This Mystery's For You

For those of you that have followed me lo these many years, you know of my love of vintage advertising.  It's been a while, but in those early years, I would even scan all the ads from vintage magazines and post here.

I was at an estate sale a few weekends ago and came across this original painting:

The Shadow Man

I found this original pen and ink drawing at a garage sale over the summer.  No context other than I believe it's an illustration for a newspaper, specifically, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch. I have no idea what's going on here. I probably don't want to know.  The stains add a level of disturbance.

Paint by Blunder

I was a fairly good artist as a kid, or at least I thought so.  I did a lot of pencil drawing, mainly of superheroes like Spider-man or my own cartoon creations. So you'd think a paint by number kit would be a cinch, even an insult to my artistic abilities.  I received one of Snoopy and Woodstock for my birthday when I was about 11.  I recall the painting had them sitting on a bench, wrapped in a  red blanket holding a flag that said "Rah".  Doing a quick Google search, I was able to identify the exact kit.

Courtesy of collectpeanuts.com

The Grass Isn't Always Greener

This child's drawing, obviously for the Halloween season, was stuck in with the Witch die cut I posted yesterday. It's hard to say if it was made as a school art project, or just fun at home, but I love it.

You're So Vain, You Probably Think This Blog is About You

I found this print at an estate sale a couple weeks ago for $1.  I've seen the image before, but never knew much about it. The title is "All is Vanity" and it's by Charles Allan Gilbert.

Sketchy Art

I'm admittedly out of my element when appraising art, but I've seen enough Antique Roadshows to know that if you find original art for under $10, you're typically not going to lose money. This piece caught my eye at a garage sale this morning and was marked $3.  (Warning, I struggled getting decent photos with the flash on or off).

What's in a Name?

It's not often that I get more mileage out of the same find, but the cache of photographs I found of Shirley White proved even more interesting when I began researching the photographer who took them.

Any Inkling?

I was at an estate sale earlier this summer and saw this sitting on a shelf.

It's ink on paper and sandwiched between a piece of glass and heavy cardboard.  It's held together with a frame of black tape. It only measures approximately 6" by 3.5", but something about it called to me.  Maybe the simplicity of the silhouette rendering, the quaintness of the scene of two children playing with a sailboat in a creek, or maybe the 1931 vintage placing this squarely in the depression.

Given the graceful execution of the drawing, I was a little confused by the askew signature.   Maybe just following the flow of the creek?

I tried to do some research on the artist, but with a name like "Beacon" it's a little hard to separate Google results of paintings of beacons and paintings by Beacon.  More than likely, Beacon is an unknown.  Just someone's relative who had a talent with pen and ink.

How about it all you artist types out there (and you know who you are)? Were pen and ink silhouette drawings popular during this period?  What is this style of art called? And has anyone ever heard of the mysterious Beacon?

Learning to Draw

When I was young, I wanted to be an artist. More specifically, I wanted to be an artist for Marvel Comics. My older brother was an artist, and I found inspiration from the pictures he would draw. My earliest attempts at heroic anatomy where typified by swipes from comic book covers drawn by legendary greats such as Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko and John Romita. Outside of copying the styles of others, I really had no guidance in developing my skills.

Around the age of 13, I discovered a show in the Saturday morning television lineup called "Drawing Power".  All-but-forgotten, it featured an imaginery staff of cartoonists including the never-quite-made-it comedian Lenny Schultz. Each week brought the further adventures of Dewey Decimal, The Golden Turkey awards, and other animated antics. Presented to you, always of course, with a very important lesson. I followed along with my drawing pad, developing my own cartoon characters, but the show never really did spend time teaching artistic concepts.

Several years later, I came across the great Bob Ross on PBS. I spent a half hour every Saturday afternoon marvelling at his broad strokes from which mountains, streams and forests sprang. I even bought the official Bob Ross art kit, but could never match the scenes brought to life through his phthalo blues and burnt umbers. Alas, my paints dried up along with my dreams of becoming an artist.

Long before Bob Ross' "Happy Tree" was even a content acorn hanging from its mother's branch, there was Jon Gnagy.

I'd never heard of Jon Gnagy until this past Friday when at an estate sale in Mehlville I came across an interesting box which begged exploring.