What I'm up to - Part 3

Sorry for the gap in blogging but I've been Busy.

Here are a few samples of the work I have been doing on the illustrations for George R R Martin's "A Clash of Kings" for the Subterranean Press edition.  I have cropped in on them so I don't give everything away.

A detail of the color sketch for the cover painting to Volume 1

Part of the ink drawing of Dagmer Cleftjaw.

 I drew penciled remarques on all the signature pages for the limited lettered edition.  Below are a couple of samples of the kind of drawings I did.

 Below is  an early drawing for Tyrion's chapter heading.  This one is not being used.

J C Leyendecker Rarities - Part 2

Here are a few more rare Leyendecker illustrations from my collection.

This first one, I have never seen reproduced anywhere else.  Probably instances of it have not survived because of it's fragility.  It is printed on thin tissue paper. Mine only survived because some artist back in the 1920's made a scrap file of illustrators they liked and glued it onto horrible old cardboard.

One day at a swap meet, many boxes of these collected images from his scrap files showed up and after hours of picking through I was able to purchase many obscure illustrations by several artists I collect.

 This illustration is very odd for Leyendecker, imitating as it does a Japanese Print in style.  It has a fold down the middle and staple holes so it was part of a booklet.  Probably one of the Kuppenheimer Catalogs?

This one is the Post cover he painted for the issue dealing with the great San Francisco earthquake.  It doesn't often show up in Leyendecker collections because that issue is often grabbed up for collections of the earthquake, and it does not overtly look like a typical Leyendecker image.

This one was done for an obscure local celebration in St Louis. I always point out that the artist suggests that the Mississippi River is infested with river monsters. (See lower right corner.)

J C Leyendecker Rarities - part 1

From my extensive personal collection of J C Leyendecker illustrations I am sharing some of the odd and often rare bits.

Leyendecker interior illustration with Swordplay and Vultures.

A rare self portrait in the mirror of JCL at his easel, painting his models.

A Drawn illustration.  Pencil or Charcoal?

A wonderfully elegant and restrained cigarette ad.

Alternate Flying Methods

Flying figures are a common feature in Fantasy Art. Usually this takes the form of winged people or simply figures floating magically. So while melding over Fantasy images from my Facebook gallery "Victorian Fantasy Paintings", I thought I would show alternate forms of flying.

A beautiful Flying carpet painting by Vasnetsov.

Jose Segrelles paints a much more free form flying carpet.

"The Flying Islands of the Night" by American illustrator Franklin Booth.

Norman Rockwell's  illustration for "The Goddess and Private Gallagher".

Edward R Hughes paints a watercolor of an anachronistic Pegasus

Willy Pogany's film advertising art of flying by Genie.

A beautifully sensitive watercolor of riding on a Genie by Segrelles

By Gustave Dore, here is a frog flying on a kite. "Between Sky and Ground".

Frantisek Kupka drawing of a Griffin mount.

Flying on the back of ?  A painting by Maximilian Pirner.

W Heath Robinson watercolor of flying on clouds.

What I'm Up To

I am currently working away on some of the 60+ black and white illustrations I need to create for the Subterranean Press edition of George R R Martin's "A Clash Of Kings". Not only do I have to pick interesting images from the book to draw up, but I have to make sure that they are evenly spread throughout the volume.

This is a working sketch for a pen drawing.

 Additionally I feel an internal pressure to try to show images of people and occurrences that are important to the story, although there are many vague references to less important details that suggest very interesting drawings!  In looking at great illustrated books by Golden Age illustrator I am struck by their choices of subjects to depict. Not always the most dramatic scene as we were taught to pick when doing paperback book covers. My favorite quote from N C Wyeth addresses this.  Andrew Wyeth quoting his father: 

" I never paint a subject, an illustration from a story that’s described by the author. I take something he hasn't described, but maybe hinted at, and so I enrich the book."

A sketch for an illustration of Samwell.

The Direwolf "Ghost"

Where my final drawings will end up?  Who knows?

Using Costumes

Over the years I have made extensive use of costumes in my illustration work.  The better the costume, the more help it is in creating a good illustration.  Sometimes I have raided the thrift stores and resorted to re cutting and resewing my own creations.  But while I lived near Hollywood and did work for film advertising, I was able to make use of a great resource: Western Costume.  That warehouse contained many thousands of beautiful costumes created for and rented to motion picture production companies.

In a single large room dedicated solely to medieval male tunics I would paw through hundreds on triple story racks to find just the one I wanted for a book cover. Not cheap to rent, but worth it.

Below is a picture of one I chose which is being worn by "Rocketeer" artist and pal Dave Stevens for a book cover illustration.

The same tunic in the 1980's and 40 years earlier.

Some years later while watching Errol Flynn's "The Adventures of Robin Hood" I realized that from the myriad of tunics I had picked one from that film.  They kept them in good repair through the decades.

What I'm up to

For my first post I thought I would tell you about my current project.

I am working with George R R Martin and Subterranean Press on the massively illustrated, limited edition of “A Clash of Kings” book two of George’s “A Song of Ice and Fire” series. This will contain (when I finish!!) around 70 black and white illustrations of various sizes and formats and 6 full color images including two wrap around covers.

Here is a shot of the first cover painting in progress.

And the second cover painting.

Working with George (when I can tear time away from his hectic schedule) is stimulating and challenging. Like any proud father he is very protective of his creations and especially their appearance. Some of my sketches have hit the mark right away while others have needed numerous sketches to work out.

A drawing of Catelyn that George liked right off.

George is quite forthcoming with information from his fertile brain about what things should look like, and this sometimes includes details that he has thought of, but never actually written down in his books. (More on that in a future post). That is what makes the work so fascinating. I get the chance to learn things that others don’t know yet, until I illustrate them or George writes them down.

As the project develops check in here for more comments and images of the work in progress.