A passion for line art

I produced a great deal of line art from the early 1960's through the 1970's. This medium has always been of interest to me, probably because of my fascination with comic strip art. Some of my favorite artists were Lou Fine, Noel Sickles and Milton Caniff, all were masters of the medium. To see some really beautiful line art search out the work of Victor De La Fuente and Sergio Toppi, they are both superb. Ink and pencil line art always seemed like such a challenge, and it certainly can be as you will see in future posts.



This is a pencil line drawing with an ink wash added. If I remember, I did a whole series of these, I don't recall the client or ad agency.



This rodeo scene was done as a sample for my reps to present to potential buyers at ad agencies, magazines and publishing houses. As a competing artist (it's tough out there !) you always should produce new samples whenever possible, you can bet that your competition is doing just that.



Throughout my career I have always managed to do a few comic strips.



Every once in a while a really tough assignment pops up, like this ad, one of a series done for Ekco. My automotive illustration experience is a great aid when confronting an illustration like this one. While freelancing in Detroit I also had out of town reps which brought me in a great deal of work from ad agencies and publishers. My rep in Chicago, Bob Witmer, landed this ad campaign for me.



Above is an illustration which was part of a series for Revere. This particular illustration was rejected by the art director and I had to redo it, the final ad is shown below. I personally still prefer the original version.



My rep in New York, Bill Neeley, nailed this series for me. The illustrations were complicated but still fun to do. Below are two more of the illustrations in this series. These were all inked on Whatman illustration board using a crowquill pen and a brush.