Painting Pirates

Cover of How I Became a Pirate

One of the joys of reading bedtime stories to Sophia, is choosing the material at the library.

She gets to choose a couple and I get to choose too, and I ALWAYS judge a book by it’s cover.

I ran across “How I became a Pirate” a couple of weeks ago and really, really dug the artwork by David Shannon.

The paintings are very old school, brushy and full of color, in the style of Howard Pyle and N C Wyeth.

I don’t know much about David Shannon or his other work, I just wanted to share my enthusiasm about this book.

 

Slab ‘o Beefs

 

Steve Huston’s painting “Heave” and a detail from “Working Man”. I met Steve when I was in L.A. through Bill Stout at his Sunday life drawing studio in Pasadena around 1995. Steve was teaching figure drawing at Art Center and according to his bio was just beginning his serious work on fine art. I remember seeing some of his early work with the boxers but it was mostly hardcore drawing and not nearly as delicious as it is now with his color palette. His FB page has a lot of great info on process for the student and uninitiated. His work makes me want to eat paint.

Norman Rockwell’s ghost gets $15 million at Sothebys

This article via Bill Rutherfoord from the WSJ about illustration art market value.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323550604578410972217105996.html

A nice piece by Leyendecker originally commissioned for the Post.

Editorialista

 

William Rutherfoord’s work is graphic, painterly, urgent and timeless. Forces that seem opposing and contradictory, nestle like spoons.

Bill does not do editorial illustration for a living. He lives in Roankoe,Virginia where he paints pictures of the world from his basement. This piece is called “A great Shaking”. There are pictures of Bill and his basement from earlier posts here.  I promise to post more of his work as it gets passed to me.

Rackham- Professor Old School

 

It’s no secret that I am a big fan of Arthur Rackham. His technique lends a credibility to the notion that his characters existed before time. I have an old edition of Aesop’s Fables Illustrated by Rackham which is a cherished possession.

Here is a link to a google search of his images. Here is a link to JVJ Publishing site with a nice bibliography section on many old school illustrators, cross referenced with their influences. Neat.