He has adopted a nicely traditional cross-hatch pen and ink drawing style (like David Levine, looking back to the pen and ink illustrators of the late 19th Century) that he wields with aplomb while portraying and often skewering popular political and entertainment figures of the day.

He often produces color versions of his drawings which he accents with judicious touches of watercolor, enough to enliven the image while still leaving the appealing characteristics of the pen and ink drawing.

Jones’ web site has a modest gallery of his work, as well as a home page image that is replaced, according to him, “…daily, weekly, or whenever I feel like it”. You can find more of his work on Daryl Cagle’s Political Cartoonists Index (see my post on Daryl Cagle’s Professional Cartoonist Index). It’s not as obvious as it should be, but down amid the icons and stuff under the image are arrows for browsing through recent cartoons, as well as a drop-down menu for selecting a particular date.

In addition there is a selection of his illustrations on the Cagle.com site.

You can also go to the “Search For a Cartoon” page and search for Taylor Jones, for access to dozens of his cartoons (offered in both color and black and white versions).

Jones maintains his blog on the Cagle.com site. The blog covers a variety of topics, and the posts are always accompanied by one or more of his cartoon illustrations.

In addition to the cartoonlike visual approach, his illustrations often have a cartoonlike twist, or humorous variation on a common scene. This is often applied to his “Rollover” illustrations, web-specific illustrations in which mousing over the image reveals an alternate version of the scene (sometimes shown as an animated sequence).

Many of the latter have been done for Tor.com where he is a regular contributor (never too early to stock up on your Cthulhu Christmas Cards!). The Tor site also has a gallery of his work.

Brundage began his career while still a student at the University of the Arts here in Philadelphia, with the winning design for a children’s helmet contest, which was put into production by Bell Helmets. He is originally from Connecticut and now lives in New York City.

In addition to his web site, Brundage keeps a blog where you can see work in progress and other pieces not yet included in the galleries, like the image above, for a Tor.com Valentine’s Day Rollover, in which he has playfully recast a scene styled after Fragonard’s Rococo garden dalliances into a chase from The Wizard of Oz.

His pen and ink and watercolor images capture personalities, places and situations with wry humor and an uncanny sense of place.

Sorel studied at Cooper Union and was one of the con-founders of the legendary Push Pin Studios. He has had a number of one-man shows, including a 1998 multi-room show at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC (see my post on The National Portrait Gallery).

A collection was published in conjunction with the show, Unauthorized Portraits from 1997. He has also illustrated a number of books and created numerous posters.

There is an interview here, conducted by artist Zina Saunders, along with Saunders’ portrait of Sorel. (Here’s my post on Zina Saunders.)

Sorel’s work has been compared to other modern masters of caricature like David Levine, and even to historic figures like Daumier and Hogarth.

During his stints as cartoonist for The Cincinnati Enquirer and The New York Herald, and through syndicated work for the Hearst papers, McCay did a remarkable series of editorial and allegorical cartoons. More social commentary than topically editorial, they were anti-materialism, anti-laziness, anti-drug and pro hard work and duty.

The best thing about them, of course, is that they were wonderfully drawn by one of one of the best draftsmen in the history of cartooning and comics.

In 2005 Fantagraphics published a terrific collection of McCay’s black and white work, Daydreams and Nightmares: The Fantastic Visions of Winsor McCay, 1898-1934 (more here), that is unfortunately out of print, but can be found used for essentially original cover price ($20).

In addition to McCay’s social commentary/editorial cartoons, the book includes pages of his early strips like Dream of the Rarebit Fiend, A Pilgrim’s Progress, Day Dreams and Little Sammy Sneeze. (Sunday Press published wonderful large-scale version of the latter, with color; my article here.)

Only a smattering of McCay material is online, but the generous and enigmatic “Mr. Door Tree” has published a number of McCay’s editorial cartoons on his blog Golden Age Comic Book Stories. Be sure to click on the initial images to see the large versions of the drawings.

Wonderful stuff.

[Link via BitterOldPunk on MetaFilter]

He didn’t accept the idea of merchandising his popular characters to the hilt, and resisted his syndicate’s constant pressure to do so, allowing only the publication of book collections of the strip and calendars. No stuffed characters, no Hobbes dolls hung upside-down with suction cups to the inside of station wagon windows, no notebooks, sticker books, T-shirts, TV specials or Burger King soda cups. Just the strip, pure and simple.

And it was pure and simple, a classic humor strip, brilliantly written and wonderfully drawn. He didn’t overcomplicate it, try to make it too topical or stretch it beyond its natural limits. When he felt the strip had run its course, Watterson retired, and again resisted any desire on the part of the syndicate to keep it alive artificially and milk it into oblivion.

Watterson himself did not seek the spotlight, preferring to let his characters do the talking, and rarely gave interviews. There was a brief interview with Watterson published in yesterday’s Celveland Plain Dealer (which I believe is his hometown newspaper). The interview was conducted by email, and is very short and not particularly revealing, but worth noting just as an event.

You’ll see it marked as the first in 20 years, but that discounts the question and answer with fans that his book publisher, Andrews McMeel, conducted in 2005 to promote the release of The Complete Calvin and Hobbes.

The cleveland.com site has also posted a selection of rarely seen editorial cartoons by Watterson from his stint with Sun Newspapers in the 1980’s. Unfortunately, as in the images above, the reproductions in their slideshow have apparently been poorly resized and lost some of their original line quality.

At any rate, it’s a good excuse to stop, pick up a Calvin and Hobbes book you haven’t read in a while, and be reminded that “there’s treasure everywhere”.

[Via Daring Fireball]

Dazzled, distracted and spoiled by color’s overt and often brash appeal, we can easily lose sight of the sublime pleasures to be had in the appreciation of black and white artwork.

There is a visual charm and magic to black and white images that is difficult to describe, a sensation of value, texture and tonal contrasts that have their own kind of appeal quite separate than that of painting, or even drawings in colored media. (True aficionados of black and white film will confirm that appeal in a different medium.)

Nowhere is this more apparent than in the work of the master illustrators from the Golden Age of Illustration, roughly from the 1880’s through the 1920’s.

Particularly in the early part of that span, when reproduction techniques improved dramatically, but had not yet made color printing inexpensive enough to be widespread, black and white illustration flourished and bloomed, producing astonishing works from the masters of the genre.

Pen and ink drawing, in particular, achieved a kind of modern Renaissance, with masters like Howard Pyle, Franklin Booth, Joseph Clement Coll, James Montgomery Flagg, Arthur Rackham and many others producing drawings that are masterworks of the medium.

In addition, great illustrators like Howard Pyle and others painted beautifully evocative oil paintings in black and white (If you ever get a chance to visit the Delaware Art Museum, you’ll see what I mean).

Unfortunately, this work is overshadowed by color images, even those by the same artists, and is not widely reproduced these days, even on the web. Fine lined pen and ink drawing, in particular, does not fare well in reproduction on the web, suffering from the limitations of low-resolution display on screen.

As I’ve pointed out before, even though it’s not evident at first glance, computer monitors are low resolution (about 103ppi) — print images in glossy magazines and books are almost three times higher in resolution than your monitor (300dpi); and the difference in reproducing this kind of image is striking.

Fortunately, there is a source for some of the most beautiful black and white images from that period when great illustration was at its height, printed as they should be; and a terrific new collection has just been released.

Black & White ImageS: The Fifth Special Collection of Images from the Vadeboncoeur Collection is the latest in a series of annuals form the ImageS series of collections of great Golden Age illustration (see my previous posts on The Vadeboncoeur Collection of ImageS and ImageS 11).

As always, Vadeboncoeur has managed to feature work by some of the best known names along with discoveries that are likely to be new even to those already hooked on the beauty of great Golden Age illustration. The issue features over 35 artists, including Howard Pyle, Joseph Clement Coll, James Montgomery Flagg, Arthur Rackham, Rose O’Neill, Herbert Railton, Howard Chandler Christy, Dorothy Lathrop, Daniel Vierge and Elizabeth Shippen Green (links to my posts).

There is a preview on the ImageS site of the entire issue. Vadeboncoeur is showing larger previews for this issue than for previous issues (and I take a little bit of credit for encouraging him to do so), but I have to stress again that you cannot begin to appreciate the quality of these images, or their true visual appeal, from small reproductions on the computer screen. (As an example I’ve included at left, bottom, a detail from the image above it.)

In particular, the printing of ImageS goes beyond even normal high resolution printing, with image quality and printing standards comparable to limited edition prints. The edition is oversize at 9×12, on 100lb matte paper, and can be ordered from the publisher for $25 + $5 postage (U.S., postage is higher elsewhere). Many $100 art books don’t give you this many great images.

To order online, go here, click on “Product Overview”, then “The Vadeboncoeur Collection of Images” and then scroll down to Black & White ImageS Special #5. You can also contact the publisher by phone or email here.

Whether you’re reading by gaslight, or Edison’s newfangled electric bulbs, images like these are a rare treat.

(Images above left: Henri-Jules-Ferdinand Bellery-Desfontaines, Elizabeth Shippen Green, Wladyslaw T. Benda, Will Crawford)

The NYRB web site has a gallery of over 2,500 of his drawings that can be browsed by year or category.

Unlike caricaturists whose subjects are largely drawn from one or two sections of public life, Levine’s position called on him to portray a wide variety of figures from history as well as the present.

I’ve always been particularly fond of his caricatures of artistic figures, both historic and contemporary. The images above show Levine’s interpretation of Rembrandt, Rubens, Valázquez, Titian, Andrew Wyeth and John Singer Sargent (links to Lines and Colors articles on those artists).

Levine took the “large head small body” style of caricature and made it his own, giving emphasis to the faces. His pen and ink approach could be intricately detailed, wonderfully loose, or both simultaneously.

He studied painting at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, and at Tyler School of Art here in Philadelphia. His work as a painter is less well known than his illustrations, but you can find galleries of his paintings on his web site and a few examples elsewhere on the web.

His caricatures were often searingly on target, focusing on the foibles and flaws of politicians and other public figures; sometimes definitively so, as in the case of his famous portrayal of Lyndon Johnson lifting his shirt to show his Vietnam-shaped operation scar.

There have been several collections of his work published, like his collection of American Presidents.

David Levine died today at the age of 83.

[Via Art Knowledge News]

The gallery has a selection of his work online that inclides pieces from many stages of his career, from early, more innocent cartoons, to the gross-out “Beautiful Girl of the Month” that made his reputation, to the apocalyptic Bible illustrations to which he devoted his later career.

There is a review of the show in the New York Times.

For more, including links to more of his art on the web, see my previous post about Basil Wolverton.

Coker had for a couple of years been following the “painting a day” phenomenon, and was particularly inspired by its originator, Duane Keiser, and an early practitioner, Julian Merrow-Smith (see my posts on “painting a day“, Duane Keiser, and Julian Merrow-Smith).

Coker decided this was an opportune time to explore that avenue, and started a painting blog called “A Daily Curmudgeon“. The intention is to do small oil paintings in the format common to painting a day blogs, 5×5 or 5×7″, but to indulge in his fondness for whimsical character studies rather than the usual small still life or landscape subjects that are the staple of the genre.

Coker says his painting process is to start with a blank canvas or gessoed illustration board and to take a small brush loaded with burnt umber and just start pushing and pulling until an image begins to suggest itself. This has led so far to an array of odd characters as well as a portrait of Shakespeare and a homage to Van-Gogh self portraits.

Be sure to click on the images in the blog to see the large version, and Coker’s technique, which can be painterly or smoothly refined as subject dictates.

Something tells me that Coker’s interests and multi-faceted talents will lead to a wider range of subject matter and approach in the future, but in the meanwhile, his small painted characters are a delight (and a steal at the auction prices he’s asking, I don’t think anyone knows about his blog yet, he just started a few days ago).

Inspired in part by Daniel Clowes Art School Confidentaial, a graphic story (made into a movie by Terry Zwigoff) that did a bit of similar classification of art students, Dillon came up with 20 classifications, like Student 1.0, the Anime Student, the Snob/Fine Art Student, the Mom Student, the Comic Book/Geek Student, etc.

Dillon posted them on his blog, 30×30, asking “Which Student are You?“.

You may be disinclined to identify, as most of his characterizations are negative and drawn from the inevitable frustrations of a teacher who is trying to communicate something through the barriers people often erect in the name of identity, but it’s amusing to see his take on them.

Personally, I found it difficult to identify for another reason. Enough years have passed since I was in art school that many of his types don’t resonate with me, largely because the social/pop culture phenomena to which they’re tied (anime, metal, gaming) didn’t exist at the time. Other types with which I might have identified (60’s counterculture types) no longer apply. Also I went to a different kind of art school, Hussian is a small commercial art school, a sharp contrast in some ways to the medium sized fine arts academy that I attended.

Still some things are universal, and even though we all know it’s not a Good Thing to classify people by their appearance, it’s fun to sort into “types”.

It’s also fun to compare Dillon’s categorization of student types with his assessment of himself over time in a two part series called “Through the years…” and “Through the Years (part2)“, which preceded his student types, and was inspired by the Draw yourself as a teen meme started by webcomics artist Dave Valeza (see my post about Draw yourself as a teen).

The rest of Dillon’s blog varies from posts about his process to train sketches to various finished and unfinished projects, like his Philadelphia Zoo Annual Report Comic Strip. Dillon also has a web site which showcases some of his other work.

[Via Drawn!]