Michael Sporn Animation – Splog

- Bill Peckmann has sent me an incredible cache of photostats. These are watercolor paintings Rowland B. Wilson did while working for Disney. There are two groups of paintings: one for The Hunchback of Notre Dame, one for Hercules.

These were all inspirational sketches, and they’re all extremely long. Consequently, I’m posting them in batches. The first comes from Hunchback, and I’ll post the full sized image, then break each down into a couple of parts so that you can appreciate the incredible detail Rowland did in these things.

I hope you enjoy them.

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More of the Hunchback paintings to come next week.

Many many thanks to Bill Peckmann for sharing these glorious images.

- Wallace Tripp‘s illustrations have gotten a bit of attention here, so Bill Peckmann followed up his other pieces with a row of book covers that Tripp illustrated between 1972 and 1999. (There are many other books not included here, but these are plenty to give an idea of the man’s scope and range.)

Many thanks to Bill Peckmann for putting these all together.

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1973

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1981
Front cover

Back cover

1982

1985
Front cover

Back cover

The guy sitting at the dest at the top of this page of
Marguerite is a self-caricature of Wallace Tripp.

1990

1999

- Last week I posted the first half of this book by Edward Lear of his Nonsense poems which was illustrated by Keith Ward. There’s not a lot known about Ward, however I did receive a nice email from Wilbert Plijnaar
which gave me a couple of links and some info. I’ll post that letter at the bottom of the post.

Here’s the rest of the book thanks to the gracious generosity of Bill Peckmann.

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The back inner illustration

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The book’s back cover.

Here’s that email, from Wilbert Plijnaar:

A few years back fellow story board artist Harry Sabin allowed me
to make copies of a book he had (then) recently purchased ,
illustrated by Keith Ward : “Reynard the Fox”

I was so impressed by the Disneyesq / Walt Kelly- ish, style I found it impossible to believe the artist wasn’t more well known in animation circles.
I showed copies on the Cartoon Retro – and Dutch comic maker blog (both gone) for more information. We found there are many illustrators named Keith Ward , who all have different styles.
Through intensive mouse clicking I was led to some advertising illustrations that looked to be from the same artist ( see below) , learned Ward was amongst other , responsible for the “Dick and Jane ” and “Black Stallion” Illustrations and died in Florida on March 23, 2000 .

Dutch/French comic artist Evert Geradts pointed out that the signature of a landscape painter with the same name was identical to the Keith Ward from Reynard the Fox.
http://www.stewartgalleries.com/paintings.htm
(In the mean time the gallery seems to have taken the paintings offline but maybe they still have an archive?)

Some of the Reynard scans I put on Imageshack still survive, as does one of the commercial illustrations:

If you would like to see the 4 or 5 missing illustrations I will gladly scan them again for you.

Doing a renewed Google search after reading your blog, led me to a Leif Peng’s blog post from 2007 and a more recent one, with many examples and info about Ward.
http://todaysinspiration.blogspot.com/2007/10/keith-ward-1906-2000.html
and
http://todaysinspiration.blogspot.com/2009/06/keith-wards-texaco-fire-chief-pups.html

other links:
http://www.askart.com/askart/w/keith_ward/keith_ward.aspx
http://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/vintage-elsie-the-cow-cook-book-1952-ill-by-keith

Thanks to Wilbert.

- Wallace Tripp is one of those illustrators whose work seemed ready for animation. Everything he drew seemed designed and ready for animators to pick up their pencils. His illustrations for Amelia Bedilia are certainly part of the great success of that book series.

Bill Peckmann has saved this calendar from 1980 and sent it to me. It’s a great example of the work of Tripp, and I don’t mind sharing it. Great drawings, beautiful watercolors. Near perfect illustrations.

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A note of thanks, yet again, to Bill Peckmann for sharing and reminding me of Wallace Tripp’s great work.

- I’ve been a fan of Edward Lear forever. When Bill Peckmann sent me this incredible book with these great illustrations by Keith Ward, I had to open it up to you. I hope you enjoy it. (By the way, I’ve tried to find out about Ward, but I keep coming up with a philospher in England who doesn’t fit the bill. If you know anything about him share. Bill Peckmann led me to this link.)
The book was published in 1922.

The book’s front cover.

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The book’s back cover.

By the way, the book is long, so it’ll come in a couple of parts.

- Bill Peckmann sent a cute piece that I thought I’d share with you. Let me put it in his words:

Your “Dumbo” posts have been outstanding, beautiful!

I thought you might enjoy these 4 Emails.A few years ago, our little town of Rhinebeck’s charity drive involved local artists taking a “Birdhouse” theme (riffing other big cities cows, horses, fish etc.) and making a statement with it. This was the 3rd one I did, with “Casey Jr.” always being in the back of my mind.(See #3 & #4)

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This is apparently an invitation to create.
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#2
(Click any image to enlarge.)
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#3
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#4
(Sorry, our pooch snuck in there.)

Many thanks to Bill Peckmann for sharing the photos and the creativity.

- This week Bill Peckmann forwarded this great series from Alex Toth. I have to share it. Enjoy.

From Bill:
Just found these silvertone prints of a story that Alex did for “Blazing Combat” magazine in the 1960′s. It’s in the great tradition of cartoonists Milton Caniff, Roy Crane, Noel Sickles and the movies “Wings” and “Dawn Patrol”, but it’s all Toth.

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Once again, many thanks to Bill Peckmann.

- Bill Peckmann recently introduced me to a fabulous German illustrator, Fritz Baumgarten, who’s created many beautiful children’s books. They feel as though they come from an earlier generation. Baumgarten died in 1966, so in a sense they are, but they feel more like the 30s and 40s – Snow White.

I’d like to post one of them, written by Liselotte Burger von Dessart. Zwitschi.

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I’ll have another book by Baumgarten soon. Thanks to Bill Peckmann.

- Thanks to Bill Peckmann, I’ve posted some of Rowland B. Wilson‘s art from his Disney years (mostly The Little Mermaid artwork). Now. Bill has sent me some work from The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

A second posting of this art will be forthcoming; it’s a larger size and will take more comlications in scaning.

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Does it get any better than this?
She could have stepped out of Gulliver’s Travels.

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The charm in these birds is also ineffably beautiful.

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These two (above and below) seem to belong to Hercules.

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This final piece didn’t come from The Hunchback’s artwork, but was slipped into Bill’s Package from Rowland. I’ve seen it before, but it’s always fun to see it again.

Many thanks to Bill Peckmann for sharing.

- Bill Peckmann sent me this group of Gag Drawings from his days of working with Phil Kimmelman and Ass. I thought the drawings had so much life and interest, that I wanted to share them. The unfortunate part of studio gags is that the life behind the gag is usually something that we can’t even understand – outside of that studio’s atmosphere. However, at times the drawing is so much fun, it makes up for it. That’s true here, I think.

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