Happy Fourth of July!




Day By Day

UPDATE: Maggie's Farm has posted a large quote from The Declaration of Independence with links to the full text and the other charters of our country.

Another New Sketch



the Burden of the Prophets, Modern Theology Series
Watercolor on Paper, 8x10 inches © 2008 MJAndrade

Modern Theology, its critique and its results are turning out to be a fertile ground for painting concepts.

More on this as it comes...

Bobby Does Not Read



I had previously blogged about the work of Len Cowgill. He is a wonderful artist, and a very generous man.

I am very grateful to be able to say that his work is far more amazing in person than in photos.



Hmmmm.... I guess this makes me a collector as well as an artist.

New Books for a New Year

Recent acquisitions, some for reading, some just a artistic reference;

From Dover Books

Philosophy and Civilization in the Middle Ages by Maurice DeWulf

Form and Design in Classic Architecture by Arthur Stratton

A Manual of Historic Ornament by Richard Glazier

Masterpieces of Medieval Open Timber Roofs by Raphael Brandon & J. Arthur Brandon

Great Bridges: From Ancient Times to the Twentieth Century by Wilbur J. Watson

Book of Old-Time Trades and Tools Anonymous

And the following condensed from the writings of Leonardo da Vinci

A Treatise on Painting

Leonardo on Art and the Artist

Leonardo on the Human Body

and The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci, Vol. 1 and Vol. 2

For those of you interested in da Vinci, Dover has a wide selection of books and CD Rom image collections that include his work.

This probably means that I will re-read Kenneth Clark's excellent biography Leonardo da Vinci, which was one of last year's books.

There are a number of books that were purchased or given to me last year that I need to read or finish;

Edward Hopper (Exhibition Catalogue) which includes excellent biographical information and several essays.

The Ten Books on Architecture by Vitruvius. I have been reading through this, and it was fairly easy going, up until the section on acoustics....

Joseph Cornell: Shadowplay . . . Eterniday from the show last summer at The Peabody Essex Museum

I'm planning to post some thoughts on the Hopper and Cornell books later on.

Amazing Progression of a Painting

TheARTDEPARTMENT provides an amazing series of images of the progression of a painting by David Bowers. I haven't checked TheARTDEPARTMENT in a while, my bad. For those of you unfamiliar, it's a blog run by Irene Gallo, the art director for Tor, Forge, and Starscape Books. I'm glad I didn't miss this.

The progression actually goes clockwise, so don't be confused by the order. Click on the images for larger versions.

This is great stuff, and I love to see how artists build up their work from beginning to end. I post progressions at my Flickr site. The figurative work of David Bowers is truly wonderful. It's great to get an insight into his process.

This image was featured on the cover of Spectrum 12: The Best in Contemporary Fantastic Art, an annual of fantastic art and illustration.


Oh, I need to browse through my art-blog bookmarks more....

Amazing Progression of a Painting

TheARTDEPARTMENT provides an amazing series of images of the progression of a painting by David Bowers. I haven't checked TheARTDEPARTMENT in a while, my bad. I'm glad I didn't miss this.

(The progression actually goes clockwise, so don't be confused by the order. Click on the images for larger versions.)

This is great stuff, and I love to see how artists build up their work from beginning to end. I post progressions of my own at my Flickr site. The figurative work of David Bowers is truly wonderful. It's a treat to get some insight into his process.

This image from David Bower's website was featured on the cover of Spectrum 12: The Best in Contemporary Fantastic Art, an annual of fantastic art and illustration.


Oh, I need to browse through my art-blog bookmarks more....

I had the pork chop

Children's Lessons for Adults



Dr. Suess political cartoon August 13, 1941


For those who think that there is no real fascist threat from the minority radical strains of Islam, a lesson of history from the good Doctor.

Appealing to the good intentions of those who have admitted their goals of wiping Israel off the map and killing as many Americans and other westerners as they can is impossible. Those who choose to believe such an appeal is possible need a children's author to explain reality to them, since they seem unwilling to listen to adult sources.

H/T Charles Johnson via Sissy Willis.



Dr. Suess political cartoon July 3rd, 1941

Treasures of Yellowstone National Park













These are some of the images from a souvenir book by Haynes Inc. Yellowstone Park, Wyoming (according to the back cover) that my Great Grandfather Andrew picked up on his trip west to see his brother Alfred in San Fransisco sometime in the '20s. I'd had the book for a while, but hadn't looked at it, expecting the typical black and white illustrations of the time. Instead, it had eighteen gorgeous lithographs, on a linen textured paper. Except for a small stain on the cover, the book is in excellent shape, and looks as though it has hardly been handled.

the etchings of James Skvarch













I came across this site through the ever diligent and ever digging BibliOddessey in one of his blog posts/arcana dumps. Skvarch sites Piranesi as an inspiration. Piranesi is also one of my favorite artists.

Go take a look at Skvarch's work, and bookmark BibliOdessey while you are at it.

I have been having a lot of fun with Flickr, our new camera (a Kodak EasyShare C533) and my new scanner (an Epson Perfection 4990 Pro).

The latest project has been to photograph and download illustrations from some old books I got my hands on recently.

The following are from "Gems of Art" which apears to be an annual of 'the Magazine of Art.' Judging from the dates of attribute for the engravings, and a bio of a recently deceased (at that time) artist, I would place the date of publication somewhere in mid 1891.

Here are some samples from the over 375 illustrations.

Head of a Prophet



copyright 2006 MJAndrade

From a piece in the Boston Museum of Fine Art, sandstone c.1300 origionally from Strasbourg (possibly the Gallery of Kings).

Memento Mori


drawing of coyote skull, copyright 2006 MJ Andrade

Other sketches here, here and here

Previous Memento Mori here and here

Sketching

Going through my old sketchbooks I found this...


head of a young woman, after Michelangelo, copyright 2004 MJAndrade

I had done this in a sketching session with a private student I had two summers ago. Looking at it I realized that it is the only piece of sketch-work I had done in years just for the sake of sketching. All of my drawing has been subservient to my painting projects. It really felt like I had lost my chops. Yesterday I did the 'Deacon' of the previous post. Now I've decided to sketch every day for at least an hour. Below are the most recent. I will post new ones (of quality) as they are finished.


Head from the Gallery of Kings, Notre Dame, Paris - copyright 2006 MJAndrade - #2 5mm lead on paper with dark sketching lead


the Prophet Haggai, copyright 2006 MJAndrade - Gioconda conte pencils on paper

Sketch of "Statuette of Deacon"




































This is a sketch done with a #2, 5mm mechanical lead pencil, with shadows touched up in charcoal. The subject is from the collections of the Museum of Fine Art, Boston, and rendered from a photo-illustration in the book 'Medieval Objects in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Metalwork" by Nancy Netzer. The statuette is from the Low Countries c.1450-1500 of leaded lattan (50.7% copper, 13.8% zinc, 31% lead, 2.6% tin, and 1.9% antimony) and stands 8 7/16th inches high. Sketch is copyright 2006 by MJ Andrade

Vintage Mazda Lamp Advertisements







These are printed on heavy card stock, I think they were part of a calendar.

Please note that these may still be subject to copyright by the estate of Maxfield Parrish (and its agents) or GE or both.

Vintage Swedish Postcards
















































































These are some of the many vintage postcards from my Mom's side (the Swedish side) of the family. There are seventy-four in all, dating from between 1900 and the 1930's

You really should browse through BibliOdyssey.

Their four most recent posts cover illustrations by Franz Stassen from 1899,



The Book of Examples,



Costume History,



and Comparative Mammalian Anatomy,



I hope they don't mind my purloining some of their hard-found research. Don't settle for the measily amount I have here. BibliOdyssey always has a huge amount of beautiful and arcane imagery.

More Book Madness; Reviewing Dover Publications softcover editions of Giovanni Battista Piranesi's The Prisons (Le Carceri) and Hans Holbein the Younger's The Dance of Death.



Dover Publications has been in business since 1941, providing and reb]producing historic books on all subjects at reasonable prices. I purchased my first Dover Books in high school, some of Bridgman's Anatomy books, back in the late 70's, but I seem to remember some in the family library before then as well. For well used paperbacks these have held excellently, and I have even leant them out to drawing students from time-to-time.

Last year I ordered several books on art from Dover, inclucing The Dance of Death and The Prisons. Both of these books are lovely, and the images are reproduced with great care.



The Prisons (Le Carceri) may be the most complete reproduction of this series of etchings bu Piranesi that is available. Both series one and series two etchings are included, and all are printed at 60% of origional size (which makes them about 9 X 13 inches). The images are stunning, bringing to mind fantastical opera sets or the type of grandiose locations that Spielberg or Peter Jackson might create if they remade "Nosferatu." The sixteen plates, in both 'First State' and 'Second State' versions show imaginary dungeons, prisons and vast laberinths of stairs balconies and galleries that would be fitting for Dante's Inferno.

The Dance of Death is a complete view of Hans Holbein the Younger's 41 Woodcuts, in a complete facsimile of the original 1538 French edition. The plates are printed with the orgional Latin captions, and then again with modern English. Unfortunately the plates are rather small, being only 2 x 2 1/2 inches. I do not believe the originals were so small, but I may be mistaken. Also the origional essays that accompanied the original prints are not translated. This is unfortunate, but as an artist I find the book well worth having in spite of this. The woodcuts are simply wonderful.



I highly recommend Dover Books to anyone looking for reprintings of older references, and especially for specialty art references. For anyone interested in the Art History or 'fantastic' art, I would strongly recommend The Prisons and The Dance of Death.


Giovanni Battista Piranesi, The Prisons (Le Carceri) ISBN 0-486-21540-7 $18.95 US

The Dance of Death, 41 Woodcuts by Hans Holbein the Younger ISBN 0-486-22894-5 $8.95 US

Teaser

These are two sketches for an upcoming painting...



images copyright 2005 MJ Andrade