I: Illustrators

I woke up at about 5:00 am this morning to the cat picking the lock to our bedroom door. She managed to break in sending my wife jumping out of bed and beginning my day a little early. Fully alert from the attack, I considered the next entry into the blog—illustrators. I think that I will attack this entry chronologically.

Whenever I am asked to speak about graphics, illustration, or communication, I start at the same place—the caveman. You would have to have lived under a rock to not encounter some image of a cave painting. As a form of communication, illustration precedes written word. These images were the mainstay of storytelling and hold incredible value as simplistic representations of concepts as well as events.

Moving on in history, the very graphic illustrations of the Egyptians and the illuminated Bibles created by Monks and then the early printing process showed the importance and impact of marrying text and image.

Two of my early influences as illustrators were Winslow Homer and NC Wyeth. Winslow Homer worked as an illustrator during the Civil War, creating images of Union Soldiers for Harper’s Weekly. NC Wyeth’s illustrations of Treasure Island and other classics provided the images that I grew up relating to the Great Books.

Moving on, the next would appear to be Norman Rockwell. His idealized images told very complete and complicated stories that not only reflected his idea of American life, but actually became the standard for that generation’s ideal slice-of-life. In Abstract and Concrete, he paints a business man observing a Pollack-like painting in a gallery. What skill it shows that he can incorporate effectively another, dissimilar artist’s style into his own. “The illustrator's rendering of Abstract & Concrete must have been indicative of what Rockwell, then 68, was pondering at the time. How will I be remembered. As a technician or artist. As a humorist or a visionary." (Rockwell web page)

I grew up with 33RPM LPs as my generations primary music source. Like many of my peers, I wanted to design and illustrate album covers. The size and scale of that medium was just so perfect for artwork. Today’s CD covers are so small, limiting the impact of the images. I particularly liked the hand lettering and illustration as well as the effects used on photos from the late 1960’s through the 1970’s. I’ll come back to that later.

I’ve included several examples of these covers that demonstrate how detailed and imaginative they were. Peter Max and Andy Warhol created great illustrations in this timeframe. Some of the skill and craftsmanship that was demanded in those days is lost on today’s artists. The computer simplifies the production of images, allowing you to “Control Z” undo. The album artists had to make it perfect by hand. Corrections and revisions were costly and difficult. Ah the good old days of amberlith and typesetting.
As for text, often these covers included hand lettering that was an art in itself.

As I grew older, more sophisticated illustrators crept into my realm of awareness. Terry Gilliam of Monty Python fame created incredible still and animated images using airbrush and photo manipulation. I became a big fan of Marshall Arisman and his fanciful style. I also enjoy the work of Gary Baseman and Chris Sickels of Red Nose Studios. I have had a chance to meet Arisman, Baseman, and Sickels at the HOW Design conference to chat first-hand about their process.

This list goes on and on. One of my great pleasures is to go to sites like Zaks.com and other illustrator sites to prowl for hours among the illustrators. I am confounded though by the impression that some critics present that illustration is somehow a lesser art than “fine-art.” When you look at the paintings and drawings of the mentioned artists, you see a level of skill and technique equal to anyone who only works from their own perspective.

In the book “Education of an Illustrator” written by Steven Heller and Marshall Arisman, they talk about the illustrator telling a second story and expanding on the written work with the artist’s imagination. One artist viewed my “fine art” attempts and commented that it had an illustrative style. I’m not sure if she intended that as a compliment, but I take it as one. When Andrew Wyeth passed away recently, several people commented in a negative sense that his work will be viewed as illustration and not fine art. Yet, when I entered the Modern Art room at the Museum of Modern Art, “Christine’s World” is prominently the first painting you see. This piece of art is often criticized for its popularity as a poster, yet I find it to be a masterful execution of composition, light, and content. The story is compelling and the tone is perfectly matched. If being an illustrator is bad, I choose to be the worst.