Interview with: Jack Foster

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artist as brand, artwork, cartoon, cartoons, digital painting, drawing, illustration, illustrator, illustrators journal, innovation, Levinland studio, painting, pen and ink

Interview with Jack Foster

When did you first think about art as something you wanted to do? Were you encouraged or discouraged by family, friends, teachers, mentors?

When I was in first grade, the teacher, Sister Rose, asked the class to draw a self-portrait. I drew myself walking home from school. At a parent teacher conference, Sr. Rose showed the picture to my mom and told her that she thought I had artistic talent because in the picture, I was leaning forward as I walked against the wind and my tie (yes, we wore ties to school back then), was blowing over my shoulder. Sr. Rose told my mom that knowing how to draw was just a small part of art. Perception was the rest. So my mom hung my self-portrait on the fridge and told me what Sr. Rose said. I knew that I liked to draw, but the encouragement I received from my mom and Sr. Rose ignited a passion in me that has never died down. My dad on the other hand was a hard working sheet metal worker and tried to discourage my art and pushed me to focus on a trade where I could make money.

To this day, I’m not sure if the motivation to succeed as an artist came from trying to prove my mom right, or trying to prove my dad wrong.

What kind of kid were you? Where did you grow up? What were your influences?

I was a very quiet kid, the eldest of seven. We were raised just northwest of Chicago. I loved baseball. Every day during the summer, we would walk around the neighborhood with our bats, balls and mitts, gathering the “regulars” together for a game. In grammar school, I was a bit above average, but excelled in art and would volunteer to do posters for library events. In the evenings, my family would gather around the TV. I would take the Sunday paper comics, which I guard- ed with my life all week, lay them out across the kitchen table and trace them or draw them freehand. Drawing a daily comic strip for the newspapers was my dream. So naturally

some comic strip artists became a big influence in my art, which is still obvious in my work. Mort Walker was my biggest influence in my early days. He drew a strip called Beetle Bailey and another called Hi and Lois in which he teamed up with Dik Browne. The strip is still going today being produced by his sons Brian and Greg along with Browne’s son, Chance.Of course Walt Disney was a huge influence. I read his biography at a young age and wasfascinated by him. And the fact that he grew up in Chicago was even more of a “draw”. When I was about 13 years old, the Muppets came on the scene. I loved how Jim Henson could get his puppets to show facial expressions with just eyebrows and a mouth. Jim Henson has really influenced the large eyes, bright colors and char- acter design in my work. 

Your style is very unique. Did you work on developing a style or is that what naturally came out of you?

Throughout the years of submitting  to the newspaper syndicates, my  style changed drastically. I would  send outpacket of 30 strips every other week, and when they would be rejected and returned, I would redo the strips, altering my style a bit. Some rejection letters would be the standard “No, thanks. Good luck.”  But once in a while an art director would give me some advice. One director pointed out that my characters were “too cute” for the   comics. So of course, I tried to ugly them up a bit, but they kept coming out cute and kept getting rejected. I submitted for 25 years, so you could imagine the metamorphosis my style went through. Ultimately I landed on my own style which was the most comfortable for me to draw, made the most sense to me and was easily recognizable.

There isn’t any of your political artwork on your site. Why is that? What inspired the change in the direction of your work?

Yes, you are right. In my pursuit to be a comic strip artist, I took a job as a political cartoonist. It didn’t pay much, but I thought it was a foot in the door. I did it for a few years, how- ever, even though I have a good sense of humor, satire didn’t really suit me. I have filed away all my political cartoons. Maybe one day I will revisit them. Even though my politi- cal cartooning stint didn’t open any comic strip doors for me, working for/with an editor did give me valuable experience in the publishing world, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything

For more of this interview

Interview: Sports Artist Dave Hobrecht

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artist as brand, digital media, illustration, illustrator, illustrators journal, innovation, painter, painting

Interview with Dave Hobrecht

When did you first think about art as something you wanted to do? Were you encouraged or discouraged by family, friends, teachers, mentors?

I grew up drawing. I was a bit of an over energized kid. A pencil and paper was the only way my mom got some rest during the day! It’s just something I did ever since I can remember. My parents were very encouraging. My mom would take me to the art supply store anytime I wanted and I could buy anything. She wasn’t that way about everything……I asked and never got a set of Drums!!! Ha! …….but art supplies…..I could have anything.

On the other hand when I decided I wanted to be an artist full time…..I had a lot less encouragement and tons of people advising me to not go in to the art world.

Art by Dave Hobrecht

I went to USC and majored in Business. After school I was supposed to work for my parents company. Although I loved the Automotive industry..it just wasn’t me. So with no experience and a wife and three kids…..I quit my job and went into art…100%!!! Like I said most thought I was crazy… expect my Mom and Dad…they said to go for it. My Mom told me it was what I was meant to do!

What kind of kid were you? Where did you grow up? What were your influences?

I was a pretty good kid. Growing up all I wanted was baseball cards an art supplies when I was really young. When I go into late elementary and junior high…it switched to surf, baseball and art… studying wasn’t one of my hobbies!! Sports was an influence on me at a very young age. I loved the team aspect. Hanging with your friends…playing all sorts of sports and games. I had an incredible group of friends…so we were outside from morning until the street lights came on and we had to be home! It was non-stop. Huntington Beach was an outstanding place to grow up…tons of things to do… and everything was a quick bike ride away.

Your style is very unique. Did you work on developing a style or is that what naturally came out of you?

I didn’t go to art school…..so all my training came from trial and error. I swear…I learned so much at my local art supply store. I would hang there and just ask the staff what they used…why and what went with what. I found myself mixing all sorts of items to find my style. My first painting of a wave was done in Charcoal, Pastel, Acrylic, oil pastel, gouache, even some white out! I was just throwing things on a canvas to see what worked.

Eventually….I found I loved the feel of charcoal …..but didn’t love the sandy final look. That’s when I started using a lot of charcoal and brick pastels mixed together. I started grinding them up in to dust form….mixing them together and creating a great combo that allowed me to blend and fade nicely. It was a nice was to get soft blends that could be textured later. That’s the basics on how my style and technique came in to play!

Your work is mainly sports art. How did that happen?

I love sports…the competitiveness, the social aspect, the speed and action. I just love it. Before I was producing art as a job and for others….I was just painting for me!! So why not paint what you love…what you would hang in your own house!! That’s what I did. When I decided to paint for a living…..painting what you truly love helps sell it. When an artist is into his work….it makes it easy to talk with clients that have similar interests! Talking with sports fans is easy…and fun for me. It also makes it easy to show my work within the sports industry. Think about it….how could I sell a painting of landscapes or topics that have no influence on me…..it would be difficult. It wouldn’t be honest…

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Interview Excerpts: Chuck Pyle “Master Illustrator”

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artist as brand, artwork, digital painting, illustration, illustrators journal, innovation, painter, painting

Interview with Illustrator Chuck Pyle

Charles Pyle was born in Orange County, Ca., and spent most of his growing up years in Bakersfield. He always drew as a kid, for himself and friends. He did illustrations for his high school yearbook and cartoons for the spirit posters. His art heroes were in comics and especially political cartoonists, which he hoped to become.

When did you first think about art as something you wanted to do? Were you encouraged or discouraged by family, friends, teachers, mentors?

It has always been a calling. You get picked by the muse in that it sets you apart from everybody else in class. It was what I was good at, though I did not assign much value to that for a long time.

Were you encouraged or discouraged by family, friends, teachers, mentors?

A Mixed bag. Dad? No. Mom? Sort of. Teachers? Some worried about me, some encouraged me, but let me draw and paint. In junior college, my art teacher, Ray Salmon, said that I should go to art school and suggested that I visit the ones in San Francisco.

What kind of kid were you?

Painfully shy, goofball.

Where did you grow up?

Bakersfield, Ca.

What were your influences?

Mad, comics, sort of National Geographic Tom Lovell stuff, lots of books.

Your style is very uniquely classical. Did you work on developing a style or is that what naturally came out of you?

It came out of discovering Norman Rockwell and Dean Cornwell at the end of art school. Prior to that I tried many approaches to being an illustrator, which was my major. Art should feed you was my attitude.

You’ve worked in a couple different styles. One traditional and one that is more caricature. How did that evolve and was that an asset for you or a problem for art directors?

Caricature was first. I wanted to be a political cartoonist like Thomas Nast, or Pat Oliphant. I want- ed to bring Richard Nixon down. In art school, my teacher, Barbara Bradley suggested that I ‘try illus- tration’ and then spent three years broadening my horizons. The caricature side yet lives, though.

I notice you do a lot of life drawing studies. Do you do that on a regular basis?

Life drawing is key, keeping a sketchbook of the world around you is key to developing a way to process the world around you into what it needs to become in your pictures.

For the entire interview go to The Illustrators Journal 2020 Spring Edition

Life: A Tightrope Walk

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alcoholism, artist as brand, arts, digital media, drugs, illustrators journal, innovation, Levinland studio, lon levin, painting, prison, sobriety

“Life is a tightrope walk, we try to keep our balance as we move towards our goals”  Lon Levin

I know it’s a cliche and perhaps an annoyance but thoughts and goals for the New Year always seem to materialize once the ball drops in Times Square. And perhaps that’s not a bad thing. Taking stock of where you’re at and reviewing your 2013 year is a good idea. What worked? What didn’t? How much progress did you make? How can you do better?

2013 was a roller coaster ride for me. As the year started I found myself as the President of a boutique design firm (BTS Communications)  manned mostly by recovering alcoholics and drug addicts. They ages ranges from 19 to 64, some had been in prison, some had spent time in numerous rehabs and some were still using which ultimately lead to their dismissal. Surprisingly we created awesome work and most of the staff was hardworking and dedicated to their sobriety and their work. My goal was simple. Help the staff and interns progress towards their goals and teach them all that I knew about the commercial art world. I was also charged with increasing the stature and the revenue of the firm over a year’s period. On both accounts I am happy to say we succeeded.

What appealed to me was the teaching and mentoring that went on. Aside from acquiring and servicing new clients there was a pure teaching element involved. Typically we had 6-10 interns and each had a different goal and interest. The staff  and I mentored and help them with their work and their lives and most successfully completed a 6-9 month internship and went on to get outside jobs or become staff members. What I didn’t foresee is the effect it would have on me. I became a better person, friend and teacher. I saw that the struggles that people in sobriety have are the same struggles we all have. It’s not about the drugs or alcohol, it’s about decisions. Make a few bad decisions and you could find yourself in years of trouble. That I could relate to and that is what made me relate to my staff.

Together we discovered what brought us to our present positions in life and together we set goals to make our lives better. We had some spectacular breakthroughs and we had a few spectacular failures.

One of those failures involved a very likable and talented street artist who was our best and most capable intern. He was a likable 32 year old guy who had been in and out of prison and would do anything to help anyone out. After 4 or so months of working as an intern he decided to start using again. It was shortly after that he was caught using heroin in his car and taken to jail. He had broken parole and this was a third offense. I was shocked and wanted to why he threw everything he had worked for away.  I went to Santa Clarita, Ca to a holding center where he was incarcerated. I got on the bus that would carry me to his jail block with other families and individuals. I wondered how many of them were visiting for the first time like me.

When I arrived at the  barracks-type building I was escorted inside to a place where I could talk to this fellow. We were separated by a glass wall and we had to talk on a phone. I sat down and waited for him to come to our position. He was escorted by a guard to his seat. He was dressed in an orange prison jumpsuit and had a huge smile on his face when he saw me. He was excited to see me. He hadn’t had any visitors. I looked at him and asked a question that was paramount on my mind. Why did he do it? Why did he throw everything away? He told me what I’ve heard from other addicts since then. “I did it because I could”. At that moment I realized how much we had in common. All the stupid decisions in my life that I had made without batting an eye carried the same reasoning…I could do it so why not.

This is where the tightrope walk is. Preparation, thoughtfulness and setting a goal is paramount to success. Make a misstep and you’ll fall. How hard you fall is a measure of how bad your decision was.

The commercial art world is tough enough without making silly mistakes that can be avoided. The windup here is take your time to consider what your goal is and how you expect to meet it. Test your ideas out on friends and colleagues. Don’t rush into things. Choose to pursue goals that are feasible. Divide your goal into sections to keep the overall goal from overwhelming you. Monitor your success and be flexible enough to change if you need to.

Believe in yourself and do not let anyone tell you you cannot succeed. That part is up to you. I’ve witnessed many talented artists who’ve failed and many untalented artists who have succeeded and all positions in-between the two.

This from Life Coach Mark Susnow

“When we live on the side of change, we know that life is full of new possibilities. We’re curious as to what these might be.  We don’t fear or obsess about the “loose ends” because we know they are going to be there. They’re there to make sure we are fully awake. Life’s momentary setbacks or disappointments don’t’ get us down, or if they do, not for as long.

This ability to enjoy all of it, life, with all of its complexity and mystery, is the ultimate goal”

 

 

Gaming Artist Mike Cressy

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apple, artist as brand, gaming art, illustration, illustrators journal, innovation, levinland, Levinland studio, lon levin, mike cressy, painting, silicon valley, sony playstation

When it comes to gaming art, funny characters, wildly silly characters and places Mike Cressy is among the top artists in the world.

I’ve sat and watched him draw in his sketchbook and marveled at his inventiveness and sheer talent. His style is unmistakable and each and every drawing is filled with imagination and excitement. Here’s Part One of an interview I had with him.

Mike you’ve done so much in the commercial art world and been at it a long time. How do you stay motivated? Don’t you want to go off to Monet’s garden and just hang out?
It would be great to just spend time on vacation somewhere that I can enjoy just the weather, a beach … but I’m a bit of a workaholic. I’m always doing something. Rarely do I have time to my self. I’ve done that before but it’s been about 6 years since the last time I had a full time job. I’ve done 6 month contracts at Microsoft since then and now full time at Amazon but I also work on my own projects throughout the year. It leaves very little time to do anything else. Taking the time to do other things is something that refreshes me, much more so then going on vacation. But then again, if I’m on vacation with someone I’m dating then it’s a different thing. My main motivation is that life is finite and so I’m bothered that I won’t have enough time to finish all the art that I’d like to do before the whole thing comes to a crushing halt. I’m amazed that so many people don’t have that as a prime motivator. When you have such a crazy, varied journey, such as mine, then you understand your limits and try to do your best every day. Some days are better then others but there’s always that kick in the pants of mortality that I get when I wake up in the morning. Hopefully by the end of each day I’ve made good decisions about work and life.

To me your work looks fresh and not dated even though you’re a veteran illustrator. How do you keep up to date. Is that a conscious effort or is your work timeless?
Thanks. I appreciate that comment. I work hard to try and be up to date… it would be nice to be timeless but very few artists can achieve that. To that end I look at every new artist I can get my hands on. I think that at this stage in my career I can assess the truth in an artist’s work and make a judgement as weather that person’s work is something I want to work off of or use as reference. Not ripping them off in any sense but without hesitation using a certain truth or essence that I perceive in their work. That sort of thing keeps me excited about making new art and having fun doing that. I still have some pieces of art that I did in the 80s and that work looks very much of that time to me. Sometimes when I show it to some of my current art friends, they are taken aback and ask me why I still don’t do that kind of style… which was mostly realistic. Back in those days at Group West I was working side by side with legends in the illustration business. Most of them were anywhere from 20 to 45 years my senior and all of them were great. I had admired their work years before I had met them and it felt great to be there with those guys. Bill Robles, Larry Salk, Ren Wicks, Neil Boyle, Nick Galloway… all fantastic artists and I think about their work and friendship all the time. I also have made a ton of new art friends who are mostly in children’s books and the computer games world and most of them are incredible artists. All that influence helps to keep my art moving forward.

Any impact on you since the economy tanked? Have you shifted your focus to more active markets?
Of course we’ve all taken a hit when the economy bottomed and it’s still very difficult out there. Many places aren’t buying art anymore, companies are hiring in house staff to do art they used to contract out and in general things have almost ground to a halt. I had a rough year and a half with a 6 month bout in the middle where I was on contract at Microsoft on Avatar Kinect at Xbox. The market for art is constantly in flux now. You never know where to find the next job or contract. I still get some magazine work here and there and the occasional book to illustrate, but they’ve been harder and harder to come by the last few years. I had two prospects for full time work that came to me this last summer. Obviously I took the Amazon job. So far it’s been a great place to work. Also on the up side is that I have a lot of friends working there from places I’ve worked for in the past. I still keep on the look out for free lance jobs that I can do quickly on the side, but I’d rather work in my spare time on the several book projects I’m doing for myself. If the general public accepts them, perhaps I can sell some books.

More of this interview soon.

Happy Birthday Mad Magazine’s Dave Berg

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artist as brand, artwork, cartoon, cartoonist, cartoons, digital painting, drawing, illustration, illustrators journal, innovation, levinland, lon levin, Mad Magazine, painting, pen and ink, sketching

Another one of my favorite artists from my youth. An old school cartoonist with a terrific sense of humor.

Dave Berg (Brooklyn, June 12, 1920 – May 17, 2002) was an American cartoonist, most noted for his five decades of work in Mad.
Berg showed early artistic talents, attending Pratt Institute when he was 12 years old, and later studying at Cooper Union. He served a period of time in the Army Air Corps. In 1940, he joined Will Eisner’s studio, where he wrote and drew for the Quality Comics line. Berg’s work also appeared in Dell Comics and Fawcett Publications, typically on humorous back-up features. Beginning in the mid-1940s, he worked for several years with Stan Lee on comic books at Timely Comics (now known as Marvel Comics), ranging from Combat Kelly and The Ringo Kid to Tessie the Typist. He also freelanced for a half-dozen other companies, including EC Comics.

Berg began at Mad in 1956. For five years, he provided satirical looks at areas such as Little League baseball, boating and babysitting. In 1961, he started the magazine’s “Lighter Side” feature, his most famous creation. Berg would take an omnibus topic (such as “Noise,” “Spectators” or “Dog Owners”) and deliver approximately 15 short multi-panel cartoons on the subject. In later years, he dropped the one-topic approach. Berg often included caricatures of his own family, headed by his cranky, hypochondriac alter-ego, Roger Kaputnik, as well as the Mad editorial staff. His artistic style made Berg one of the more realistic Mad artists, although his characters managed to sport garish early-1970s wardrobes well into the 1990s. The art chores for a 1993 article, “The First Day of School 30 Years Ago and Today” were split between Berg and Rick Tulka, since Berg’s old-fashioned appeal made him an ideal choice to depict the gentle nostalgia of 1963. The artist’s lightweight gags and sometimes moralistic tone were roughly satirized by the National Lampoon’s 1971 Mad parody, which included a hard-hatted conservative and a longhaired hippie finding their only common ground by choking and beating Berg. However, “The Lighter Side” had a long run as the magazine’s most popular feature. Mad editor Nick Meglin often did layouts of “Lighter Side” panels. Sixteen original collections by Berg were published as paperbacks between 1964 and 1987.
Berg held an honorary doctorate in theology. He produced regular religious-themed work for Moshiach Times and the B’nai Brith newsletter. His interaction with Mad’s atheist publisher Bill Gaines was suitably irreverent: Berg would tell Gaines, “God bless you,” and Gaines would reply, “Go to Hell.” Berg’s other work included the comic strips Citizen Senior (1989–93), Roger Kaputnik (1992) and Astronuts (1994).
His characters occasionally made their way into other artists’ works, such as Kaputnik finding himself a patient in a Mort Drucker spoof of St. Elsewhere, tagged “with apologies to Dave Berg”.
Berg contributed to Mad until his death, a total of 46 years. His last set of “Lighter Side” strips, which had been written but not penciled, were illustrated after Berg’s death by 18 of Mad’s other artists as a final tribute; this affectionate send-off included the magazine’s final new contribution from Jack Davis. In recent years, Berg’s Lighter Side strips have been rewritten for Mad with inappropriately “un-Berg-like” humor by long time Mad writer Dick DeBartolo and others; this irregular feature is called “The Darker Side of the Lighter Side.

Happy Birthday Ben Nicholson

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abstract art, artist as brand, British artist, digital media, illustration, illustrators journal, innovation, lon levin, modern art, painting, social media, technology, this week in digital media on blogtalk radio

I love the raw nature and the very systematic way Ben mixes it together. His work is more about the painting than the materials although seeing the sketching on raw canvas is a peek into his process. AS fresh today as it was sixty years ago.

Nicholson, OM (10 April 1894 – 6 February 1982) was a British painter of abstract compositions (sometimes in low relief), landscape and still-life.

His first notable work was following a meeting with the playwright J. M. Barrie on holiday in Rustington, Sussex in 1904. As a result of this meeting, Barrie used a drawing by Nicholson as the base for a poster for the play Peter Pan; his father William designed some of the sets and costumes.

Nicholson was exempted from World War I military service due to asthma. He travelled to New York in 1917 for an operation on his tonsils, then visited other American cities, returning to Britain in 1918. Before he returns, Nicholson’s mother dies in July of influenza and his brother Anthony Nicholson is killed in action.

From 1920 to 1933, he was married to the painter Winifred Nicholson and lived in London. After Nicholson’s first exhibition of figurative works in London in 1922, his work began to be influenced by Synthetic Cubism, and later by the primitive style of Rousseau. In 1926, he became chair of the Seven and Five Society.

In London, Nicholson met the sculptors Barbara Hepworth (to whom he was married from 1938 to 1951) and Henry Moore. On visits to Paris he met Mondrian, whose work in the neoplastic style was to influence him in an abstract direction, and Picasso, whosecubism would also find its way into his work. His gift, however, was the ability to incorporate these European trends into a new style that was recognizably his own. He first visited St Ives, Cornwall in 1928 with his fellow painter Christopher Wood, where he met the fisherman and painter, Alfred Wallis. In Paris in 1933 he made his first wood relief, White Relief, which contained only right angles and circles. In 1937 he was one of the editors of Circle, an influential monograph on constructivism. He believed that abstract art should be enjoyed by the general public, as shown by the Nicholson Wall, a mural he created for the garden of Sutton Place in Guildford, Surrey. In 1943 he joined the St. Ives Society of Artists. A retrospective exhibition of his work was shown at the Tate Galleryin London in 1955.

Nicholson married the photographer Felicitas Vogler in 1957 and moved to Castagnola, Switzerland, in 1958. In 1968 he received the British Order of Merit (OM). In 1971 he separated from Vogler and moved to Cambridge. In 1977 they divorced.

Nicholson died in London on 6 February 1982, and was cremated at Golders Green cemetery. His ashes were scattered over Golders Green Cemetery in the absence of instructions from his family, so there is no grave.

Some of Nicholson’s works can be seen at the Tate Gallery, Tate St Ives, Kettle’s Yard Art Gallery in Cambridge, and The Hepworth Wakefield. His auction record is $1,650,500, set at Christie’s, New York, for Sept 53 (Balearic), an oil and pencil on canvas, on 1 November, 2011

For more

Happy Birthday Max Ernst

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artist as brand, artwork, dali, De Chirico, Ernst, illustrators journal, innovation, nudes, painter, painting, sketching, surrealism, this week in digital media on blogtalk radio

One of my favorite artists who has greatly influenced a lot of my most personal work. Truly an original thinker and painter.

Max Ernst (2 April 1891 – 1 April 1976) was a German painter, sculptor, graphic artist, and poet. A prolific artist, Ernst was one of the primary pioneers of the Dada movement and Surrealism.Ernst was born on April 2, 1891, in Brühl, near Cologne, the third of nine children of a middle-class Catholic family. His father Philipp Ernst was a teacher of the deaf and dumb and an amateur painter. A devout Christian and a strict disciplinarian, he inspired in his son a penchant for defying authority, while his interest in painting and sketching in nature influenced Max Ernst to take up painting himself.[1] In 1909 Ernst enrolled in the University of Bonn, studying philosophy, art history, literature, psychology and psychiatry. He visited asylums and became fascinated with the art of the mentally ill patients; he also started painting this year, producing sketches in the garden of the Brühl castle and portraits of his sister and himself. In 1911 Ernst befriended August Macke and joined his Die Rheinischen Expressionisten group of artists, deciding to become an artist. In 1912 he visited the Sonderbund exhibition in Cologne, where works by Pablo Picasso and post-Impressionists such as Vincent Van Gogh and Paul Gauguin profoundly influenced his approach to art. His own work was exhibited the same year together with that of the Das Junge Rheinland group, at Galerie Feldman in Cologne, and then in several group exhibitions in 1913.
In 1914 Ernst met Hans Arp in Cologne. The two soon became friends and their relationship lasted for fifty years. After Ernst completed his studies in the summer, his life was interrupted by World War I. Ernst was drafted and served both on the Western and the Eastern front. Such was the devastating effect of the war on the artist that in his autobiography he referred to his time in the army thus: “On the first of August 1914 M[ax].E[rnst]. died. He was resurrected on the eleventh of November 1918.” However, for a brief period on the Western front, Ernst’s position was charting maps, which allowed him to continue painting.

In 1938, the American heiress and artistic patron Peggy Guggenheim acquired a number of Max Ernst’s works which she displayed in her new museum in London. Ernst and Peggy Guggenheim were also married to one another from 1942 to 1946. Also in 1938 he was interned in Camp des Milles, near Aix-en-Provence, along with fellow surrealist, Hans Bellmer, who had recently emigrated to Paris on the outbreak of World War II. Thanks to the intercession of Paul Éluard and other friends, including the journalist Varian Fry, he was discharged a few weeks later. Soon after the Nazi occupation of France, he was arrested again, this time by the Gestapo, but managed to escape and flee to America with the help of Guggenheim. He left behind his lover, Leonora Carrington, and she suffered a major mental breakdown. Ernst and Guggenheim arrived in the United States in 1941 and were married the following year. Along with other artists and friends (Marcel Duchamp and Marc Chagall) who had fled from the war and lived in New York City, Ernst helped inspire the development of Abstract expressionism.
His marriage to Guggenheim did not last, and in Beverly Hills, California in October 1946, in a double ceremony with Man Ray and Juliet P. Browner, he married Dorothea Tanning. The couple first made their home in Sedona, Arizona. In 1948 Ernst wrote the treatise Beyond Painting. As a result of the publicity, he began to achieve financial success.
In 1953 he and Tanning moved to a small town in the south of France where he continued to work. The City, and the Galeries Nationales du Grand-Palais in Paris published a complete catalogue of his works. In 1966 he created a chess set made of glass which he named “Immortel”; it has been described by the poet André Verdet as “a masterpiece of bewitching magic, worthy of a Maya palace or the residence of a Pharaon”.
Ernst died on 1 April 1976 in Paris. He was interred at the Père Lachaise Cemetery.

Source:Wikipedia

A Sneak Peek At Roxie Munro’s Interview

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apps, cartoonist, digital media, digital painting, drawing, games, gaming, illustration, illustrators journal, innovation, marijuana, mazes, Milton Glaser, painter, painting, Roxie munro, social media, this week in digital media on blogtalk radio

Do you have a process for conceiving of ideas or do they happen spontaneously through your own interaction with your art or someone else’s injection into the process?

 A creation doesn’t come out of whole cloth but develops in a sort of logical way out of previous work – none of these books or paintings would come into being without the earlier works. Many artist’s work evolves in this way…. you go through the processes, pay your dues   – you graduate into ideas. Creativity doesn’t always come on demand – often ideas happen and problems are solved after you have been thinking about or playing with concepts for some time. Ideas don’t just pop into your mind without being nurtured along the way in other ways, consciously or not.

It is in a way the culmination, a pulling together, of other ideas explored in one’s work… a progression.  Each creation builds upon the ones that have gone before. The aha!!, the idea, is almost an end, as well as a beginning.

What is your process for working?  Do you use scrap? or is it all out of your head?

For books, apps, magazine covers, or paintings, I usually start with  a really loose sloppy thumbnail, whether it is based upon an actual NYC cityscape, or something in a book, like a dinosaurs or a bird, and even the mazes.

MORE TO COME IN THE SPRING EDITION OF THE ILLUSTRATORS JOURNAL OUT NEXT WEEK!

Shrimp Flyers

Tags

abstract art, artist as brand, artwork, digital media, digital painting, drawing, illustrators journal, marijuana, nudes, painting, technology

In this world I’ve come up with I need flying vehicles so this is what I came up with. I kind of like the organic feel they have. They remind me of the vehicles from Buckaroo Banzai (an old movie I worked on when I was just starting out. Not sure where all thjis is heading but I’m thinking a scene, a vignette… but I need a main character. So I’ll work on it tonight and tomorrow we’ll see what i come up with.