The secrets. I has them now. THE SECRETS ARE MINE.
The book: Editorial Cartooning. The author: Dick Spencer III, School of Journalism, State University of Iowa. Published by The Iowa State College Press, 1949.
Since I've managed to acquire just about every modern art technique book I'm likely to want I have begun to be fond of vintage art instruction books. Bob Ross, Mark Crilley, Christopher Hart, all those, have defined this genre, but even they stand on others' shoulders: Jon Nagy, Bill Alexander, and others. Those forbears are oftimes as interesting as their intellectual descendants.
Never heard of this Dick Spencer III guy, though. I intend to find out. Important enough to author a college-published book about the subject.
I have some suspicion that the secrets may be beyond their pull-dates though.
Very old how-to-draw publications find their way to Powell's, as I've shown before. This one here is an unexpected delight, and timely into the bargain.
This is the front cover of what appears to be a periodical, or at least an occasional series, called How and What To Paint. Charmingly cover-priced at the modest amount of thirty cents (at your art store). The publisher, that titan of how-to-do-art books, Walter T. Foster.
This, volume 5, concentrates on three main things: How to draw bears (hence the cover art), mixing colors, and an exciting new thing ... the versatile new plastic paints. What that is, of course, is acrylics; acrylic paint media is pigment emulsified in an acrylic polymer medium, and acrylic polymer is a type of thermoplastic.
When you're painting in acrylic, you're painting with plastic.
The number is undated, though an ade for a brand of mediums and varnishes on the back cover features an oil by Frederic Taubes dated 1964, so it certainly can't have been published before that, quite obviously. Given my recent excursion into the acrylic medium by way of PBN painting, finding this historic jewel is both timely and serendipitous.
The article only covers one spread (less ads) and here is what it looks like:
As exultant the article, penned by managing editor Dixi Hall, was, the charming ads really win. Brushes from Langnickel, and illustration board from Hi-Art, a brand of the National Mat, Card, and Board Co, which exhorts the reader to request free Hi-Art samples, so they may not be left behind when all the other fellow artists rave about it at the next art club meeting.
I, very recently, under the aegis of Powell's, acquired Bridgman's Complete Guide to Drawing From Life to bolster an already-groaning shelf loaded with books on drawing practice and technique.
As an older work, it attracts. George Bridgman was an artist and illustrator who lived from 1865-1943. He was trained at the Ecole des Beaux Arts and made the practical part of his fame teaching anatomy at the legendary Art Students' League of New York; he's said to have taught thousands of art students the subject, and amongst his more famous students were Will Eisner and Norman Rockwell.
He taught a method of anatomy that involved grouping the large masses into blocks and connecting them with gestural curves and 'wedges' to simplify drawing the human form.
The book itself has remained popular over the years, remaining in print in many editions. It's a meaty book, weighing in at 300 pages and generously laid-out with a legion of simple yet communicative drawings and patiently-worded text.
I've not been all the way through this yet, but it appears to be a worthy reference book for any artist's shelf.
Earlier tonight, at Powell's during Book Church, I stumbled on a couple of books by a man whose work was instrumental in giving us Disney via the public library.
Edwin George Lutz was a commercial artist and illustrator who authored several books on art and how to draw between 1913 and 1933. In 1913, the first of his books, What To Draw And How To Draw It, taught common-sense ways to render birds, houses, animals, people, and expressions in simple, cartoonish style. His 1921 work, Drawing Made Easy, showed the learner how to draw more realistic images of people and animals.
Latterly, facsimile editions of those books were produced by (respectively) LomArt and North Light Books and look like this:
The illustrations are charming, whimsical and very straightforward, clearly showing how, by breaking down natural shapes into shapes the beginner could draw, more complex forms could be built. This is a common concept that the beginning artist is introduced to; the genius of Lutz was his warm, accessable style.
The connection to Disney comes from a book published in 1920, Animated Cartoons: How They Are Made, Their Origin and Development. This particular volume passed into the hands of one Walt Disney, who was at the time making his living in the commercial art trade in Kansas City during the 1920s, under the aegis of the Kansas City Public Library. Legend has it that Disney learned his animation technique from this very book.
The result is a lesson in two things: that the chancest exposure to literature can lead to absolute wonder (what if Walt hadn't seen the book?), and the importance a public library can have in self-education at large (what if KC had an inadequate (or no) public library).
If you love Disney, thank the E.G. Lutz ... and the public library.
3504/A.
Now, we've all, successful as well as aspiring artists, have wondered what defines talent. It's been a search that has captivated and consumed the lives of artists and those who talk about what they do for ages of humankind.
Well, I found the magic bean, you people. Here it is:
... and to think, all we had to do was look at the top-left corner of page 22 of the Walter T. Foster art book, The Beginner's Guide to Art Materials and Terms Used by Dixi Hall, which was published in 19-something-or-other in Tustin, California.
It really is a delightful book, published in that big-folio style that all the other WTF books were, only it's just a big glossary and compendium of art terms, like brush terms, mediums, grounds, supports ... but sadly, nothing to define other art terms like which drugs to get addicted to to get which results and where to go to rehab.
Nothing's perfect, I guess. But a classic is a classic nonetheless.
The actor and entertainer, Dick Gautier, who died last week aged 85, was, as is glibly bandied about, known for a few things. He incarnated, so to say, the robotic CONTROL secret agent and KAOS defector known simply as "Hymie" in Get Smart. He also memorably embodied Robin Hood is the far, far too-short (as in less than one season) Mel Brooks-created TV spoof When Things Were Rotten (a show which needs no introduction or explanation to people I know, which should clue one as to what sorts of friends I prefer to have). He also, through the 70s and 80s, appeared innumerable times as a TV guest star, either in a drama or comedy or as a guest on a talk show or a panelist on a game show. He was kind of everywhere for a while.
What was elided from the obituaries and not commonly known seems to be that he excelled, in his way, at caricature, and had more than a modicum of talent as a cartoonist. He also, from 1985 through the 1990s, produced a number of how-to-art books, starting with The Art of Caricature in 1985. I found two of his several how-to books at Powells last weekend. Here they are.
The Creative Cartoonist is a general approach to cartooning for pleasure and possibly for profession, and Drawing and Cartooning 1,001 Caricatures further expands his record of knowledge of that particular art.
Both books are really quite delightful. Gautier has a casual, self-deprecating style of writing that wins over the reader by presenting the text as though it was being spoken by a very nice acquaintance who loves to draw, loves to talk about it, and likes to show other people. His style is very low-pressure: he wants you to draw but he wants you to draw at the level that'll make you happy. And though his directions are simple, they aren't simplistic. Gautier clearly was someone who loved to draw and loved to think about about drawing when he wasn't.
The book The Creative Cartoonist starts, as many of them do, with the head. He shows you simple ways to construct a face and how many shapes you can make one of …
… a simple yet broad catalogue of standard facial expressions …
… and basic instructions on how to make it realistic and how to make it cartoony. There is nothing complicated here but if you follow his directions and practice and have fun at it, he gets you started on a good foot.
There are people who draw for accuracy and realism, and people who just want to draw, have a little fun, and people who want to draw just to impress their friends. The Creative Cartoonist is a fine book for anyone who wants to start casual.
For those who want to kick it up to a certain level, Drawing and Cartooning 1,001 Caricatures has a lot to offer as well. Reading the text, I got the idea that Gautier had a certain sensitive spot about caricaturing; it is a lampooning of the subject and, as such, has to be handled with a soft touch. It can be a great and funny homage or jump a fine line and border on an insult with a touch of viciousness. Gauthier needn't have worried, though: these caricatures of actors Dennis Franz and Roy Scheider come through with a sense of affection for the subjects:
And, of course, what book of caricature is complete without Jay "Why the Long Face?" Leno?
All drawings were, of course, made by the author, which is why I like that back cover above so much. The portrait of Leno in the upper left, the realistic one, is outstandingly well-done, I thought. The distortions, while expected, bring a certain sense of style to the caricature … they show an artist who is confident in his materials. That's what I expecially love to see.
Gauthier's caricaturing system works by studying the face and deciding what are the most remarkable features (what he calls 'dominant') and the less remarkable features (what he calles 'subdominant') and working within that hierarchy. Accentuate the dominant features and have the subdominant work with them. The result is a caricatured face which, while looking little like the reality, has enough of the reality in it so that there's no mistaking the identity of the personality.
He also introduces us to three levels of caricature. The first, portrait charge, is clearly caricature but is only slightly distorted. These would make a good cartoon character version. The second is the straight-up caricature, and the third would be an impressionistic rendering, where the dominant features command and the subdominant all but fall away.
To show he's a good sport, he did himself: Here is Dick Gautier in portrait charge version:
… And here he is in caricature and in full-on impressionistic mode.
By his reasoning, his face is full of dominant features save the nose ("but I'm working on it", he mocks himself in the text), so in the impressionistic version, the nose utterly disappears.
Dick Gautier wasn't widely known for his art, and that's kind of a shame, because he has much to offer the beginner. His friendly style and accessible instruction are the perfect approach for someone who's afraid of doing their own art. He's no Andrew Loomis, but Loomis is the Holy Grail. Gauthier is a pal who you can hang around with … and who will take you into the art world gently, with no pretensions.
As the aspiring artist in any style knows, if you're on your own in learning the craft of art, you really have just one alternative if you have neither the time nor the money nor the connections to learn, at least to get started: the how-to-draw book.
In these days we are faced with an embarrassment of riches of all levels of quality and price. Go to your nearest Barnes & Noble, and you'll see what I mean. The number of art instruction manuals and how-to-do-it guides march up into the realm of the innumerable. Manga? No problem. Cartooning? What style do you prefer? Super-hero? Comic-strip? You wanna do 'em in pencil? Ink? Pastel? Crayola™ crayon?
You can even learn sumi-e (and finally put to use that imported Chinese brush and ink set that you got as a gift several years ago).
As you shop, you will run into a scad of books under the brand/author name Christopher Hart. This is not a chances-are sort of thing; it is a certainty, a destiny, a verity. YOU WILL MEET CHRISTOPHER HART SOMEWHERE ALONG YOUR AUTODIDACTING PATH. And it's not hard to see why: on his bookstore page at his site (http://christopherhartbooks.com/drawing-bookstore/) I count no less than thirty books with his byline (which has moved from a simple Christopher Hart or Chris Hart to the more brand-centric Drawing with Christopher Hart). Fully a third of that concerns instruction in manga styles, specialized into kawaii, chibi, shoujo, shonen, manga fashion, and a few more.
I think it's a fair question to ask ones' self, when deciding how to spend ones time self-learning art (and the attendant outlay of money to acquire the codexes of knowledge), does the method have any validity? Is it valid? Will it not only get me started but also get me going in the direction I want to go in. The size of Hart's oeuvre, which seems to be all over the place (but in a good way), to me, not only begs the question, it fairly well demands it. I own a few of the Chris Hart line, and have had the opportunity through browsing at Powell's City of Books and the Multnomah County Library to see others. and, bearing firmly in mind that I am neither here to bury Hart's books nor praise them but to be respectfully honest about them, I can tell you how I found them.
I have beside me two of his how-to-cartoon books, Figure It Out!, The Beginner's Guide To Drawing People, and Drawing Cutting Edge Comics. The constituencies of both books are obvious by the titles, and once you get a little way into Figure It Out!, you realize pretty quickly that the absolute beginner, likely to be intimidated by the idea of mastering figure-drawing by learning about muscle groups and skeletal structure, will hardly be intimidated by this. It's easy, quick to pick-up, enlivened by illustrations that are incredibly clear and self explanatory; the head is explained as an egg shape, and while the lines for positioning features are placed upon they are not explained as to why they're there; the clear illustrations make explaining that to the beginner rather unnecessary. If you're sufficiently movtivated, after about an hour with this book, you will be drawing the beginnings of a credible realistic-cartoon head. Figure It Out! moves on to the rest of the body by teaching general manikin princples, where the bits of the body are rendered into simple shapes and you draw the poses by arranging them just-so. There is also basic figure diagrams to give the idea of running and how to stand.
The other book, Drawing Cutting Edge Comics, also works very hard to deliver the knowledge in its title. The book follows a logical progression from basics (the head, again … another thing you'll find in aspiring artist-instruction-books, at least as far as my experience goes, that they usually start with the head and world their way down), with plenty of illustrations for you to follow along and try out in a step-by-step way. Hart prefers to lead by example, and the illustrations here, as in the previous volume mentioned, are great examples for the visual learner. Everything makes sense based on the way it's visually presented, and there are innumerable examples for the learner to practice on. This is a book on creating comics for the artist who wants to get started right now, and that's how quickly you'll get the upshot on these visual techniques.
Drawing Cutting Edge Comics takes it further in the second half of the book by exploring how the learner might create their own personal style, first by sharing some thoughts of some working artists from Top Cow Productions then delving deeper into the technical aspects of perspective, inking for an edgy look, foreshortening and page design, and a few other design aspects, and goes out with an interview with an agent (Studio 3's Doug Miers) and a very quick overview of the industry at the time of the book's publication (2001) with Chaos! Comics' supremo Brian Pulido.
Its 144 pages promise to pack a ton of information for the budding artist.
So, are they any good? Are they worth laying down your money on? My impression, after looking the books over is, that they certainly are a good place to start. Hart performs an authentic service to hopeful artists by making everything extremely accessible. His style is light, yet informative, and the thing that's always beguiled me about his books is that you look at the way he lays it all out and he does it in a way that, after a few minutes, you're saying to yourself that's something I can do, and after a few more minutes you're looking for pencil and paper to try it, and as I can tell you, just gettng over yourself and getting started are about 98% of the battle. The techniques are clear, do-able almost no-matter what level of artistic skill you think you have, and friendly.
How friendly? Well, as it happens, Chris Hart has a YouTube channel where he posts how-to-draw demos for instruction and inspiration. I was quite impressed with his aplomb and his obvious confidence with his materials. He every bit the pro, and it shows:
Et voila, a pretty girl character in under two minutes. The man knows his stuff. It's obvious he loves drawing, and enthusiastic artists make the best teachers.
Thing about being a mile wide, though, is that sometimes it feels an inch deep. This is palpable at times in the manga titles, to me; when I did a few faces out of The Master Guide To Drawing Anime (which wears the rubric a bit awkwardly as it's about creating characters from standard archetypes for anime and not actually animating anything) I found it, again, easy, accessable and fun and I got good results, but I felt as though it didn't go deep enough for me; at one point it mentions to use the 'standard eye template' but that template was not defined.
This light coverage gets under the skin of independent online creators who, I'm sorry to say, have not been terribly kind to him. Participants on this threadat ConceptArt.org get quite blunt at times, and this essay by a Deviant Art member can perhaps be summarized best in two words, those words being run and away. And this tumblr blogger actually invokes the name of Rob Liefeld at one place to make his point. I think the opprobrium is rather unfair, though somewhat illuminative. But then, the world of manga is a complex thing: you don't simply learn to draw 'manga style' because as we all know, manga art is a style first, then a state of mind, then a culture unto itself. Teaching tool-kit techniques in order to begin to master this world-beating style must seem more than a little like a local culture enduring a documentarist intoning they are a simple people yet with a culture all their own. In my experience, anyone commenting or touring manga culture and wanting to produce a respectful and respected critique had better be ready to go deep as well as wide.
So, you wanna learn cartooning. Grand. You got yourself a Chris Hart book or two and you're going to learn it. Absolutely. And if you manage to continue drawing and get the hang of it, more power to you; Hart's style will open the door and get the pencil in your hand. And, if you're drawing for pleasure, he'll introduce you to a whole new world you never knew existed and you'll be wowing yourself and your friends with drawings you never knew you could do.
But you'll need to remember; go in with your eyes open. Beginner's techniques get you drawing but they also sometimes teach the habits that will not sustain you. You'll know when you feel it; you'll be wondering is there more? Is this all there is? What new things can I grasp with the talent I've developed now? Then it'll be time to move on, grateful to Hart for the start he gave you, into a big wide world of artistic self-expression. Naturally, the best artist never stop learning and when the student is ready, the new teacher will appear.
If you reached the end of this article, I'm thrilled. I would be sincerely interested in finding out what others, triers and doers, have to say about Hart's instruction. Did you find it interesting? Did it open you up or limit you? PLEASE COMMENT!
First, a bit of a mea culpa, in the last missive about Loomis I said the next time we talked about him, we'd do a little more delving into the book Fun With A Pencil. We will, but this got under my skin, so we'll be going there first.
Of the number of art instruction books Andrew Loomis produced in his lifetime, there was still one out there that never made it, at least, not until the aegis of Titan Books arrived on the scene. This book, I'd Love To Draw, has been called a lost masterpiece and now it's here in all its rough beauty.
Just because it's unfinished does not mean it's undone, however. Titan and its collaborator, the award-winning illustrator Alex Ross, have taking the unfinished work and knitted it into a coherent and highly informative whole. The approach is different and rather refreshing; the rough drawings left behind by Loomis take on an illuminative quality that the best work-in-progress sorts of illustrations do.
I always love works-in-progress. Finished art is magnificent, and rightly so, but as someone with a technical eye it's a little like dissecting a specimen in biology. WIPs are the bone, sinew, and organic mattter of the work, and they have a rawness and vitality that sometimes teaches without words. I'd Love To Draw is full of this vim and vigor.
The book traces a familiar trajectory from the beginning building blocks to more advanced areas. Part one familiarizes you with basic forms. Part unleashes the learner to start trying different things and branch into cartoon-people drawing. Part three brings the aspiring artist to the level of artist who sketches for fun, and from there, as many artists know, all things are probable, or at least possible.
The drawings, as I mentioned, are rough and ready, but still communicate in the inimitable Loomis style, as does this spread that has to do with that essential artistic concept, perspective:
The spreads are bursting with the enthusiasm of a teacher who knows that if you pick up what they are putting down, you'll open yourself up to a world of wonder and fun, which is typical of the motivated art teachers I've met in my time.
If you work at it, you might do art with the perspicacity of this fellow here:
In the text next to the drawing of Einstein above you can see the insight which, at least partially, led to the gelling of the 'ball and clay' idea that informs the beginning of Fun With A Pencil.
The marginal notes, found through out the illustrations to plan the finished product, bring a definite sense of charm and unmistakable authenticity.
I'd Love To Draw was created some time in the late 1930s, so if it seems familiar, it's probably because it helped define much of the paradigm of the modern art instruction volume, in its simple-to-complex, friendly encouraging style. The idea of creating things out of blocks seems to anticipate works like De Rayna's How To Draw What You See, for instance.
If you go no further than getting this Loomis volume, then you'll be equipping yourself well for any sort of artistic path you want, be it for pleasure or for future profession. This be your gun and camera.
Now, amongst all my interests I do flash searches for when on the premises at Powell's City o' Books, is Andrew Loomis. In one of my recent missives I did note that you can find some of his earlier works there in vintage collectible volumes, and a particular Walter Foster release of his, originally priced at $1.00, was on sale for $45.00.
I don't criticize here. I handled it most thoughtfully. Its condition was immaculate.
So, when I did a customer lookup for Loomis and found that Figure Drawing For All It's Worth was on sale for the unexpectedly delightful bargain price of $14.95, you know I had to look that stuff up! I noticed, though, it was trade paperback, in the Red Room, Japanese language-generic.
Hmm. The hunt, however, was on. It was more difficult than anticipated, or maybe as difficult as anticipated, because its size and cover design made it blend in with the rest of the Japanese books, which all share a similar design and color grammar. But I did find it. And here it is:
And it would have gone home with me, at that price, but the value of Loomis' texts is that there's a wealth of warmth, humor, and knowledge in the words, and with me being absolutely illiterate in Japanese, it would never be more than an interesting bagatelle around here.
If you read Nihongo, and love drawing, though, there's a treat for you waiting at Powell's right now. They have just the one copy.
The Loomis method of art auto-didactitude is so attractively simple I had to give it a shot. Herewith my result.
The Loomis method expects you to be crap at drawing your circles, straight lines, et. al., in other words, it accepts you as it finds you and builds on whatever aptitude … or lack of such … that you have. It starts at the top with the head, and treats the head as a ball that you stick lumps of other clay on to approximate the other shapes that make up the head … jowls, bulby noses, ears, what ever you need. Looking at the photo below you can see where Loomis is going with this; kooky cartoony faces.
The first part of the book, then deals with the head and face. Let's take a look.
For simplicity's sake, I'll try the very first one there on the left. It looks very simple and doable just for the perusal. And, if you look at the examples on the right, it becomes fairly clear that the method adapts to just about any shape you want to employ, even if your sphere looks more like a lima bean. No worries, and no pressure, just have fun with it. But I get ahead of things here. In this view, you can see I've sketched out a circle and divided it down the more-or-less center; a circle in the center will serve as the basis of our nose. Short dashes equidistant above the center circle will locate the face's mouth and eyes.
Now for some more facial features:
Sticking a couple of blobs either side of nose provides us with the basis for the wings over the nostrils, a couple of quick curves on either side of the head base the floppy ears. Two big ovals on either side of the mouth are the foundations of the jowls, and a couple of blobs on the nadir of the circle for the cleft chin.
A few minutes of erasing and darkening in of the lines after the example illustration and we've arrived rather quickly at our destination.
It only took me abut 15 minutes to do this drawing, but if I hadn't stopped to compose and take the shots, it would have only taken about 5. If you're new to drawing, it would probably only take you 15. And that's the genius of this method; take simple shapes that anybody can draw and put them together until you get the foundation you need, then lay in the hard lines. The Loomis method, in the beginning, is particularly suited to cartoony, funny faces (recall the countenance of Professor Blook?) and logically might inspire someone to create their own cartoony characters.
Loomis doesn't stop there, though. The next time we meet here about Andy Loomis, I'll take a look at where he takes us.
Though I prefix-tagged the title with the word art, a modest handful of tags would have done as well: cartooning, art, artist, comic art … Andrew Loomis' book for beginners at both artists both casual and aspiring to serious craft has a great, great deal to offer.
As mentioned in the previous article, up until recently, Andrew Loomis' works were much beloved and, since they had been out of print for a very long time, highly sought after. A quick online search reveals that used vintage copies of his classic works from reliable sellers ask $60-$80 a copy. But it doesn't take much looking thorough Fun With A Pencil, that beginner's book, to convince one that this is something that in a fairer world would be of much benefit if it were more widely available.
Well, my friends, your Loomis famine is pretty much over. Starting in 2013, Titan Books has re-released these classic books for a more accessible price, unleashing them upon the world to inspire the next generation of motivated illustrators. The quarto-sized hardcovers are just as one might have bought them in the 1930s-1950s … not one illustration missing or out of place, in the volumes I've seen, each of a quality befitting the publisher and the legacy of the author. They'd look stunning on any shelf, not only for fans of drawing and learning to draw but anyone who adores and remembers the graphic style of books published during those days.
Titan may have been out to publicize the work of a foundational American illustrator, but they worked it out on one level by just making them lovely productions of book design on its own terms. The design look is very much that of of the 2nd quarter of the 20th Century in American graphic design.
Professor Blook, our
author's alter-ego, is
our companion along
the educational journey
But, of course, it's not just the book and its cover that are so pleasing. The inside is a pure revelation, as Loomis, one of the most popular and in-demand commercial artists of his day, takes the auto-didact though his poetically powerful and accessible drawing technique. The accent is on warmth, friendliness and lightheartedness as he enouragingly beckons the reader forward to learn to create art on what eventually becomes the burgeoning artist's own terms. Taking a the simple idea of a circle we move in one deft idea to the ball and how to take this easy-to-draw (even if your circle is a wobbly oval, he swiftly shows us that that's no problem either) figure to create the heads of cartoon figures. After several pages of practice suggestions, all clearly laid out, we get some technical tips and then its on into bodies. From bodies we move into clothing them, and from there we are encouraged to construct a world for them.
The result after all this is a beginning artist with enough skill to either please themselves and friends by drawing for the sheer pleasure or, if they want, take it farther. The book originally came out in 1939, and Loomis and his contemporaries could scarcely have seen the rise of computers and digital art, but as a foundation, the ideas and techniques presented in this book are timeless and are as fresh and necessary today as they were nearly 80 years ago, when the book was introduced. The illustrator of 2016 might have the most amazing electronic tools to use, but without the building blocks of drawing technique, it's all just a powerful scratch pad.
This is the sort of book were you take your time, have fun with it, and make it yours. Like John Hendrix, Andrew Loomis must have been the kind of teacher who wanted everyone to at least try, and noticed that a lot of people wanted to. That encouragement animates the entire text and causes you to understand, in a gut-level way, why drawing, even casual, can be a lifesaver.
In the next article, I'll take a more critical look at the Loomis method. You'll be pleasantly surprised at how essentially easy and potentially powerful it is.
We've all heard of practitioners of art called "The (Professional)'s (Professional)". You all know. Everyone has their idea of The Actor's Actor, the Author's Author, the Painter's Painter.
What seems to go with that remit is a degree of elite practice and not more than a little obscurity, sadly. Everyone loves Tom Cruise, for example, but who does he think's better than him? That's a bit more unclear.
Loomis by Loomis
(from the last page
of Fun With A Pencil)
Back in the 1940s and 1950s, one of the most inspirational artists in America was a commercial artist named Andrew Loomis. Chances are, very few people reading this have ever heard of him. But he was major in that 'artist's Artist' way, and inspired a lot of people. The online biographical information on him, given the reputation I've begun to see him have, is almost unforgivably impoverished. And that, to me is a shame.
His thumbnail bio could look something like this: He was born in 1892 and spent his early years as an artist at the Art Students League in NYC and the Art Institute of Chicago under the tutelage and influence of some of the greatest artists of the day. After spending time in the US Army during WWI, he emerged to work in commercial art for a couple of major ad agencies in Chicago contributing to just about every well-known brand name at the time including Kellogg's and Coca-Cola, eventually opening his own studio in Chicago. By 1938, he had found his way to southern California, opening a studio there. It is as an art teacher, though, that he's found his lasting niche in American art history and enduring influence in American artistic culture.
Today he is remembered for authoring a line of beloved how-to illustration self-instruction manuals. Books with names like Fun With a Pencil, Figure Drawing for All It's Worth, and Creative Illustration are cherished memories and sought-after collectors items, since they were largely out of print by the last quarter of the 20th Century. But his influence, though nearly invisible to the modern day artist, informs that school of artistic practice that became comic book illustration; the most famous exponent of that style, Alex Ross, an Eisner and NCS award-winning artist whose work has been described as Norman-Rockwell-meets-George-Perez, even went on to edit I'd Love To Draw, Loomis' 'lost' work. You, the aspiring artist, may have seen his work in old illustrations of those slender, folio-sized Walter Foster how-to books that are also increasingly becoming collectors items (I found a vintage copy of the WF version of Figure Drawing for All It's Worth at Powell's Books recently, originally priced at about $1.00, selling for $45!), or as illustrations in Foster's recompiled lines of recent years, without even knowing it.
Those who've missed his work or remember the books fondly or need to be introduced to his work in such terms have had to go without for a very long time, due to the unavailability of those very works. That drought, happily, has come to an end; between 2010 and 2014, Titan Books have reissued his most famous works, including the aforementioned Fun With a A Pencil, Figure Drawing For All It's Worth, Creative Illustration and even I'd Love To Draw. Over the next two days I plan on publishing reviews of Fun With a Pencil and I'd Love To Draw; as an introduction, they are his texts for those aspriational artists hoping to learn the basics.
I've spent more time than I expected getting to know these works; they are not thick and ponderous but incredibly rich and thorough; imagine stumbling into an orchard where the fruits of all the trees are all so good and easy to reach you can't get started for the embarrassment of choice you have. Both the books are imbued with a warmth and wit and a sense of humor which, though it may approach cornball to the modern wit, is no less memorable for the earnestness and charm it carries.
Andrew Loomis's work is foundational in modern American art. You have the high modern quality of American comic book art, and the inspiration it's provided further artists, as proof of this; his is the giant's shoulders that quite a few modern artists stand upon.
Next up: Loomis' beginner's text, Fun With a Pencil.
There's something of the idea of self-discovery and finding your artistic voice in the guided sketchbooks I've seen, or at least, giving you the tools … or even the courage … to ask some questions of yourself.
These self-questions can be quite grim and serious. You wind up feeling momentous and important and tend to forget that, when done kindly, this sort of self discovery is a fun thing and can be a real adventure. John Hendrix hasn't forgotten this, and his self-guided sketchbook, Drawing Is Magic: Discovering Yourself In A Sketchbook, is bursting with that attitude. Printed in two colors … red and black … the book comes bound in binderboard, giving the look and feel of a true artist's sketchbook.
But … you want to draw. And like a lot of us, you just don't know what. Or where. Or how to approach it. No worries, here. Drawing Is Magic is nothing but games, delightfully drawing graphics, and prompts designed to get you loose and ready to go.
From taking your sketchbook to a movie theater and drawing everything you can during the film to making self-portraits, the preamble to the book warms you up be getting you going on doable drawing adventures in a non-judgmental way. Like the other book I reviewed here last missive, Draw With A Vengeance, it doesn't judge you, but it does insist that you are in charge of enjoying what you make, and by building your own visual grammar (what Hendrix refers to as a visual universe, which is fun coinage, and no doubt) you create an artistic head space in which you can't help but enjoy what you draw because you will first populate that world with things that you love to draw.
Starting with a list of 100 things you'd love to draw, he then moves forward into the main acts of the book which develop that list into an vast range of activities that invite you to play with your pen. You draw scenes inside of cutaway houses, collage dialogue, create chaemerical beasts, design the cover of your autobiography. The whole effect of the book is this lovely gradient which goes from the basics of drawing art to the advanced ideas of knitting things together and telling a story with them.
But in the end? He just wants you to go draw. He lives to draw, and I'd presume he's observed that a lot of people want to draw, and maybe this'll help you get to the happy place were you draw because it's good for you to do. The whimsical illustrations and cheerful mien of the book make it all very accessible.
You know who they are. An X-lover, and X-boss, an X-friend, an X-spouse. They messed with you and how. It was evil, what they did. And, if this was a fair world, you could have your vengeance and it would be sweet and nobody would turn you in and if they did the courts would see what a virtuous thing you had done and let you off with a sincere apology and perhaps a cash payment for the inconvenience.
You do have a problem though. This isn't a fair world; this is Earth, where such behavior is frowned upon. And you have no bail money in the budget.
What to do, what to do. Well, sweet, sweet revenge comes cheap, actually, and nobody can indict you for it, if you impose a suitable amount of coin upon your friendly neighborhood art-book purveyor and acquire a copy of the guided sketchbook Draw With A Vengeance: Get Even In Ink and Let Karma Handle The Rest. This is the sketchbook version of all those friends you get comfort from in the wake of a break-up. They accept you for who you are. They don't judge. They take your side. They don't criticize your drawing style; they just help your catharsis.
The first think after you notice that the author's byline, Helen Wrath, would be a pun on the whole idea if you didn't know any better, is that the drawing prompts inside are friendly in that, though they're potent, the drawings themselves are simple. They get you. They want you to feel totally comfortable drawing there. You can make it as simple or complex as you want, and they won't judge:
A simply- yet realistically-drawn bear snarling in attack, with a caption encouraging you to Draw X in a meat bikini.
A t-shirt featuring concentric circles in the chest area has a legend telling you to Draw X wearing this shirt. Tear this page out and pin it to the wall. Get darts. See how many times you can hit the bullseye.
A drawing of the stern of a pirate ship (complete with Jolly Roger) on the recto comes with a verso instruction Draw a plank. Now draw X on the plank. Now erase the plank.
Not to forget the 'destroy this sketchbook' crowd, Wrath has thought of you, too; As suggested in one of the bulleted points above, several pages are designed to be torn out, and each one of these has a venomous punchline on the other side; the page with a blank space captioned Draw X with open arms. Now tear this page out and use it to pick up dog poo has a large X on the back with the phrase YOU'VE FINALLY FOUND YOUR CALLING. Similarly a page encouraging you to Draw X with 100 tiny cuts. Tear this page out. Squeeze fresh lemon juice all over X is backed with the phrase WHEN LIFE GIVES YOU LEMONS, USE THEM.
If, by now, you don't get the idea, then you don't have an X yet. Lucky! For those who do, though ...
The debate continues as to whether or not venting is actually any good for you; and we all know art therapy is a thing. We all know sometimes you just need catharsis. Well, this book is cheaper than just about any therapy and allows you to do something constructive with your urge to be destructive. As the back of the book says,
The message here is simple: don't do bad things to bad people. Draw bad things - and let karma handle the rest.
You can't but agree with that, I think. For those with a dark sense of humor and an X they need to get out of their head, this book is just what you ordered.
Coloring books have suddenly become chic, as we can see from the sudden proliferation of ads for such … but not so much for kids. Adults have become the new market for coloring books.
We shouldn't wonder, really. When we think of the value in nostalgia alone, the appeal is perhaps evident. But there's more to it than that. Our experience, as well as those of the people we know, is that while coloring outside of the lines is fun and liberating, sometimes coloring within the lines is called for, even therapeutic. My personal experience with designing heraldry in the Society for Creative Anachronism suggests that, in the power found in gaining command of an artistic mode of expression that is strictly circumscribed, a certain sense of freedom, oddly, pertains.
You know it when you get it.
On Sunday night, during a recuperative episode which required me to be in bed most of the weekend (what did not kill me should have tried harder), we trekked to Powell's City o'Books , and I did something I don't do so much anymore … browsed the art techniques section in the Pearl Room (as much for the exercise of climbing all the stairs as seeing what was on the shelf). It's not that they don't have a great selection, they do, always have, and always will, but if anyone ever saw the collection of art technique books I have, you'd know why I don't see the need to collect many more maybe.
Anyway, when browsing that wonderful aisle, I found this …
Yep. A Paint-by-Number set. The packaging presentation alone caught my eye. I brought it down to the Coffee Room so we could look it over … it wasn't sealed, was being sold used, and had all its parts.
I originally brought it down because The Wife™ had recently had some fun playing with PBN, and I figured it would delight her. Turned out, it spoke to me, which surprised me … I didn't expect that. But there it was, daring me to try it, and being used, it was at a great price. So it went home with us.
And I got it home, and here's what it had:
One brush, twelve acrylic paint pots, eight textured boards on which the patterns were printed, and a charming little book.
This little book has content written by Dan Robbins, who seems to be credited with creating the concept of PBN, which grew out of his work with producing coloring books for kids, realizing that if you put a paint brush into an adult's hand and gave them the same sort of thing, it would kick the whole thing up the the next level. So, with Leonardo da Vinci whispering into his ear, he sold, per ardua, the idea to his boss and they worked out the technical problems, and PBN, during the 50s and 60s, took the nation by storm.
I remember doing these as a kid, ruining more than one shirt with permanent acrylic highlights, much to my Mom's dismay, and them coming out pretty sad looking. That was, as they say, then.
I enjoy creating, but here, the call to imbue something already started for me with the art of my labor is intriguing and enticing, something I can lose myself in and not worry about innovating. And the vintage nature of the designs is similarly beguiling.
Sometimes, even for self-styled iconoclast, following directions is the best kind of therapy.
You'll notice, in the above display, the boards are pretty white, at that resolution, positively blank. There are lines there, though, you just have to throw a lot of light on them. I suspect that this is probably why it was returned for store credit; the guidelines are printed at a contrast that would challenge one with good eyes … never mind mine. Here's a closeup:
The lightness of the line is for real, the blur because I got the camera a little too close. They aren't really that blurry. But! I have a drawing board and a nice desk lamp with a big old magnifying glass in it. I should be able to take this on.
My goal in working any of them is to make them as perfectly covered as possible. I've now worked with acrylics; they don't scare me so much anymore. The instructions straightforward: each color is either a single color from the acrylic paint pot, or a mix of two colors (sometimes three). Fill in the lines, and take your time is the general idea.
The designs do appeal. From the Eifel Tower to the clown to the retro spaceship, I'm looking forward to how they'll look completed.
The publisher(s) are Princeton Architectural Press and Chronicle Books, and the ISBN is 0-8118-4788-8, for those who are perforce inspired to find one for themselves.
One of our favorite places on this or any other world, I've Been Framed, also sells art books, did you know?
This picture, nicked from IBF's Facebook stream, shows a little less than the half of what they have on offer. You'll have to wait 'till Monday to shop (they closed today) but a trip to see if they have some stuff to interest is highly indicated.
However, that one on the upper right there, the Dorling-Kindersley The New Artist's Handbook, by Smith, you can't have. And do you know why?
The one on the left, The War of Art,by Steven Pressfield, is actually one we've had for a while. It helped me when I kickstarted my notional graphic design career (which remained notional; perhaps I left some ingredients out, I don't know … I'm going over those issues now) and it's a book full of good, as anyone who has ever read it will tell you.
The one on the right is the new one. I'm just taking that one up now. Turning Pro is designed as, at least visually, not a sequel, but an extension to War, I can tell this by flipping through and reading passages here and there. This is a good thing. Because, for me, getting inspired is one thing. I muff it up magnificently betimes, but getting started isn't really the problem, keeping going is the problem. I lose focus very easily.
I could say more about that but I realized I just came up about as far as I've ever really explored that subject. I knew I've received great gifts, both real and talent-wise, my problem has always been I don't know how to use them and where to take them. Mayhap this is my next stop.
In the meantime, I'm glad that Pressfield is extending the train of thought. For those of us who can catch the ball and run with it, War is a great book and everything it's cracked up to be. For those, such as myself, who can catch the ball but are promptly bewildered by how to run with it and immediately get sidetracked by some bright, shiny thing (in that I behave much as my cats do) this book (noting Pressfield's previous style) may be just the thing. I'll be exploring this in posts to come.
Next one: Urban sketching seems to be evolving as a social activity and distinct thing-to-do. I've picked up and put down this volume many times in bookstores, but I've finally been able to bring it home:
The Art of Urban Sketching, by Gabriel Campanaro, documents the group phenomenon via sketches from several cities in which this easy-to-join club has 'chapters'. Sadly, despite the wonderful Portland skyline in the bottom of the book's cover, my artist-heavy hometown is not one of them. But the stuff that is in there is so wonderful, so expressive and passionate, that I can't help but drink as much of it in as I can.
Nobody ever draws Portland's Outer East, and 122nd Avenue. Maybe that's my place. In the meantime, I'll be consuming it most deliciously.
