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.

Sketches and Finished Art

I love comparing sketches to finished work. Aside from being able to gain insights into the working procedures of various artists, the more important reason is to see their thought process in pushing the picture forward. To see what they learned from doing the sketch, and needed to correct in the final painting. This could be a repositioned arm or a major change to the pose.  An adjustment of the value composition or adding completely new elements.

A Detail of a Mural by Alexander Cabanel

 When you see a difference between the sketch and finish you should try to reconstruct the artist thoughts and reasons for the change.  Always assume he had a good reason.

Campaspe by John William Godward

Of course, unless an artist is extraordinarily lucky (or skillful) there will be changes necessary between the sketch and finish. The sketch is a tool to identify what is right and what is wrong in the pre-conception of the image that the artist holds in his minds eye.


The primary difference between these Bouguereau images (below) is the development of the darker values. The darkening behind the legs at the bottom helps the "rise" of the figures. However this darkening required Bouguereau to redesign the silhouette of the white drapery to flow behind the mans foot to make it read easier and disengage it from the background thereby adding to the feeling of floating. Additionally it creates an alignment of leg, foot and cloth edge that echos and reinforces the lines of the woman's legs pointing diagonally down to the lower corner and again emphasizes the thrust upward.

A Bouguereau Finish and sketch painting.

A sketch drawing for Herbert Draper's "Flying Fish"

Another Bouguereau sketch.

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.