He works primarily in pen and ink on water color paper[1] and is best known for his work as a portrait artist,[2] for clients such as American Express, Barnes & Noble.com, Capitol Records, The Folio Society, The New Yorker, The New York Times Book Review, The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Rolling Stone, Smithsonian and Time.
After hearing his lecture and looking at his drawings, Ciardiello decided that Tinkelman's approach as an illustrator offered more possibilities for him than cartooning.
[2] Apart from Tinkelman and Spanfeller, Ciardiello's early artistic influences came primarily from illustrators who were working at the time, such as Alan Cober and Leonard Baskin.
[4] In the late 1980s, Ciardiello began work on a series of black and white drawings of his favorite jazz musicians, such as Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Charles Mingus, Thelonious Monk and others.
[15] The award was presented on behalf of Ciardiello's work illustrating the book On The Snap by Brian Case.
[16] In 2019, Fantagraphics published Ciardiello's A Fistful of Drawings, a collection produced over the previous five years inspired by Westerns.
[21] The Half-Tones is an all-illustrator band consisting of Barry Blitt, Richard A. Goldberg, Hal Mayforth, Robert Saunders, Michael Sloan, and James Steinberg.