My illustration for this month’s Lodging Magazine accompanies an article on predictive maintenance. Because hotel profits depend on providing comfort and convenience day-in and day-out to their many customers, it is all-important to maintain room amenities and essential machinery, such as heating, air-conditioning, door locks and washing equipment. The maintenance staff must therefore know when to replace worn fixtures or parts before they break down, to keep equipment at top performance with no interruptions.
The editor suggested a fortune teller theme, so I sketched a medium and some maintenance workers peering over a crystal ball. Inside the sphere I drew various hotel equipment and repair pieces floating around –
The editor approved it as is, so I traced it onto cold press illustration board, drew in the characters in prisma pencil and painted it with acrylic washes. The finished seance, calling forth the spirits of departed hotel machinery, is below.