Wyeth's Homer

I have never met an NC Wyeth illustration I didn't like enough to open it in a new browser tab and keep it there for days until I accidentally close the window or blog about it.  Homer's getting blogged, mainly because there's so much incredible ocean to share.  This fishman is also of note:

For all the waves, however, I think this Penelope is the best part of all:

via Golden Age, of course.  The fount of all great classic illustration.

Hovercraft

I was browsing Flickr and I came across this illustration, from a series titled How Could You, by Tatsuro Kuichi.  This is, essentially, a portrait of my dog.  The only difference is the collar.  I call her a hovercraft, because that is what she does: she hovers, she lurks, she frets.  Are you going somewhere?  Where are you taking that box?  ARE WE MOVING AGAIN???

Christmas decorating is tough on dogs.  Apparently.

The other parts of the series are equally sweet (and spot-on like Vista).  I especially love this one:

Further Shore

People, I just really like the ocean.

Words by Edward Sandford Martin, drawings by Henry McCarter.  From Century Magazine, August 1898.  Found at Golden Age!

Waves, by Dulac

As proof of just how much I needed to get the previous post out of my system, I realized that I had been hanging onto this post about Edmund Dulac in Google Reader just in case.  Because what else am I going to do but blog about it?

You know how people like to say "I don't know much about art, but I know what I like"?  Well, I do know quite a bit about art, and I also know that all an artist needs to do to win me over is show me a convincing ocean.  Give me waves, give me foam, give me roiling seas and dramatic clouds, and I will love you forever. This are but a few reasons I love Dulac so much.

Stolen, as always, from Golden Age.

door of the day

Today's door is not a door at all, but a drawing of one.  I'm stretching my own nonexistent rules, but I dont care because you know why?  Look at those crazy hinges.  Look at them.

Drawing by John Bauer.

H is for

I bet you thought I'd all but abandoned this here ol' blog, didn't you?  And then this week I sweep in all "Wham!" "Bam!" "10,000 posts!" and you're reeling!  So while you're down, here's one more.

Illustrator, blog favourite, and all-around clever dude Marc Johns has put some of his drawings on t-shirts and oh, my they are wonderful.  The selection is as follows:

They're printed on American Apparel shirts and look really freaking fantastic.  Perfect for the odd little dude inside us all.

delicious gorey covers

If you've hung around here any length of time, you know by now that I adore Edward Gorey.  There is no other word than adore.  His words and art, creepy as they might seem to some, make me want to crawl into them, curl up, and stay for awhile.

Gorey is well-known for many things, his books and animation among them, but often forgotten are the fantastic paperback covers he illustrated, frequently also creating the typography.  This Flickr collection shows many of those books, all of which belong to a single private library.  Oh, the jealousy, it burns!

ps: If you enjoy Gorey's covers and also laughing, you will probably also love Kate Beaton's series of comics based on Gorey covers (all four parts).

moebius for you

The artist of a webcomic I love linked this weekend to a new Hermes advertising campaign featuring illustrations by Moebius (also known as Jean Giraud).  I positively ate it up, despite the terrible website navigation.  So color me delighted to discover that all of the featured illustrations were available to view on this tumblr.  Here are a few of my favs, to whet your appetite for retro science fiction.

That first illustration actually had the effect of making me say "I wish the world really looked like that."  And people wonder why I love science fiction so much.

Thanks to Evan Dahm for the tumblr link.

clara elsene peck

I'm always thrilled to find illustrations done by women (like Elenore Abbott), but these are not only done by a woman, but done to illustrate books written by a woman.  Yay girls!  The books are Shake-speares Sweetheart and A Lady of King Arthur's Court by Sara Hawks Sterling (about which I could find no information), published in 1905 and 1907, respectively.  They were illustrated by Clara Elsene Peck in a delightfully Art Nouveau-ish manner.

I love the text on that last one.  "'Let us go,' she said.  'Life is before us.'"  I'd love to put that very thing on the inside of a wedding band, wouldn't you?

Scans from Golden Age Comic Book Stories

a song of the english

The most recent post from Golden Age Comic Book Stories features the illustrations from a 1909 edition of Rudyard Kipling's A Song of the English.  The illustrations, by W. Heath Robinson, absolutely blew me away.  Here are my favourites (there are a bunch, I really, REALLY loved them!):

Those last two are about the most beautiful things I've seen.  Something about the sea, the sky, and the women makes me want to sing.

le tired

 Between the stress of moving and starting a new job and the dark, gloomy weather which has plagued us since Sunday, I can't seem to stay awake!  The good news, however, is that we'll most likely be getting internet at the house, so I'll be back to a more regular blogging schedule!  You know you're happy.

Illustration by Edmund Dulac, from Edmund Dulac's Picture Book for the French Red Cross.

entirely original in spirit and execution

One of the reasons that illustrations from the early part of the 20th Century make me so happy is that I doubt I will ever run out of new artists to discover. Dugald Stewart Walker was born in Richmond, Virginia (yay Virginia natives!) in 1883.  In the foreward for the first book he illustrated, Walker was described as "a new artist of remarkable talent, suggesting Rackham and Dulac but entirely original in spirit and execution."  Here are some of his illustrations which I love best:

Clearly my selections are informed heavily by my love of wind and water motifs. I also adore his lettering.  Wikipedia provides an excerpt from a foreward he wrote in a copy of Hans Christian Anderson's tales he illustrated in 1914 which may be the loveliest bit of text I've ever read.

"I have never been anywhere except Richmond, Virginia, and New York, because I have always been told that only grown-up people were allowed to travel. But the good East Wind and the kindly Moon have taken me on rapturous journeys high above the world to get an enchanted view of things. In this book I have put some of my discoveries, but if you are looking here for real likeness of the things that any one could see if he were grown up, you had better close the covers now. You cannot expect me to draw an exact picture of the North Pole or of a Chinese lady's feet or of a sea-cucumber. But if you are interested in what the East Wind or the Father Stork or the Moon told me, then look with my eyes and you will not mind very much if the courtiers in the ogre's court, or the dock leaves in the Garden of Paradise, are not just as a grown-up person thinks they should be. After all is said and done, what the young ones say about it is the all-important matter."

I pulled my illustrations from the blogs {feuilleton} and Golden Age Comic Book Stories (which has several posts about Walker).  Additionally, the full text with Walker illustrations of The Boy Who Knew What the Birds Said by Padriac Colum is available at Project Gutenberg.

golden age

Oh my goodness this blog.  I will never get anything done ever again.

Illustration by N. C. Wyeth, from Bullfinch's Legends of Charlemagne.

this

Aubrey Beardsley on matchboxes.

That is all.

cetacea

I love this little series by End of March.  Love, love, love.  I wish it was a book I could buy and keep with me always.

via please sir