HARRY BECKHOFF

Harry Beckhoff (1901-1979) began his pictorial compositions with small sketches that were almost literally thumbnail in size. These tiny drawings contained all of the information needed for the final rendering- even down to facial expressions. He then pantographed the drawing, about five times larger, and inked in the outlines. The tonal or color areas were painted in in flat washes.

Beckhoff describes his work as having been influenced by the French illustrators Martin, Brissaud and Marty. He also cited his teachers, George Bridgman, Dean Cornwell and Harvey Dunn for their encouragement and training.

Beckhoff  worked for many periodicals including Reader's Digest, Saturday Evening Post, but he was most closely associated with the wonderful Broadway characters he drew to illustrate Damon Runyon's famous stories which ran for many years in Colliers. (He shared a similar association with the P.D. Wodehouse characters Jeeves and Wooster in the same magazine.)

(The above transcribed from Walt Reed's wonderful book on The Illustrator in America . A must for anyone truly interested in the field. If you aren't, you should also be aware of Illustration House:
http://www.illustrationhouses.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/exhib/a45/a45pages/a45_054.html)

(One of Beckhoff's tiny crowd drawings and the revision.)

 Beckhoff continues in the tradition that runs from Hans Holbien to Alex Toth, of exceptional artists who seem to produce drawings with both a simplicity and spontaneity that belies the careful planning and effort.  And in Beckhoff's case, the humorous subject matter off undercuts the depth of the material he created.

 

 His preparation for an illustration was meticulous. He would first create a his tiny thumbnail. I would love to use the adjective "rough" here, but often the these drawings were as complete as the finish. You see this a lot in Bob Peak's work, but his preliminaries were never that small. The closest thing I've seen to what Beckhoff did was Alphonse Mucha's drawings done in a 3" x 5" Moleskin sketchbook for the lifesize produced theater posters of Sarah Bernhardt; you could see every line in this huge poster in this very small sketch.

Sometimes his preliminaries would be in the form of a watercolor, or more often,
color pencil drawing. If unsatisfied with the composition, he would then cut up the drawing and move the elements around to refine the picture. Or he might add or adjust elements using tracing paper overlays. But before he jumped into creating the final illustration, the majority of the thinking work was completed. What followed was technique.

(This guy even made golf look fun.)

 Once he had blown up the drawings using a projector, he would create an ink line drawing. On top of this he would lay in washes of tone and color. It was a process used by Dorne, Fawcett and many other illustrators. At any rate, the spectacular finished illustration always seemed to be produced with a ho-hum and a wave of the hand. Nothing could be further from the truth.

(Beckhoff's working method is described much more accurately and completely in Fred Taraba's wonderful book, Masters of American Illustration, 41 Illustrators and How They Worked. Like the Walt Reed book, it's a must for any student of the craft. And if you are ever looking to purchase illustrations originals, you definitely want to visit Fred's website: http://www.tarabaillustrationart.com/

 

EGYPTIAN LARVA

 One of the great things about living in LA is the absolutely incredible late evening drawing workshops that Jennifer Fabos puts together. I've been to several of these over the years and they never fail to be a source of entertainment, great socializing, and getting the creative juices flowing. One of my Retrowood stories, Gypsy Twins, originated in one of these sessions when two of my favorite models, Sara and Cassandra posed at Siamese twins. But I think this is the first time I've actually come up with a painting.

(These were the sketches of Larva drawn during the Turkish Delight workshop.)

 The workshop was called Turkish Delights, but since ancient Egypt is currently my focus these days, I used trappings from that environment for my reference. The model was the lovely and appropriately exotic Larva La Larva, whom I've only had the opportunity to draw a couple times, but I'm hoping there are many more sketch sessions to follow.  What really helped were the photos taken by master photographer Greg Autry . For my approach to painting, I really need something more than a 20-30 minute sketch to capture all the nuances of the model. Photo reference is really essential to me. Thanks, Greg! And my thanks to you, Larva!

(Photos by Greg Autry  https://www.facebook.com/pages/Greg-Autry-Art-Photo/262689913797400 )

(Some of my reference. Odd, I've used the kitty drawing in the upper left a number of times and just now noticed my little Repo peering out on the left side.)

Once I had the chance to digest the material I came up with a quick little rough of what I wanted to do with the illustration . Using the myriad of Egypt reference and cat photos I have around, I worked out the basic composition combining it with Greg's photo.

(In my sketchbooks after I do a drawing in class, I'm usually adding to it to create an interesting composition on the page. The doodle on  the left was the rough for a drawing used in last week's blog.)

 The next step is to produce a fairly detailed pencil drawing on a piece of illustration board.I adjust whatever I think is needed in the composition so that it reads quickly and clearly. Things are added and rearranged until it seems to work. There are no right answers, although there are certainly plenty of wrong ones.

Once I have the drawing worked out and finished, I  mask off the working area and tape it down to a piece of masonite. I then do a quick watercolor wash over the entire illustration so that I have something to work against. Next I start the linework working in acrylic paint. At this stage I use french ultramarine blue, cadmium red light and burnt umber to create a dark line for the objects and furnishings, and a warmer,lighter reddish brown for the flesh. Then I apply washes of a combination of these three colors to create the shadows. This was a system used by a lot of the illustrators that I admire such as Robert Fawcett and Albert Dorne, except they tended to use colored inks and dyes since acrylic paint was still in its infancy. (If you aren't familiar with the Famous Artist's course you should check it out. It's the best compilation I've ever seen on drawing and storytelling.)

To create as much mood as possible, I continue to add more shadow. I use the photo of the model as the basis of the lighting source and try and keep it consistent with the figure.

Using the strongest darks and opaque white I'm finally finished with the painting as a tonal study.

 

While I don't produce finished digital paintings, I do use Photoshop where ever I can both for shortcuts and safety. In this case, before laying on the finished color I tried to work as much out with layers to see what combinations worked best. 

Adding the color to the work is less labor intensive for me than the tonal process, but I've found it's never as simple as just washing a color over a section. Each color has different degrees of transparency and opacity, and with each wash you have to readjust slightly your tonal work. The last bit of work is working strictly opaque and adding highlights to the entire piece.

Next time I run through this process with another recent painting where I tried adjusting the order of the steps...adding on all my darks and light on top of the color. See you then.

AGENT 88 Screening

Dear 88,

JUNE 6th
7pm til 8:30 ARTISTS SIGNING ( Artists need to arrive at 6:30 )
8:30pm AGENT 88 OUTDOOR SCREENING
9:00pm LIVE MUSICAL PERFORMANCE BY KATIE COLE
9:45pm AGENT 88 SECOND OUTDOOR SCREENING


You're all the best- thanks again for being involved in this social experiment. :)

Petra Gallerie

1151 South Robertson ,

Beverly Hills, California 90035

Love and Rockets,

Digger and Jan


Hey everybody, I'm back! Hopefully I'll be posting on a little more regular basis.

Last year I had the opportunity to help out and do a drawing for a project called Agent 88,  a short film produced and directed by Digger T. Mesch and Jan Utstein-O'Neill. As part of a promotional book for the film pinups were done by myself and a dozens of other artists  including Kevin Eastman, Anthony Diecidue, Tim Burgard, Bill Morrison, Dan Panosian…and so many others. If you're in the LA area, definitely stop by and pick up a signed copy. I'll be signing books and prints at both the June 6th and June 20th events.

Above is the pinup I did for Agent 88. One of the "small world"  bits is that the bald bruiser with the hatpin in his head was played by Joe Gatt in the film. Joe has been the model at a  number of life drawing session I've attended, and is featured in the latest Thor and Star Trek epics.

(A drawing of Joe and the loverly Amy Pigg from life drawing class.)

This is  the "Free Comic Day in France" page I did of Lori and J. Parker Wrighte  for editor Xavier Lancel. Xavier has run a number of articles and interviews with me in his excellent magazine Scarce. He assures me they are very flattering, but since I can't read French I don't know. He seems to use the phrase un idiot complet a lot. More on Xavier at:

http://www.bleedingcool.com/2013/02/06/scarce-magazine-at-angouleme-for-bleeding-cool/

And here are a couple of promotional pinups I've done for Ryan Davis's projects, Stray Dogs and Velvet Glove. The latter came with the instructions, do anything as long as it includes something with Rondo Hatten. More on these at:

 http://www.facebook.com/l/BAQF8LO3iAQG7MfEQp7a_eJP3yjWH8ogJ46nXHlao-a0fQQ/www.pulpcult.net

Next an update on the new Retrowood Graphic Novel: All Roads Lead to Rome, coming this summer from Asylum Press. For the Retrowood and Lori Lovecraft books visit them online at:

http://www.asylumpress.com/titles/retrowood/

 http://www.comixology.com/Lori-Lovecraft/comics-series/9673

Also coming soon from Asylum is a compilation of all the Voodoo Mansion stories by myself and Pete Ventrella. The cover with Horatio and Zelda is featured below.

 

Riversive Art Center Show

For any of you folks in the Detroit/AnnArbor area, I have a few pieces that are appearing in a show opening tomorrow night. Stop in if you have the time and inclination.
       
March RAC Exhibit



Artist Reception:
Friday, March 1, 5-7pm
Exhibit Dates:  Feb 28 - Mar 23, 2013

Who doesn’t love a cartoon that makes you laugh
or is thought provoking? 
At one time or another we have all been captured by comics.
We love the powerful combination of pictures and text.
This is an exhibit for everyone!
Participating Michigan Artists:  Dave Coverly, Bruce Gerlach, Phoebe Gloeckner, Birgit Keil, Tony Miello, Mike Pascale, Nate Pride, Jesse Rubenfeld, Harley Schwadron, BK Taylor, Mike Vosburg,
Aaron Warner and Gale Williams.


Riverside Arts Center
                     76 N Huron Street                 
Ypsilanti, MI  48197

734-480-ARTS (2787)         www.riversidearts.org

Azrael Aftermath

For those of you interested in the process of how a comicbook story is put together here is a look at my start to finish approach. This is an Azreal story that appeared in Showcase #94, Sept. 1994….geez, that's almost twenty years ago.

I hadn't realized I worked with Alan Grant until I looked at the credits today. Interesting story. Working off his script I turned the story into a series of thumbnail pages where I worked out the staging, composition, and even a good bit of the lighting. The advantage of working off a script is that you know how much copy is going to cover the drawings, and you have the option/responsibility of placing them in as part of the composition.

Next I did a rough pencil pass at the story and did all the hard work of drawing. If there were photos being used (as in the flashback 'Nam sequences) I just made a notation on the page. I was lucky enough then to be working with a talented lad named Paul Hewett who did all the backgrounds for me on this job. As a reward, I cast him as the young tough in the skull baseball hat that Azrael threatens at the end of the story. (Hey Paul, if you're out there, I hope life is treating you well. Drop by sometime.)I got to play the legless wino veteran, which is as close as I ever got to the army. I seem to never get tired of using myself as a model.

These pages were traced off onto boards and passed onto the inker, Ron McCain. Kenny Bruzenak, one of the truly most talented letterers in the business did his part. I'm not familiar with Dave Hornung, but I really loved the muted coloring on this job, and the monochromatic pages he did with flashbacks. I was quite happy when they reprinted this in the compilation book, Batman Knightfall last year. And hey, I even get a royalty check somewhere down the line.

And a bit of a postscript to this story. After I got the art back from DC, I lent all the material shown on in this blog to a friend in Portland to use in an art class.  I of course forgot about the stuff when I didn't hear back for a long while. Years later when I was working on one of the Narnia movies in New Zealand, I would up at a comic convention in Aukland where I ran into the teacher's ex-husband who was now living in Australia and we chatted a bit. A month of two later after I got back to sunny LA, I get a package one day with all of this artwork in it….a nice little surprise. I've enjoyed looking at it again; if anyone is interested in buying the package as a lot, make me an offer.