Born and raised in Washington DC, my artists hand is a weapon for opinion. I was a political cartoonist for the Michigan Daily newspaper for three years, examples can be found in my portfolio archive. I seek ways to translate our political figures into a language of line. Prints of any of the following illustrations are available for sale.

A short lived but fascinating exploration of the world of printmaking. These illustrations reveal my exploration of the ethereal quality of trace monoprint portraiture. Subjects include a professor of ceramics at the University of Michigan, a model photographed by Max Collins of the University of Michigan, and my younger sister Olivia.

This series of portraits was completed as my senior thesis spring 2011 at the University of Michigan School of Art and Design. The first three stand seven feet tall, and four feet across. The last two are four feet across and two feet tall. They are all currently for sale. Please contact jaffe.rose@gmail.com for further information.

This artists statement accompanied my work during the three weeks of the show:

I practice the art of illustration and my language is line. Each subject I draw has a storyline, a narrative that sits below the crease behind an ear, the folds of an eyelid, the curve of a spine. A study of the human figure, through technical practice and rendering techniques, allows me to venture into a study of the human essence and thus into the folds of personal narrative. I squeeze, pinch, and manipulate the face and body to reflect emotion, expression, and energy. Lines speak, and I articulate them in a way that tells a story.

The ‘Five’ series of portraits is a compositional narrative of each of my closest friends, who are influential, inspirational and important people in my personal and creative world. I’ve included myself as a subject in this series to examine my own lines. It is this self-reflective practice that is indicative of my desire to translate the multi-layers of a human being into simple form. Line quality, size, texture and form influence the storyline of each person. According to Milton Glaser,“Drawing is seeing.” These larger-than-life portraits are themselves a practiceof close inspection and truthful scrutiny, a means of better drawing, seeing,and understanding the people who surround me.

My second project for Howland Research, published through the Triple Anvil Press, is a series of illustrations of Winston Churchill. The publication is an essay on the history surrounding an important letter written by Churchill. The essay is by Richard Marsh, a retired attorney and president of the Winston Churchill Society of Michigan. The publication, including a facsimile of the letter, is scheduled to be in print mid year 2012.

The official letter from the Illustrator published along with the drawings:

Illustrating Winston Churchill for Richard Marsh’s essay on this important letter pertaining to Churchill, Pierre Flandin, and Ralph Wigramis an honor and an inspiration in three ways.

The library where the author’s Churchill books, letters, and documents are preserved is a remarkable space. Its creation occupied six months of the professional life of a cabinet maker, fabricating, fitting, and finishing each piece of alder wood. The second inspiration is the books in that library, most of them significant association copies, and the variety of Churchill letters and documents,several formerly in the collection of Malcolm Forbes. And, if one needed a third inspiration, it would be the enthusiasm of the author himself, his encyclopedic knowledge of thirteen generations of Churchill family history, and his generosity in sharing the history of artifacts in the collection, including the letter that is the subject of this essay.

Before rendering the final illustration, based on the iconic scene of Churchill and Brendan Bracken standing amidst the rubble of the bombed House of Commons, I read March’s essay. As the essay reveals, when Adolph Hitler entered the Rhineland in 1936,Churchill was one of the few individuals who foresaw the consequence of not challenging Hitler at the only point in time when Hitler could have been defeated without the horrific cost that was eventually paid.

As you read the essay and contemplate the details of all the illustrations but the last, I hope you will share my sense of inspiration. As you encounter the rendering of the final illustration, I hope you will share my sense that the entire terrible war might well have been avoided.

Ann Arbor RoseJaffe
July 2011


***The third illustration is a drawing is inspired from a GETTY image reproduced by the New York Times in a 2010 article. The original photo depicts Winston Churchill inspecting the bombed out remains of The Debating Chamber in the House of Commons during World War II.

The following are examples of pen and ink line work I have scanned black and white and colored digitally. Figures in various contexts with a splash of color and a stroke of comic air to create examples of basic line work in illustration.