Imperial Dragon

This is a newspaper photo of me painting an imperial dragon for a museum exhibition of the "Imperial Tombs of China", with 250 artifacts on loan from 22 Chinese institutions, back (oh gosh) 16 years ago. Yes, I'm really painting here, 12 feet off the ground, not just posing (you can tell by the paper towel in my hand, with which to catch runs and drips) — the paint bucket is just out of sight in this photo. I painted all sorts of large-scale graphics for this exhibit, which I'd like to gather into a specialized portfolio someday.

Happy Year of Dragon

I know this cave dragon is far afield from a Chinese Water Dragon, but dragons are dragons where e'er they may be.

This image is pulled from The Tale of the Rhine-Gold with Siegfried (I don't know where Roy is) doing his dirty work. For good luck, I suggest NOT killing any dragons this year.

Donn P. Crane — Siegfried Slaying Fafner

" . . . roused fearful Fafner from sleep and out of his cavern he came, a frightful, fire-breathing dragon, bellowing and roaring. The sight roused no fear in Siegfried; it only made him laugh. "Ha, ha!" he cried. "My lure hath charmed forth something lovely!" A terrible struggle ensued, with the dragon's yawning jaws and spouting breath of flame, threatening terrific destruction; but still Siegfried knew no fear; he calmly waited the moment when he could plunge his sword clean through the dragon's heart. Then Fafner's enormous coils relaxed in the stillness of death. Siegfried drew forth his sword and licked from his finger a drop of the venomous dragon's blood. Suddenly he noted that thus he had been made able to understand the speech of birds."

One in a Thousand

There must be a thousand renditions of poor sweet dead Ophelia created over the years with probably 99% created in Victorian times. This is one of them.

Paul Albert Steck — Ophelia — ca 1895

Paul Albert Steck — Ophelia — preliminary drawing

Yep — We Found It

If you're a fan of Walt Kelly and/or Pogo, you need to keep in touch with the Ever-Lovin' Blue-Eyed Whirled of Kelly blog, where his classic cartooning art still lives! Special early art is appearing now!

Walt Kelly — Pogo Sunday strip panel detail — June 18, 1950

Cerebral Quality

I like the cerebral quality of this cover (no punching), the very cool chair and the huge monitor—before its time.

Garcia Lopez/Dick Giordano — Superman #391 — January 1984

As I Was Saying

A magnificent study of a magnificent creature . . .

Charles LaSalle — figure study — 1940s

Swan Lion

A magnificent study of a magnificent creature . . .

J. M. Swan — Study of a Lion — ca 1900

Monumental

This is sort of related to the previous post, by a tour de force blending of monumental horse with monumental man, for a Playboy article in the 1980s, I think.

Illustrated by Mel Odom — The Stallion

Designed by Kerig Pope — Art directed by Tom Staebler

Courage and Vision

I would dearly love to have these sculpted figures as bookends, but I would need a massive crane to get them in my library. Ah well.

These two are entitled 'Courage' and 'Vision'. Without courage there is no vision, without vision there is no courage.

Walker Hancock — Courage — 1939

Walker Hancock — Vision — 1939

With these, there are two more fabulous sculptures of similar stature located at the Soldiers' Memorial in St. Louis, known as 'Sacrifice' and 'Loyalty'.

Safe Haven

Everyone needs a safe haven . . .

Yoshitaka Amano

Show and Tell

Harry Bliss — The New Yorker

Music Like

Music I like (not your grandmother's fairy music, believe me):

Go to their website here

You have an option for a FREE download of this entire album!

Ancient Alexandria

A fellow who 'dabbled' in portrayals of ancient history was, of course, Roy Krenkel. He had great passion for the subject, was very prolific in sketches, drawings and paintings, was top-notch in his ability . . . and barely made any money at it.

Roy Krenkel — Ancient Alexandria — ink & watercolor

Roy Krenkel — Alexandrian port — ink & wash

Roy Krenkel — Alexandrian Lighthouse — pen & ink

Donn Philip Crane

Some of you perhaps have enjoyed the My BookHouse set of early 20th century books that collected stories, tales and legends for kids to understand and appreciate. Perhaps you inherited them from family or perhaps have seen them in quality used book stores. The illustrations are fondly remembered by many, and most of those illustrations were primarily the work of one artist, Donn P. Crane, a man I have admired for many many years and yet knew ab-so-lute-ly nothing about . . . until now.

Mr. Jaffe over at Confessions of a Bookplate Junkie kindly sent over a Crane bookplate and a heads up. Through his site, a lot of information falls into place via a link (babylonbaroque. wordpress) where some of Crane's descendants are in contact, as well as with Mr. Jaffe.

You can find info about Crane by linking to those two sites, and you can look here for some large scans I've made of a few of the MANY Crane drawings I have collected, admired and treasured over the years. I can post many more if some of you show interest.

Crane was prolific in illustrating history, legends and fairytales, mostly for the My BookHouse series in the 1st third of the xxth century. He worked in pen and ink and for color was limited to using various shadings of 3 colors, which to me is fascinating and enjoyable. If he had chosen to illustrate a comic strip, he could have rivaled the artistry of the great Hal Foster. But he chose to help inspire generations of kids to understand the world around them.

Really, please tell me you want to see more of Crane's work.

Carried away by the witchery of the clever, fascinating Cleopatra, the coarse, pleasure-loving Antony, master of the eastern Mediterranean, at once becomes her devoted slave. All matters of war and policy are completely forgotten.

Isis beseeching the sun god Ra, on behalf of Osiris

After his defeat by Aetius at Chalons, Attila withdraws the remnant of his host to a fortified wagon circle. There he prepares a pyre of saddles and horse-furnishings, on which to sacrifice himself if about to be taken captive.

Frey, god of sunshine, on his golden boar whose bristles symbolize the sunbeams, and Freya, his sister, in her chariot drawn by cats. As goddess of love, Freya entertained lovers and married pairs in her palace after death. Cats, as symbols of purring affection were sacred to her as doves were sacred to Venus; but when Christian missionaries said that Freya was not a goddess, but a demon, the Northern people said she was leader of the witches who held their hag-like revels on a barren mountain-top on the horrid Valpurgis-night, and hence to this very day a witch is always shown as being accompanied by a cat.

Alfheim

A lovely bookplate created for the artist himself.

Courtesy of Lew Jaffe at Confessions of a Bookplate Junkie

Thanks Lew!

It's About Time!

What red-blooded person WOULDN'T want to master time?

J. Allen St. John — The Man Who Mastered Time — 1929

If a person didn't recognize the art style enough to know this was by St. John, a person could recognize the typography style as his. Nearly all St. John's book covers had this elaborate type treatment that he designed and integrated into his moody and muted adventure paintings. And oh, a novel about "Time" — my favorite sub genre of sci-fi!

Century Club

What red-blooded person WOULDN'T want to be in the Lionel Century Club, especially with art like this to entice you in?

Lionel Century Club

Oh, sign me up!!!

View of Winter

A beautiful, if not grisly, view of winter . . .

Erté — Winter

Sensuous Tableaux

A rather sensuous tableaux for a cigarette ad, but it was the roaring twenties after all. And besides— these are theatuh folk!

Lewis Baumer — for Abdulla Cigarettes —1923

Sea Fantasy

Have I told you what a fan I am of William Stout's work?

William Stout — Sea Fantasy — 1995

Brush with Fame

Last post brought some appreciation about Janis Joplin, and Mr. Door Tree remembered a fantastic concert at Yale, back in the good ole daze, when life was more interesting in a number of ways.

And then, I have a good friend who has a 'brush with fame' memory:

It was June of 1970, when my friend was in Eden Park in Cincinnati, where her brother was setting up for a band gig, and it was a blistering hot day. She was wearing a mini skirt, as was appropriate for that time, and no shoes, so she was 'all legs' as she put it (this information is not pertinent but I like the way it sets the stage), when a young woman and three guys walked straight up to her. "Hey man, can you tell me where the nearest bathroom is?" (everyone was called 'man' back then, even pretty young women).

My friend started to tell her where a port-a-let was, but this other woman said, "naw, I mean a real bathroom." So my friend directed her to a place at the top of the hill on Mount Adams. "Thanks man", and she and her entourage hiked on up the hill.

A couple of seconds later, my friend's friends came running up to her. "You talked to her! You talked to Janis! Wow, man!" Well yes, of course, the woman was Janis Joplin, and my friend had no idea. "You didn't know who she was?" I ask now.

"Well, no. I knew her music of course, I loved her music, but I'd only seen a few blurry photographs of her, and she was dressed in a lot of layers of clothes and a big hat, even though it was really hot out."

Joplin was in town for a concert with Poco and Lee Michaels at Cincinnati Gardens, and she wanted to do a concert of her own at Eden Park, but the city wouldn't let her. It seems perhaps that she was there to hear the band that my friend's brother was in.

BRUSH with fame, as Letterman sez.

Steve Miller — Janis — 1975

Now, I don't find any source that says that this Steve Miller illustration portrait is by THE Steve Miller of the The Steve Miller Band, but THE Steve Miller was an old friend of Joplin when they were in Texas. Plus, they played at some of the same gigs. This illustration is based on a famous photograph of Joplin, but it is a nice rendition of it. Is it by THE Steve Miller? I dunno.

Playin' an' Singin' Fer Yew

This album is great for the music and great for the cover art by Crumb. There's a lot of memories attached to this album — if only I could remember most of 'em.

This image is all over the internet, but the scans I've seen don't seem to be very good, so I'm puttin' up my scan,—you know, just for a cheap thrill.

R. Crumb — Cheap Thrills — 1968

AH!

As much as I like preliminary art, there is, of course, much to be said for finished art, especially from the likes of Adam Hughes. AH!

Adam Hughes — Lara Croft-Tomb Raider — poster

Adam Hughes — Lara Croft-Tomb Raider — preliminary art

Progressives

Milton Glaser is my favorite graphic designer/illustrator, though he doesn't consider himself an illustrator per se.

This is a set of 'progressives'.

Milton Glaser — preliminary

Milton Glaser — pen & ink

Milton Glaser — newspaper graphic

Milton Glaser — Woodstock Cultural Center — poster

1992

The World of Kull

John Severin, a grand veteran of the legendary EC comics era is also grandly appreciated for his artistic work on the 1971 Kull the Conqueror comic book series, inking his sister Marie Severin's grand pencils. That was also the case for the grand portfolio set published by Goblin Graphix in 1973

Directly below is one of the plates from that portfolio and below that are some graphics from the ads and such that ran in Mirk-Wood Times—the same publishers as the portfolio.

Marie and John Severin — Kull — 1973

And below, I've posted this before, but why not again — Severin's original pen and ink and zip-a-tone art of Kull as king.

Dancing Girl

And then there is this print of Conan, part of a 'minor edition' set, drawn by John Buscema who drew a squijillion issues of the Conan comic book. It's nice to see Buscema ink his own work.

John Buscema — Conan & Dancing Girl — 1980

Battling Bones

Barry Smith probably used a whole bottle of india ink rendering this large, 24" x 27", masterful drawing of Conan battling bones. There's so much detail, it's almost hard to look at, but with masterful coloration I bet it would be . . . well . . . even more masterful.

Barry Windsor-Smith — Conan battling skeletal warriors

Fanboy Stuff

Here's something for you fanboys out there (and fangirls?). As you Wally Wood fans know, Wood was in contention as artist when Hal Foster was retiring from the Prince Valiant strip. Wood 'lost out' to John Cullen Murphy, but (no offense to Murphy) I think we lost out from the direction Wood might have taken the strip (and I don't know, maybe given him more reason to live?). He couldn't have taken it as far as this page from his Wizard King pages, but one for one brief moment imagine this big panel as if Prince Valiant had ascended to King through mighty combat and fair Aleta was his Queene. Yeah, yeah, fanboy stuff.

Wally Wood — page from Wizard King story entitled The End

Century of Flight

The early xxth century was also the golden age of graphic design, in my book—what a nice composition. This cover is from 1908, just a scant 5 years after the Wright boys' first powered flight, and it's a lovely touch placing a woman in the pilot cradle. The xxth century was a century of flight.

Robert J Wildhack — Century magazine — 1908

Game of Love

Chéri Hérouard had a long and prolific history with the early xxth century French magazine La Vie Parisienne, creating cover illustrations, many of which were ribald and/or risque. Here is a gorgeous print that was also one of those covers—with a Leyendecker feel to the composition, if not the execution.

Chéri Hérouard — Gibier d'amour — 1920s

Spellbound

It doesn't have to be Christmas for winter to be cheery.

This illustration would be beautiful on its own, but as a magazine cover design it is so effective with its warm yellow logotype, red price button and white type situated for a lovely balance.

I am spellbound by this graphic as I imagine the interior of this warm 'n' cozy little bungalow, probably with a warm 'n' cozy little den (back there where that fireplace is being used), filled with warm 'n' cozy little books.

Not only was there a golden age of illustrative design in the early xxth century, but also a golden age of architectural design.

R.C. Hare — Own Your Own Home — ca 1920s

Our Children's Children

Kelly Freas' art lured me into many a sci-fi book.

Frank Kelly Freas — Our Children's Children — 1983

Below, without all that pesky type to get in the way of the art and the menace in the background, a concept Freas was prone to do.

Frank Kelly Freas — 1983