Henry Patrick Raleigh- Serious Drawing Skills

Just in time for Christmas, Auad Publishing has unveiled a new book that would make Jay Gatsby drool. In keeping with the long tradition of fantastic books from Manuel Auad, comes Henry Patrick Raleigh-The Confident Illustrator.

  

This coffee table worthy volume is printed in glorious full color despite the fact that much of Raleigh's work was black and white or limited in it's color range. The extra touch of full color throughout lends nuance and depth to each of Raleigh's monochromatic pieces.

But the star here is Raleigh's unbelievable skill as a draftsman and storyteller. And boy could this guy draw! His characters pop to life with just enough stylization to be animated without dropping into the caricature zone. His confident line and deft use of value pattern makes each illustration in the volume study worthy. No detail is overlooked from the costumes to the furniture to the automobiles. Raliegh's art is a master class in telling just enough and telling it with flair. Lines jump off the page and exude confidence. No wonder he earned the nickname "The Confident Illustrator".

The text of the book is nicely written by Raleigh's own grandson Christopher and reading it, you get a wonderful glimpse into an era when illustrators were rock stars and paid accordingly. Raleigh reportedly was paid $200-$300 per quick spot drawing and as much as $3500 per color piece throughout the 1920's and 1930's. It is estimated that he produced some 20,000 works, or an average of around 800 illustrations per year over the first 25 years of his career. He worked quickly, sometimes spending under an hour on a spot drawing or possibly a few days on a larger piece which facilitated the completion of so many works.

If you do the math, 800 illustrations in 1930, even at an average of just $300, calculates to nearly $3.5 million in today's dollars. Raleigh was a wealthy man and his spending habits bore this out. He loved rubbing elbows with the rich and famous where he arrived at lavish parties in custom tailored suits while driving expensive cars. Despite his incredibly prolific output of work, Raliegh often traveled abroad for upwards of three to four months of the year, making his productivity even more amazing.

The book is divided into sections like The Gatsby Era, Advertising (He did Maxwell House coffee ads for years), Lithographs and Etchings (featuring the famous posters Raleigh did for World War I war bonds)The Authors (including illustrations he created for serialized stories from such notables as F. Scott Fitzgerald and H.G. Wells).

This hardback book with full  color dust jacket (featuring an alternate image) is beautifully reproduced. I would rank the print quality right up there with any high caliber art book in my collection. Also included are a couple of nicely done gatefold reproductions and a nice 9"x12" full color print is tucked into the flyleaf.

If you are an illustration junkie like me, this volume is a must have for your library. Auad Publishing's titles nearly all sell out and past titles can be hard to find and expensive. His previous books on Robert Fawcett and Albert Dorne are sold out and online prices for those tomes are now way out of my price range. I'm happy to own them already. If you are thinking about getting this new one, I suggest not waiting around too long.

Buy Henry Patrick Raleigh here
and also:
Al Parker is momentarily on sale from Auad for a ridiculous price of $20

Albert Dorne - Master Illustrator

Albert Dorne Master Illustrator is fresh off the presses from Auad Publishing and just in time to make it onto your Christmas list. I got my copy a few days ago and have been enjoying it ever since. The book is full of Dorne illustrations that I had never seen before as well as many classic pictures that I was familiar with.

Editor Manuel Auad and writer David Apatoff have done a bang up job here in presenting Dorne and his exquisitely drawn work to a new generation. It has been said that Dorne was the Jack Kirby of his day and with his expressive characters and knobby knuckled hands it is easy to see why.

I love the format of the book and the fine quality of the printing. Other nice elements include interviews from Dorne taken from period sources such as Famous Artists Magazine and Pageant. There is even a graphic tribute to Dorne drawn by the great Jack Kirby himself.

Albert Dorne (1906-1965) was a self taught artist who worked his way to fame and riches through sheer determination and hard work. He described a childhood in which he would skip school to draw from the sculptures and paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, claiming to be the youngest artist ever granted a sketch permit from that revered establishment.

Dorne worked at a studio for no pay for an entire year sleeping just a few hours and holding down a night job in order to get his foot in the door of the industry. He went on to found the Famous Artist School correspondence course which influenced countless artists.

It is obvious that Dorne had a gift and flair for drawing people but what surprised me was the range of expression and stylization that he achieved over his four decade career. He was at ease in any approach to the figure from total exaggeration to fairly straight forward depictions.

He was a master of the complex multi figure composition and could manage dozens of figures in a scene and yet let them all add to the overall effect with an appropriate hierarchy of importance.

As with the previous volume on Robert Fawcett, This book also has several vignette pages that focus on Dorne's skill in depicting hands, characters, attention to detail and complex picture architecture. This book is a feast for anyone who enjoys vintage illustration or simply likes to look at great drawing. Gotta go now, Albert Dorne is calling, and I have to figure out how to draw better.

Get your copy of Albert Dorne Master Illustrator

Creative Illustration Back In Print!

This week Titan Books released a reprinted facsimile edition of Andrew Loomis' Creative Illustration. Loomis' books have been popular for generations of artists and Creative Illustration is no exception. It has arguably been the most anticipated of Titan's four Loomis reprints and was long overdue.

Original volumes of Loomis' illustration masterwork have become difficult and expensive to come by since I got my copy for $35 some twenty years ago ( but Amazon's current price for the new hardcover edition is below what I paid then!). For years, copies have been selling on the Internet from anywhere between $100 for a well worn copy to $300 for one in prime condition.

I have featured excerpts from Creative illustration many times here on my blog and still hold it up as the standard by which all instructional illustration books should be judged. Loomis effectively breaks down the process of creating a picture into logical chapters dealing with concepts such as line, tone and color.

Even after over twenty years as a freelance artist, I find Loomis' insights into picture creation valid and instructional. If I were to recommend just a single volume to someone on the subject of creating illustration, this book would have to be on top of the list.

Much of the original version was printed in black and white, so I am excited to get a new copy of Creative Illustration that is reported to include a whole new full color section on working with color.

Order your copy of Creative Illustration by Andrew Loomis right here:

Previous Posts for Creative Illustration on Life Needs Art:
Loomis on Toning a Color Palette
Composition Based on Numbers and Letters
Creating Visual Balance
Eye Path Reverse Analysis