Books 24 Jul 2008 07:12 am
Webb’s Faces – 1
- Back in August 2006, I posted one of my most popular posts. Since then, (even as late as this past weekend) there have been many comments by people remembering and speaking positively about this featured book.
Since I’d only posted half a dozen pages, I thought I’d yield to the many requests to see more. Consequently, I’ll post the entire book in two parts. (Mind you every other page is a blank “Practice Page.” I didn’t scan any of those. If you want to practice, you’ll have to get your own paper.)
These pages are taken from a book I have, published in 1940, called How To Make Faces. The author, Frank Webb, was a comic strip cartoonist who drew the cartoon panel ‘Kartoon Kollege’ from 1940-41. When this strip ended, he created the comic strip ‘Raising Kane’, which ran until 1944.
___(Click on any image to enlarge)_______Other than that, I haven’t been able to learn
____________________-_______________much about him. I find it interesting that he signed each page of his book almost as if he expected it to run in a newspaper on a daily, one-page-at-a-time basis.
His approach was to use the alphabet and build up from there. When he runs out of the alphabet, he just turns to shapes then just asks you to copy his picture or finish the page.
This first part includes all the drawings made from the Alphabet.
on 24 Jul 2008 at 4:36 pm 1.Eddie Fitzgerald said …
Haw! Like every other cartoonist I used to preface drawing lessons with “See, it’s easy! Anyone can do it!” Now I realize that it’s more complicated than that. Even so, I still like to see books that make it seem easy. Cartooning is the art of the common man…it values imagination and verve more than technical perfection.
on 24 Jul 2008 at 6:59 pm 2.Christian said …
Aha!
This reminds me about a post I read a while back on drawn about how a guys dad use to draw a face! have a look it, its a really intersting story!
http://drawn.ca/2008/01/02/how-to-draw-a-face-a-mystery/
on 24 Jul 2008 at 11:12 pm 3.Michael said …
The story on DRAWN was about this book which the author found on my site. This is where he unravelled his mystery.
on 25 Jul 2008 at 5:57 am 4.slowtiger said …
No book is so old, it’s not possible to learn something from it …:
I’ve noticed that Webb often does the eyebrows before the eyes – interesting. I should try this.
on 25 Jul 2008 at 7:39 am 5.Stephen Macquignon said …
I remember a book I had that you could create animals from the letters you could take the Letter E and make it in to a dog begging
on 08 Jan 2012 at 2:42 am 6.Lyuba L. said …
I just wanted to thank you for posting this! I loved drawing when I was younger, and a couple years back when you posted it I made it A-J then stopped and forgot all about it. I’m interested in re-kindling my passion for drawing, and this seems like a great place to start. Thanks again!