The Circus is Coming

Speaking of circuses and designs, these are lovely illustrations by Hilary Knight, graphically designed to a magazine format . . .

 Hilary Knight — The Circus is Coming — 1979

front & back covers for Cricket Magazine

©1979 Cricket Magazine

 Hilary Knight — contents page border

© 1979 Cricket Magazine

Hilary Knight — spot illustration 

© 1979 Cricket Magazine

A Useful Trade

I love working as a designer. It's fulfilling to see something emerge from nothing. And it's a useful trade as well, as just about everything you see around you had to be designed by someone. Even circus parades are aided with design:

Max Weldy — Circus Spectacle Parade Design — 1940

The Return of Marco Polo

When the World Was 1000 Years Younger

This is an intriguing illustration, considering it's from a kid's book of the 1920s/30s. It ran under the title, "When the world was 1000 years younger," and the caption, "An Arab Storyteller Entertaining the Caliph of Bagdad."

Early Fritz

I'm delighted that I've made so many good friends via blogging. 

One of our long time good friends that we met via the Whirled of Kelly blog is OtherEric of the Digital Comic Museum, who has here sent over some Frank Frazetta material. Most Frazetta fans know that Fritz was a comic book artist early in his career. It's sort of amazing to see his early funny animal cartoons when you know that he gave us sublime fantasy paintings in the bulk of his career.

These are some text illustrations from 1947 comic books, such as Happy Comics, CooCoo Comics and Goofy Comics. As cute as these are, Fate (in the guise of Roy Krenkel) made the right path for Frazetta, to help him land his Ace Paperback painting commissions.

all above illustrations by Frank Frazetta — 1947

Love's Dominion

W.H. Margetson — Who Steps Into Love's Dominion? — 1904

Just Another Valentine's Day in Cyberville . . .

Helen M. Sinclair — 1914

Drink!

Ah, the Rubáiyát is full of worldly wisdom.

Helen M. Sinclair — 1914

Funky Little Number

Karen from Arkansas sent over this funky little number. Music sheets have thousands of cover images just waiting to be explored.

Thanks Karen!

Viva la Evolution!

Today's post on the ever-intriguing Histories of Things to Come reminds us that this is Charles Darwin's birthday, thus reminding me that I had a couple of Darwinesqe items in the scan file just waiting to be posted. There's a relevant page on the Pictorial Arts Journal.

Viva la evolution!

 cartoon from Mr. Punch's Almanack — 1882

A magnificent portrait of Mr. Darwin

La Chapeau

Helen Dryden — Vogue — 1919

A Rarity

HERE's  a rarity — the guy is nude and the gal fully clothed!

H. Granville Fell — Zephyrus and Flora — 1900

A Simple Life is a Good Life

Ernest Jackson — The Lovers — print

Watching You

Malleus — Watching You — 2009

Pop Art screen print

Man!

Man, I miss Antonio Lopez's energetic fashion renderings!

 Antonio Lopez — L'Uomo Vogue — 1970

Antonio Lopez 

Xtreme Level

Taking fashion photography to an Xtreme level, a brave model barely hangs on to the Eiffel Tower, just to get our attention:

Erwin Blumenfeld — Sur la tour Eiffel — 1939

Out on the Town

What a funtastic photo of Tarzan's little family out on the town.

Tarzan's New York Adventure — 1942

Handsome

This is a handsome digital medium rendering, utilizing some Mucha/Art Nouveau styling, brought to an androgynous slightly manga level, successfully giving new life to an old style.

© 2009 Shannon van Muijden — Declan O'Dwyer 

Mothers, Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to be Artists

Yes, this is just one of the hazards of the biz . . .

Dale! Have You Gone Mad?

Gosh, I love the old adventure strips . . .

Alex Raymond — Flash Gordon

Run Away!!!

The Good Duck Artist took a little break from painting Donald and the boys to paint some real humans. Run away!!!

© 1978 Carl Barks — King Beowulf

Hopes and Dreams

Stuff that's been hanging on the fridge.

But, Still . . .

As I was preparing this, my daughter looked over my shoulder and said, "Mm, not his best work". She's right, but, still . . . Mucha!

Mucha — La Plume — 1897

From A to Z

I forget what I was going to say about this post. 

It was on the tip of my tongue . . .

TullioPericoli — From A to Z — ca 1986

Eight Hands of Tenslith

Oh, I love the comics from the old days. This beautiful splash page by Gene Fawcette has it all: strange adventure, murky monster, dashing hero, b-b-beautiful heroine (with pirate boots!), sizzling spaceship, great lettering, bold and colorful. 

One of my favorite splash pages of all time.

Gene Fawcette —Tara — Wonder Comics #17 — 1948

All Shapes and Sizes

Faeries come in all shapes and sizes . . .

from Johnny Gruelle's My Very Own Fairy Stories, 1917

Always a Pleasure

It's always a pleasure to see work by Johnny Gruelle, he of Raggedy Ann and Andy fame — wonderful fairy tale author and illustrator of the early 20th century, he had a nice range of style.

Johnny Gruelle — illustration from Grimm's Fairy Tales — 1918

A Path Through the Past

In moving our home, I've been going through more boxes of my mom's and dad's. It's a perilous journey, finding a path through the past, with sadness, anger, bewilderment . . . boredom. But once in a while something bright and cheerful pops up. Such as it is with this artifact from my past—a landscape on a masonite board with a thick cut-out (with applied felt) of ol' Pinocchio struttin' down the road, finding his own path.

The very earliest memories of my life include seeing this panel, framed on the wall above my bed (crib?). And here it is, just a little worse for wear.

And here I am, around the age that I first laid eyes on that cheerful Disney icon — me, these days, just a little worse for wear.

Thomas Haller Buchanan . . . age 2 (?) GPOY?

Yes, it's a hand-tinted photo—that's how old I am

Girl with Teapot

I don't know of an illustrative purpose for this Art Nouveau ink and watercolor rendering — it's probably 'just' a framable decorative.

Hans Christiansen —Girl with Teapot — 1893

Shadows of Lace

Excellent treatment of shadows of lace . . .

Edwin Georgi — Cosmopolitan illustration

Chapel of Mystic Horror

Of the early Weird Tales magazines, I feel that Hugh Rankin was the most interesting illustrator. I'd love to know more about the man.

Hugh Rankin — Weird Tales — December 1928

Ah

Ah, each evening, to surrender to sweet embraceable night.

Gustave Moreau — Night

Long Count

As a species of animal, the human race is born of, and rooted to, the earth—yet with our eyes fixed upon the stars.  

Still, many of us are limited in what we see and understand, still clouded by a shell of superstition and ignorance. The sciences should not stay elevated to the elite priests and shamans of technology, with jargon and techniques that leave the masses bewildered, or complacent in their short-sighted ignorance. Rather, we should promote the long count of knowledge with an eye to countering religious superstition and focus our energies to the benefit of our planet and its future.

The Mayan long count calendar has restarted. So should the calendar of humankind, starting a true age of enlightenment.

Above, Tullio Pericoli — Beneath the Stars — 1985

Nefertari

Pictorial photographer Victor Keppler worked for all the slick magazines and ad agencies in the '30s, '40s and '50s.

His illustrative photograph of Queen Nefertari was for a slick magazine in the '30s, and great care was taken to be as accurate as possible in historical detail — with one minor exception, according to Keppler. Her left breast should have been exposed, but it was felt that was a bit too daring for mainstream America in 1936.

I made a quick pictorial search to see if that was indeed the case, but have not yet found reference that indicates that was so for Nefertari.

Victor Keppler — Nefertari — 1936

Thomas Haller Buchanan — Nefertari — 1987

My connection with Queen Nefertari, for what it's worth, is that I created a facsimile of a famous bas relief of her for a 1987 museum exhibit of Ramesses the Great, sitting side by side with authentic ancient Egyptian artifacts (mine was labeled as a facsimile). It was full size to the original, which was not available, and I created it by making a thick slab of plaster of paris and then chiseling out the negative space, just as the original was made (from stone), and I then distressed and painted it. My fingers were so numb from chiseling that my hands were useless for weeks. One has to wonder how the artisans of ancient Egypt filed for workman's comp.

"Nefertari, also known as Nefertari Merymut, was one of the Great Royal Wives (or principal wives) of Ramesses the Great. Nefertari means 'Beautiful Companion' and Meritmut mean 'Beloved of [the Goddess] Mut'. She is one of the best known Egyptian queens, next to Cleopatra, Nefertiti and Hatshepsut. Her lavishly decorated tomb, QV66, is the larges and most spectacular in the Valley of the Queens. Ramesses also constructed a temple for her at Abu Simbel next to his colossal monument.

Nefertari held many different titles, including: Great of Praises, Sweet of Love, Lady of Grace, Great King's Wife, Lady of The Two Lands, Lady of All Lands, Wife of the Strong Bull, God's Wife, Mistress of Upper and Lower Egypt. Ramesses II also named her 'The One for Whom the Sun Shines'."

Sweetheart of the Rink

Jules Erbit — 1940s

Faux Military

I love the faux military designs of Ralph Lauren that he also brought to the 2012 US Olympic Team. This design is from earlier than that runway. The look is commanding.

Ralph Lauren — Ski Wear

No Better Cause

This is one of the drawings that I bought from Gil Kane himself, at the time he was creating a lot of Superman material for DC. It's an iconic pose, with iconic power auras like Kane was prone to draw at the time. This and some other stuff I've been hoarding for years is coming up for auction at Heritage Auctions. I'm loathe to let them go, but I have no better cause than to help our daughter to continue her college education.

Gil Kane — Superman — 1980s

Breath of Fresh Air

These three characters were ALways mistreating each other over many years, so it was a breath of fresh air to have the charm of music bring them together harmoniously. 

George Herriman — Krazy Kat — March 31, 1941

Ghostly Host on the March

This is a beautiful rendition of a ghostly host on the march. See, the idea here is that the lady in white can see the apparitions and they are in obeisance to her, while the warrior guy can't see any of the spooky stuff and — and — and there's a whole story here that you just need to go find. I'm not involved with this stuff, somebody out there is and can tell you about it (is this a book and a role playing game?)—I just really like the art, so it ended up in my image morgue.

Matt Stawicki — Dragons of a Lost Star — Dragon Lance