Michael Sporn Animation – Splog

- Suzanne Wilson has sent me some scans of beautiful artwork by her late husband, Rowland B. Wilson. What magnificent draftsmanship. His compositions are extraordinary and his color design is just beautiful. I takes my breath away to see how simply these are composed, yet the drawing is just so expert.

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“Jean and Stephen are a loving couple–she loves the Yankees
and he loves the Red Sox”
Sunday News Magazine, New York, August 6, 1978

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Old Style Beer
“…and I downed this one at the corner bar!”

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“All my elephant chairs are upholstered with fabric made of “Belviva” yarn.
Under a sun like this, we need all the fade resistance we can get.

Collins and Aikman
HFD, Retailing Home Furnishings April 3, 1978

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“Forget that, Sherlock. International just found the rig
we need on their truck distribution computer.”

International Trucks, The Wall Street Journal, September 21, 1976

“Yes, I think we have enough Corny-Snaps and Cracklin’ Bran. Why do you ask?”

Ad text: “The customers are coming! Don’t get caught with your stocks down.”
Kellogg’s for magazine ads, 1977

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Way before Indiana Jones!
The Saturday Evening Post, May 19, 1956

Esquire Bourbon Dog
This was obviously a header for an Esquire article.

Calypso

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Over the Moon

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The Olympic Torch for
The Saturday Evening Post

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Leopard AHS

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Carl Jung used this cartoon in “”Man and His Symbols”

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The Wilson Studio

- I don’t intend to give an introduction to Norman McLaren or his work here, but he obviously was one of the solidly great film makers on the “Art” side of animation. His films are worth studying for their timing, if not for their sheer genius. As a matter of fact, his exercise films on timing are incredible (though I have no idea how you’d get to see them today.)

I do have a book of some drawings by him, and given the stories about China in the news today, I thought I’d post some of his drawings done in China. The book isn’t printed on the best of papers, so the quality of these drawings isn’t all it could be. However, I thought it might be worth showing this other side to his art.

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Moving away from China, there are two other drawings I thought compelling and
would like to share here.

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McClaren was certainly a brilliant artist, and his experimentation and developments brought about a real maturation of the art form. I wonder how he would have dealt with the technology we’re using today. Remember, he realized that the soundtrack could be drawn and did his own exploration of this part of the process.

The book was published in 1975 by Tundra Books.

Because the one illustration which graces the book’s cover, was of such interest to those reading my piece, I’ll start with the rest of that page. It’s a series of sketches done for the film, “Là-haut sur ces montagnes” and was drawn in 1945.

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The two illustrations above are connected on the same page. I separated them .
The entire page is labelled: Sketches for the film, “Là-haut sur ces montagnes.”

“Interlocking faces”

“Untitled”

“Tesseractine House”
I’m fascinated that a number of his illustrations look not too unlike Steinberg’s work. It’s obvious he was an influence for a lot of animators in the late ’40′s.

“Four Dimensional Cars and Bicycles”

“Memory of A Mexican Beach”

“St. George and the Porcupine”

- Continuing with the odd jobs posted yesterday.
In 1987, Rowland B. Wilson released a calendar called Murphy’s Law.
Bill Peckmann has forwarded the illustrations from it, and I’m posting them here.

The cover and June

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June is already visible as the cover.

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The following are some additional rough pieces by Rowland.

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A Xerox of Row’s line drawing before the color elixir was added!
Great posing!

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Unfortunately this is an old faded Xerox, but here is a New
England Life ‘Dog Show’ gag. I’m sending it because of all
of the dogs in it, man, you can’t shake a stick at them,
they are just phenomenal! Catch all of the different breeds.

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A TV Guide rough.

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Another TV Guide rough.

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Two small thumbnail sketches before
starting to paint Playboy ‘Robin Hood’ gag.

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For gags that were extra special to him, Rowland would
pre plan and work out the color shading on a Xerox of
his line drawing. Here again is ‘Robin Hood’.

Rowland would usually discard his roughs after finishing a job,
but for some reason he kept a small stash of them at PK & A,
so when the studio finally closed it’s doors and we asked Row
what to do with them, he said dump ‘em. Which I promptly did
into my attache case! Since then I’ve found out from Suzanne Wilson
that for what ever reason, RBW did not hang on to his roughs,
much to her dismay. So what we see here is something on the rare side.
It’s ironic because Rowland always understood the passion and
vitality of everyone else’s roughs.

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– Finally, Trade Secrets : Rowland B. Wilson’s Trade Secrets: Notes on Cartooning and Animation has had a release date changed. Amazon is promising it’s pre order customers that we should get our copy the beginning of Aug.

Rowland Wilson‘s journals, in which he wrote about illustration and animation, have been gathered by Suzanne Wilson and are collected in this book. The information must certainly be very informative to students; the book seems to offer quite a bit of attention to Mr. Wilson’s animation art, just as it does his brilliant illustration and cartooning. I’m looking forward to seeing the book and will certainly make sure you know what I think of it when it does come out.

- Rowland B. Wilson did many different types of illustration over the years. Thanks to Bill Peckmann and the loan from Denis Wheary we can post some of these oddities.

Here is a 1962 book from the Columbia Record Club titled ‘Musical Cartoon Album’. It included cartoons by an assortment of the well known cartoonists of the day. Rowland had his gag in there, fortunately for us.

Front Cover / Back Cover

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There is the prestigious job of doing a book for Colorforms. I’m not sure if they even have Colorforms today. It was a shiny plastic/rubberized sort of cut out doll that you’d pick up and place on the other pages of the book to form your own pictures. There was even a set in the Museum of Modern Art that just dealt with abstract shapes that you’d recreate into your own 20th Century Art Form. Bill Peckmann writes:

‘Wizard of OZ’ is a super find that Denis Wheary made. Both Suzanne Wilson and I were not aware that Rowland had done the book. We’re both trying to come with a publishing date, but the nearest we can come to is probably the very early 1970′s. It was definitely before Row went to Richard Williams in 1973. Those were the years RBW was very hot in the print world and a had an ace sales rep, he did not get much sleep in those days.

This is The Wizard of Oz, drawn and designed by Rowland. To get the sense of the book, I’ve posted small thumbnails of the images so they can sit side by side. If you click on any of the images it’ll enlarge to a good readable size.

Front Cover

Inner

Colorforms page

The card with the Colorforms on it came in a sleeve on the title page.

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Back Cover

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Here from 1977, is an editorial illustration Rowland did for the Sunday supplement of the New York Daily News. The yellowing of the newsprint paper is starting to show, but that seems to work with the subject matter of the illustration.

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Since you’ve already posted art from Rowland’s 1970′s Utica Club’s ‘Mountie’ TV commercial a number of years ago, I thought you might like to see the original thumbnail, production storyboard of that spot.

It’s a collaboration between Rowland and Phil Kimmelman done at Focus Design Studios.

Rowland always knew how to make a person feel good, even years later after working at all of the different animation studios that he did, he would tell us, that he always remembered those early animated commercial days as some of his most favorite, he just loved those ‘jam sessions’, and man, so did we!. It also helped that ad agencies picked Rowland to do the spot, which meant he was given carte blanche!

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Finally, here’s a piece of RBW spec art done to land a TV spot at PK&A. Sadly the ad agency’s brains were out to lunch and the job never happened. (Circa 1980)

We’ll continue this post on Friday.

- Bill Peckmann sent on these scans of Keith Ward‘s illustrations for Elsie’s Cookbook. This book was a commercial product tie-in to Borden’s Foods who used “Elsie” as their trademark.The book was loaned to us by Denis Wheary. The two-color spot illustrations show off Ward’s ability to draw making it look like the most natural thing in the world. The ink line is also quite beautiful.

The remainder of the comments under the book’s pages are Bill’s.

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Book cover / inner dedication

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Main title page

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Elsie’s dedication to Elmer the bull. I’m assuming this
was before he went off and started hawking his glue.
Keith Ward is not listed in the credits, but Elsie gives
him his just due here in the dedication.

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Whoa there, this chapter takes on a little bit of a
surreal quality, but the human condition being
what it is, always has a way of making
everything seem okay.

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“Desserts”, this is the last chapter heading in the book, and kudos
again to Denis Wheary for sharing these not easy to find treats
with us! What a gift KW had to make animal drawing look so,
so easy. One wonders what he could have done in the animation
field given a chance, or if he had authored a ‘How to Draw’ animal
book, ala Ken Hultgren. In the ’50′s he did venture into
sculpting Halloween masks.

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From the years 1932 to 1952, from ‘Muggins Mouse’ to ‘Elsie the Cow’, from the age of 24 to the age of 44, we’ve seen in our last few postings of his work, artist Keith Ward‘s amazing range of talent. Here, at the end of our last posting of Denis Wheary’s marvelously, shared, book collection, we’ll reprise a few of KW’s charming, early examples of breaking into the field of illustration in 1932.
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(We’ve posted some of this material before, but these scans
came from the original books rather than copies of the books.
We thought it worth revisiting to show the varity and depth
of Keith Ward’s work.)

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Many thanks to Bill Peckman and Denis Wheary for forwarding this book to us.

- Bill Peckmann has recently sent me some comic pages by Alex Toth, and I’ll let him introduce this post:

I thought that with the advent of Dean Mullaney and Bruce Canwell‘s second volume of their Alex Toth series, ‘Genius Illustrated‘ coming out later this year, that your readers might enjoy a few stories from that time period in Alex’s life that the book will cover.

All three of the short stories that I’m sending you are from DC Comics’ war titles from the early 1970′s.

Alex is firing on all cylinders in these three stories. Always learning his craft and searching to add to the esthetics of continuity art, lucky for us, it all seems to be culminating at this point in his life.

Just prior to each of the three comic stories, I’m posting a sheet of doodles that Alex Toth did, and Bill Peckmann saved. It’s a good way to separate the three war stories.

The first page of doodles. These three pages have
nothing to do with anything here. But they’re a
great example of a brilliant artist’s ramblings.

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Here is story 2 of 3. A short four page story but very powerfully done. Of special note, see how well the hands are executed to further the emotions of the characters, especially the very last panel.

This is the second page of doodles by Mr. Toth.
The guy could draw.

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Here in the third story of this post, Alex was able to combine his love for aviation and his fondness for 1940′s Hollywood movies that had a light touch. The writer of the story is Shelly Mayer, who as editor at DC Comics many years before, broke teenager Alex Toth into the comic book business.

The third and last of the doodle pages.
I hope they were, at least, interesting.

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Many thanks to Bill Peckmann. The rare comic stories aren’t enough, he spoils us with some private doodles by the master.

- A while back Tom Hachtman sent me a calendar illustrated by the sports cartoonist, Feg Murray.

Tom wrote: Here’s a “‘treasure’ I found in the basement today. They’re mildewed and have been through floods but they are still great art.”
Sorry I don’t have all twelve – there are golf lessons from Walter Hagen on the backs if you’re interested.”
The calendar dates back to 1930.

Not being the golfer, I wasn’t really interested in the lessons. Here are the extant calendar pages.

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Here are some examples of the comic strips that Feg Murray had in syndication.
He was considered, primarily, a sports cartoonist, and this strip is a good example of what he did.

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He also had a strip called “Seeing Stars” which focused on celebrities.’

Finally, here’s a Christmas card he did while working through King Features Syndicate.

- Bill Peckmann filled my box with some delightful images by illustrator Keith Ward. These are the illustrations of a book of Edward Lear‘s poems. I’ll let Bill’s word carry the rest of the post:

Through the generosity of Denis Wheary and his Keith Ward book collection, we are able to pop up a few pages from an old, wonderful 1932 book. The pages are some of the complete “Nonsense Rhymes” of Edward Lear, beautifully and charmingly brought to life by Mr. Ward. Even though small in it’s pocket book size, the book is large in it’s presentation, and the accomplished illustrated art belies the age of the young 26 year artist, Keith.

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Bill Peckmann also sent the following note and email:

Putting Keith Ward on the front burner again, has made a couple of neat things happen. With the help of Leif Peng, I was able to get in touch with Keith’s daughter, Eileen, and her son, Alan (Keith’s grandson).

Between the two of them, we can start to learn about the artist, Keith Ward, as a man. Up until now, it has not easy to get any kind of history on KW. Another one of those great talents that shouldn’t be falling through the cracks of art history. (Sadly, it happens too many times, thank God for blogging!)

Her son Alan is an artist in his own right. Here’s is Alan’s blog (click on above). On it, he makes comments about his grandfather, it makes very interesting reading.

I will also send you their responses to my inquiries, if you don’t mind reading other people’s mail. Hopefully, with the help of Leif Peng and myself, KW will become less of a mystery.
Too bad Rowland Wilson isn’t with us anymore; he’d be getting the biggest charge out of all of this. He was a huge KW fan and never got to know anything about him. Funny thing is, they both lived in the environs of Westport CT. and then they both moved to California, and IMHO they are both a cartoonist’s cartoonist and both never seemed to get the recognition they so richly deserve, go figure.

Here is the letter from Eileen Ward Scott-Moncrieff, Keith Ward’s daughter. She lives in Scotland. I had sent her and her son, Alan, all of our recent posts of KW’s work.

Dear Bill,

Thank you for your email and your appreciation of my Dad’s work. Of course you can send my email address to Leif Peng, whose websit I’ve seen.

I was born in Connecticut, my parents designed and built (had built) a house in the woods on Echo Hill, Silvermine Road, New Canaan. Daddy worked from home and in later years he built a studio in the yard. The studio he originally designed had a huge slanted window, and he worked there for many years until I was a teen-ager. He worked for many advertising agencies in New York, and would send his work in–sometimes latterly I would be his courier. He always wanted to work free-lance, even in later life, after I married a Scotsman and moved to Scotland, where I still live. After I left home he and Mother moved to California (the bottom dropped out of the illustration world in the 50s when photography replaced illustration), where he continued to work as a painter, and had a gallery and taught classes. I noticed, by the way, something by Paul Webb on your website you sent Alan–he also lived on Echo Hill in Silvermine–there were 5 houses there–once when Paul was sick Daddy did his comic strip for him until he was better!

My father was always kind and generous with his time. He would always stop work and help me with anything I needed. He never said, “Go away, I’m busy.”

I too am an artist, but for years I lived under the cloud of my father’s talent–he could draw anything out of his head, which I could never do. I remember I was doing some portraits of children of some people I met, and Daddy came into NY to see what I was doing. He said, “You have something I don’t.” Which amazed and touched me. It wasn’t really true I don’t think, but he always supported me, and respected me–which is true humility, I think.

I dream about him a lot, he died when I was in Kosovo. He was in a home in California when he died, not Florida. He had had a stroke in his eighties and that, coupled with his near-blindness finished his painting. But up to the time he had the stroke, he was still teaching classes, despite the macular degeneration, just getting more and more impressionistic….My mother had died 3 years before and my brother took him back to California–he never lost his humor or his happiness. He was almost 94. He was the best man I ever knew.

If you have any specific questions I will be glad to try to answer them.

Thank you for your interest and appreciation of my Dad.

All the best,
Eileen Scott-Moncrieff

– Retta Scott‘s name was always an intriguing one for me.

She was an animator on Bambi, Dumbo and Plague Dogs. She was layed off at Disney’s when they hit a slump in 1941 but came back to do a number of Golden Books for Disney. The most famous of her books was her version of Cinderella, one which was so successful that it remains in print today as a Little Golden Book.

When asked why females weren’t animators at the studio, the Nine Old Men who traveled the circuit, back in the 1970′s, often mentioned her. They usually also said that she was one of the most forceful artists at the studio, but her timing always needed some help (meaning from a man.)

Ms. Scott was known predominantly for her animation in Bambi. Specifically, she’s credited with the sequence where the hunter’s dogs chase Faline to the cliff wall, and Bambi is forced to fight them off.

The scene is beautifully staged and, indeed, is forceful in its violent, yet smooth, movement. I was a young student of animation, at the time, so this sequence has always had a long and lasting impression on me.
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I’m curious to know how Western Publishing proceeded with the illustrated Disney books. Apparently a large number of Disney artists contributed to the books – at least in the 40′s & 50′s. Bill Justice, Dick Kelsey, Mary Blair, et al. Then, of course, there are the Golden Books that didn’t have a Disney connection by Disney artists. The Poky Little Puppy by Gustaf Tenggren is, of course, the most famous of these.

(Retta Scott working on Pastoral seq. from Fantasia. From The Art of Walt Disney by Finch.)

Here are some of her illustrations for Cinderella published in 1950 to tie in with the Disney film. Oddly, the illustrations don’t completely look like the film’s characters. The cat and mice are close, but Cinderella, herself, is very different, less realistic. She looks more like a Mary Blair creation. When I was young, I was convinced that these were preproduction illustrations done for the film. If only.

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- Here are illustrations by Keith Ward from the book, Reynard the Fox, which was published in 1945.They are outstanding illustrations from an artist whose every work seems to be outstanding. These were sent to me by Bill Peckmann, and this is what he wrote to accompany the scans:

Here are Keith Ward’s illustrations from ‘Reynard the Fox’. And beauties they are, all
35 of them! For me, being very partial to the Caniff/Sickles school of cartoon/illustration, these fall right into that wonderful 1940′s category and it makes me wonder if Milt or Noel could have been as facile with animals as Keith Ward was.

A couple of side bonuses, and they are this, the drawings have the same realistic cartoon playfulness that illustrators Jack Davis and Wally Tripp infuse in their art and you’ll get to see foxy Reynard’s influence and inspiration that found its way into Disney’s ‘Robin Hood’ feature. (Turn to Will Finn‘s July 22, 2007, excellent “expose” blog for that story!)

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This, to me, is a GREAT illustration. Brilliant work in a book.

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Marc Davis spent a lot of emotional weight developing the story for a feature to be called Chanticleer and the Fox (Andreas Deja has a wonderful posting on his site about this film.) This film combined the stories of Chanticeler the Rooster (Chaucer) and Reynard the Fox (Rostand). Disney opted to bypass this film to make the story that was developed by Bill Peet, Sword in the Stone.

Thanks again to Denis Wheary for lending us his Keith Ward book!
And thanks to Bill Peckmann for scanning and sending and getting the copy from Dennis.