Rockwell Kent

Rockwell Kent is one of my favourite historical illustrators; here is a short bio on him.

Rockwell Kent was an American printmaker and illustrator born in 1882, and died in 1971. He was born in Tarrytown, New York. Kent studied with several painters, such as Arthur Wesley Dow and William Merritt Chase. He also studied at the New York School of Art. Kent painted in addition to his illustration work. He did a series of paintings from a trip to Alaska in 1918; producing a memoir titled "Wilderness." He is well known for his illustrations of Moby Dick, published in 1930. Moby Dick contains black and white pen and ink drawings by Kent. It was very successful and sold out; Random House produced a trade edition. Kent illustrated many books over his career, including Beowulf, Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman, and Faust by Goethe. He also designed murals, including one for the United States Post Office in Washington, DC. Kent worked in woodcut and lithography, as well as pen and ink. His drawings have a graphic look to them with large bold areas of black. He uses repeated small marks to describe backgrounds. Kent's signature style uses high contrasts of black and white.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rockwell_Kent

Merry Christmas!

My Christmas card design for this year. Re-used some previously done lino-cuts from other projects.

Dr Sketchy drawings

Here are some life drawings I did at Dr Sketchy this past month. The ones shown are longer poses - 10 to 15 minutes.

Helpful Books Part II

I've been busy this week working on some magazine illustrations for Broken Pencil. I can't share them yet, but they turned out pretty well. Here is another post on helpful books for art and creativity.

Breakthrough! Overcome Creative Block and Spark Your Imagination
This book is a collection of thoughts from many different professionals on ideas to overcome creative block. It includes writing from graphic designers, artists, illustrators, writers, creative directors, musicians, and photographers. Every artist experiences creative block, and this book is a fun read through a diverse array of solutions.

Show Your Work!
by Austin Kleon
This book is a fun look at the art of promotion. Austin gives simple, do-able ideas on how to get your work out there for the world to see. He talks about showing your process, sharing one thing everyday, and the importance of sticking it out and being persistent in your career. He also discusses how to take criticism, a very useful skill when one is an artist.

It's Not How Good You Are, It's How Good You Want to Be
by Paul Arden
The first part of this book discusses mindset, ambition and success.The second part focusses on the process of graphic design, coming up with ideas, dealing with clients. Paul simplifies ideas and makes the solutions clear and concise. He gives direct advice and makes it understandable.

Work / Life
This is a book by Uppercase, the design magazine headed by Janine Vangool. Work Life features 100 illustrators from around the world, showing their work and their process. Each artist has a short write up, accompanied by their visual solution to a custom assignment given to them.  
    

Pulled
by Mike Perry
Pulled is a collection of silkscreen artists and their work. It includes groups such as Seripop, and individual artists. A great book to have for inspiration.



The Printmaking Bible
by Ann D'arcy and Hebe Vernon-Morris
This is a hefty book, and delves into the different types of printmaking. It is very educational and goes through the processes for each printmaking method. Included are intaglio, relief, lithography, screen printing, and monotype. The book features step by step instructions for each method, as well as different artists and their work. It also goes into the history of each method.