Good Morning

Repost: Mythwood - The Art of Larry MacDougall, Larry MacDougall, http://mythwood.blogspot.com/2013/05/good-morning.html

In the big hill country north and west of Gwelf things are stirring. Spring has arrived right on time and the annual migration has begun. Giants and trolls are making their way down out of the hills and into the low lands, causing their usual upset and discomfort. With no regard for fences or private property they wander hither and yon, in a selfish display of gluttony and mess making, showing a complete disregard for self respect or personal hygiene.



All across the region guard houses and monitoring stations keep an ever vigilante eye on these large, marauding fellows. Above we see depicted the well discussed incident of several weeks ago where just such a giant was able to catch a platoon of troll monitors asleep in their comfy little beds following an ebullient birthday celebration the night before. Luckily for these chaps this giant was merely curious and completely unaware that the damage done to the roof timbers and shingles would take weeks to repair and cost each of the snoozy inhabitants a months wages. The mice and owls will no doubt return once the saw dust has settled.



The latest reports have the repairs nearly complete and the guards at this station as watchful and wide awake as we all would hope. Three cheers for the Home Guard !

More soon. Be well and proceed with caution.

Repost: don kenn gallery, john kenn, http://johnkenn.blogspot.com/2013/05/blog-post_19.html

5 legged dinosaur

Repost: ArtGhost, Liz Wong, http://artghost.blogspot.com/2013/05/5-legged-dinosaur.html

The rare and mysterious 5 legged dinosaur.

Who Was Ray Houlihan?

Repost: Today's Inspiration, noreply@blogger.com (Leif Peng), http://todaysinspiration.blogspot.com/2013/05/who-was-ray-houlihan.html

A few years ago I found this illustration in a 1954 issue of Saga magazine. It's by an artist named Ray Houlihan...







... and I was quite taken by his style.







I hoped I'd be able to find more of Houlihan's artwork, although I hadn't come across it in any of the mainstream magazines, like Collier's or the Post, of which I'd already amassed a substantial number of issues.



Happily, not long after that, I acquired a small stack of Bluebook magazines from the early '50s. I was delighted to discover that Houlihan had illustrated stories in a couple of the issues I'd purchased.







The distinctive look of his pen and ink technique really made an impression on me.







Here's a spread by Houlihan from this September 1951 Bluebook story.







Notice how effectively he alternates light, shadow, light, shadow across this composition. Impressive. The limitations of printing on Bluebook's cheap pulp paper doesn't diminish anything in Houlihan's illustration. In fact, the combination of that course paper and Houlihan's rough-edged pen technique seem to be made for each other.







Another Bluebook story illustrated by Houlihan, this one from 1953.







Much like the Saga illustration at the top of this post, here it appears that Houlihan used a scratchboard overlay sheet to add texture and detail on the single colour plate.







At that time, I managed to find just one more set of story illustrations by Ray Houlihan in the March 1953 issue of Bluebook.







Aside from this handful of illustrations from some men's adventure magazines, from a brief period in the early '50s, I could locate no other examples of - or any biographical information about - Ray Houlihan.







It was as though he'd appeared only briefly and in just one place...







... then slipped quietly away into the ether, never to be heard from again.







The Internet was a very different place back then, with far fewer resources than are available today, just six or seven years later. Recently I dug out the back-up CD on which I'd saved these scans of Ray Houlihan's art and did a little looking, both online and in my now even larger collection of old magazines.



I'm happy to report that I now have quite a bit of information about and 'new' artwork by Ray Houlihan. The entire picture is still incomplete...







... but what I've managed to find I'll share with you this week.

It puzzled him to be here.

via Emergent Ideas It puzzled him to be here.

The chill night slipped silently by.

via Emergent Ideas The chill night slipped silently by.

The Bowman takes aim at the Demons in his life.

via Emergent Ideas The Bowman takes aim at the Demons in his life.

Sargent watercolors at the Brooklyn Museum

Repost: lines and colors :: a blog about drawing, painting, illustration, comics, concept art and other visual arts, Charley Parker, http://www.linesandcolors.com/2013/05/10/sargent-watercolors-at-the-brooklyn-museum/

John Singer Sargent, long dismissed by the art establishment as a facile painter of society portraits, has finally in recent years been getting something of his due as a painter.

Beyond the technical mastery and delicious painterly flourish of his formal work in oil, Sargent was one of the great masters of the medium of watercolor; and it was in his watercolors, often painted while vacationing or traveling, that he found his greatest joy as an artist.

The Brooklyn Museum and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston have put together an exhibition that draws on the Sargent watercolors in the collection of both museums.

Titled simply John Singer Sargent Watercolors , it consists of ninety-three works in watercolor with mixtures of opaque watercolor, bodycolor, graphite and whatever else Sargent could find to achieve his goals. To these they have added nine of Sargent’s oils — just in case the watercolors aren’t enough to leave you completely dazzled.

I consider this a must-see show if I can possibly make it, and hope to give you a subsequent first-hand report.

In the meanwhile, there is a catalog from the exhibition, John Singer Sargent Watercolors , that James Gurney reviews here.

I can also recommend an older book, The Watercolors of John Singer Singer Sargent by Carl Little, but judging from Gurney’s review, I would go for the new catalog first.

The exhibition will be at the Brooklyn Museum until July 28, 2013. (Incidentally, the Brooklyn Museum, as I write here, is a terrific museum in general, often unfairly overshadowed by its more famous counterparts in Manhattan.)

The exhibition then moves to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, where it will be on display from October 13, 2013 to January 20, 2014. The last stop will be at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, for which dates have not yet been set.

There is a small slideshow on the Brooklyn Museum page for the exhibit, but with a bit of clicking you can search their collections for John Singer Sargent Watercolors and access more works. Use the blue arrow at right of the top section of thumbnails to access more objects (their search interface needs work). On the page for an individual work, click on “Download” and choose a large size for larger images.

The MFA has an easier to navigate search; click on “Zoom” for larger images.

[Via Gurney Journey]

Richard in a Restaurant

Repost: Gurney Journey, James Gurney, http://gurneyjourney.blogspot.com/2013/05/richard-in-restaurant.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+blogspot%2FNVaYV+%28Gurney+Journey%29

A couple nights ago I was in Boston having supper with some artist friends. While we waited for the food to be served, I painted a portrait of Richard, who sat across from me under a down-facing spotlight.





The light hit his forehead and nose, leaving the rest in shadow. Within the shadow, the bottom half of his face was lit from the light bouncing off the table. This lighting gave him a film noir look. He has chiseled features, with well defined planes, which makes him fun to draw.





It was a fancy restaurant, and I had to be careful not to get my paint on the cloth napkins. To keep things simple, I limited the colors to black and white casein paints. Even though my transparent watercolors were open and available, I didn't use them.





Two steps in the process.

1) I quickly sketched the main shapes with a red-brown watercolor pencil. Then I quickly massed in the shadow as a single tone.

2) I used darker values for the up-facing planes and the side planes within the shadow.







This detail of the final sketch is about an inch square. You can see how I was trying to group the values within the shadows according to planes. So for example, the side planes of the mouth barrel, the jaw, and the forehead received a darker tone. A little of that red-brown pencil shows through the shadow.



Right before the meal arrived, I went to the rest room to wash out my brush and palette.

Personal Work

Repost: Tarosan, marctaro, http://tarosan.wordpress.com/2013/05/09/personal-work/

Here’s a few things I’ve been working on in “recent” spare moments. I was interested in calming down some of the brushwork I’ve been doing on the ipad. (Tho these are CS5). Keeping the sense of the brush strokes from finger painting – but trying to rein it in towards a more refined illustration. These were a lot of fun. Now someone just needs to write the books they can cover. ~m

The Bowman.

via Emergent Ideas The Bowman.

Tribute to Stormalong

Repost: LIFE NEEDS ART, Greg Newbold, http://gregnewbold.blogspot.com/2013/05/tribute-to-stormalong.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+LifeNeedsArt+%28LIFE+NEEDS+ART%29

I was updating some portfolios last weekend and found a series of paintings I did a couple of years back for the American Fable Stormalong. The story of Alfred Bulltop Stormalong who begins life as a larger than life abandoned baby who is raised by an entire harbor town. He was hauled back to town in a wheelbarrow and continued to grow until he was as large as a whale. Stormy then goes on to have all sorts of adventures as a sailor on the high seas. In the end, a statue is erected in the town square

as a tribute to his legacy. I have enjoyed American Tall Tales since I first heard the Paul Bunyan legend, but I was not as familiar with this one. I did a total of nine images for this story that was included in a reading anthology textbook for elementary aged students. I'll post some of the others I have not posted before later this week.

Along the way.

via Emergent Ideas Along the way.

Howard Pyle Meets Walter Crane

Repost: Howard Pyle, noreply@blogger.com (Ian Schoenherr), http://howardpyle.blogspot.com/2013/05/howard-pyle-meets-walter-crane.html