foreign Affairs, thanks as always to AD Ed Johnson. Lisa Anderson reviews Grand…

Mon, 24 Apr 2023 13:08:47 -0400

Another one for Foreign Affairs, thanks as always to AD Ed Johnson. Lisa Anderson reviews Grand Delusion: The Rise and Fall of American Ambition in the Middle East, by Steven Simon. Simon argues that America does not understand (and has never understood) the region and that misunderstanding has lead to decades of conflict.

Another one for Foreign Affairs, thanks AD Ed Johnson. For Patrick Radden Keefe’s review of Matthew…

Wed, 12 Apr 2023 09:54:46 -0400

Another one for Foreign Affairs, thanks AD Ed Johnson. For Patrick Radden Keefe’s review of Matthew Connelly’s The Declassification Engine: What History Tells Us About America’s Top Secrets.

I used open-sourced, redacted US intelligence documents about sordid things like death squad funding, nuclear weapon blast radii, and casualty estimates for the “waves.” Just some more light fare in the editorial illustration world.

Today for Qingming, I want to offer up all the treats in the world: slivers of corn husks, tiny…

Wed, 05 Apr 2023 14:46:58 -0400

Today for Qingming, I want to offer up all the treats in the world: slivers of corn husks, tiny catnip pillows, warm laps, head scratches. I want to bridge the here and the there with an inferno of morning sun, casting squares on the floor.

Missing my friends that I lost this year, Eponine and Happy.

For Foreign Affairs Book Review, Fredrick Logevall’s review of Kennan: A Life Between Worlds by…

Fri, 23 Dec 2022 11:31:25 -0500

For Foreign Affairs Book Review, Fredrick Logevall’s review of Kennan: A Life Between Worlds by Frank Costigliola.

George F. Kennan was a US diplomat who was one of the architects for the policy of containment of the USSR during the Cold War, a policy which he later criticized. He famously wrote the “Long Telegram” from Moscow in 1946, explaining Soviet rationales, and the “X” article in Foreign Affairs, which he wrote under the pseudonym of Mr. X and outlined the policy of containment.

My AD Ed Johnson was able to source the original X Article from FA and we used it in this collage. Also used Soviet Era military maps, which meticulously documented the entire world, including the Pentagon.

Sun, 18 Dec 2022 19:12:33 -0500

Wei Yingluo from Yanxi Palace aka Consort Ling aka Empress Xiaoyichun aka started from the bottom now we here incarnate

These two pieces got into the Society of Illustrators 65 Exhibition under Editorial thanks to the…

Wed, 30 Nov 2022 12:55:46 -0500

These two pieces got into the Society of Illustrators 65 Exhibition under Editorial thanks to the jury of my peers. I haven’t really entered into many competitions, so it was a really nice surprise to be recognized. Many thanks to my art directors Ed Johnson at Foreign Affairs and Claire Merchlinsky at The New York Times.

The 1st one accompanied a piece by Jeff Yang about Asian American heroes in media representation, but for the main figure I made it a portrait of a family friend Yueh Chien, who went missing in the summer of 2021.

As a way of processing her disappearance, I wanted everyone in the world to look at her face because at the time I felt like she wasn’t being searched for hard enough.

The 2nd one is for a book review centered around Chinese Premier Zhao Ziyang, who was purged from power and public life because he was sympathetic to student protestors during the Tiananmen crisis. He served for 2 years as leader of the CCP and General Secretary and was succeeded by Jiang Zemin, who passed away today.

The cat

Tue, 29 Nov 2022 15:38:32 -0500

The cat

Collages from weekly AP photos

Wed, 23 Nov 2022 10:07:26 -0500

Collages from weekly AP photos

Some work in context. Man things have really changed since I started this tumblr. At first I was…

Tue, 22 Nov 2022 17:12:34 -0500

Some work in context. Man things have really changed since I started this tumblr.

At first I was like, wow I wish someone would pay me to draw.
Now I’m like: I wish someone would pay me to live in a tree forever.

Split cover album art for Kishi Bashi’s 10th Anniversary of 151a, with AD David Woodruff and fellow…

Sun, 13 Nov 2022 15:48:00 -0500

Split cover album art for Kishi Bashi’s 10th Anniversary of 151a, with AD David Woodruff and fellow artist Hsiao-Ron Cheng. Original drawing on Rives BFK, color separations are done on tracing paper, and background is stitched together with running stitches and scanned.

For Kaitlin Tremblay’s piece about A Mortician’s Tale and loss in the Endgame Sequences zine. AD…

Thu, 10 Nov 2022 13:36:30 -0500

For Kaitlin Tremblay’s piece about A Mortician’s Tale and loss in the Endgame Sequences zine. AD Chris Kindred

Around 2 years ago to the day, I had one of my “purer” illustration things. I drew my fellow…

Tue, 08 Nov 2022 09:47:43 -0500

Around 2 years ago to the day, I had one of my “purer” illustration things. I drew my fellow citizens while waiting in line to vote, and then cleaned them up the next day to run in the NYTimes Sketchbook.

I remember it being a lot easier to have back and forth conversations on here but it really does a…

Mon, 07 Nov 2022 08:22:48 -0500

I remember it being a lot easier to have back and forth conversations on here but it really does a seem a lot clunkier after having been on bird app for so long.

The Grumpy Bert Red Envelope show is coming up. I honestly can’t believe this year is almost over.

Sun, 06 Nov 2022 09:33:26 -0500

The Grumpy Bert Red Envelope show is coming up. I honestly can’t believe this year is almost over.

For a piece by Irene Jiang in Joysauce about relationships, home...

Fri, 04 Nov 2022 11:03:57 -0400

For a piece by Irene Jiang in Joysauce about relationships, home and culture through the reference point of rice. AD Frankie Huang

Google streetview sketches of my family’s hometown Pozorrubio,...

Thu, 03 Nov 2022 14:31:30 -0400

Google streetview sketches of my family’s hometown Pozorrubio, Pangasinan.

For Foreign Affairs book review, thanks AD Ed Johnson. This one...

Tue, 01 Nov 2022 14:09:53 -0400

For Foreign Affairs book review, thanks AD Ed Johnson. This one was a review of Slouching Towards Utopia by J. Bradford Delong about the ups and downs of the last 200-ish years of economic development.