Examples of early cartoons and illustrations

During my long career as an advertising artist I have done many cartoons as well as ink line drawings. Looking back, I'm even surprised at the variety of work that I produced. I enjoy experimenting with various styles of art and this also enabled me to reinvent myself.


A brush ink drawing done for the cover of an invitation for a Society of Arts and Crafts opening.


I don't recall what this was done for, possibly friends Magazine.


Many cartoon illustrations were done for Friends Magazine during my early days as a commercial artist.


I did the illustration for this rear cover ad for Friends Magazine in 1953.


An early ad promoting myself as an idea man and illustrator.

More Ward's Quarterly illustrations

Here are a few more illustrations done for Ward's Quarterly Magazine while I was the art director. Because of a tight budget I did most of the art using various techniques to make the magazine more interesting visually.

Charlie Schridde 4/30/1926 - 5/15/2011

I just learned yesterday that artist Charlie Schridde passed away. I worked with Charlie in Detroit for several years, we were associated with a freelance artist group. Charlie was one of the the top illustrators in Detroit at the time. When the illustration business started to falter, Charlie started a new career as a top flight photographer working for many years in the Detroit area. Eventually he moved to California and began painting western rodeo scenes. We have kept in touch over the years, but sad to say, I hadn't spoken to him for several months.


One of Charlie's national magazine ads.


Charlie painted this cover for the 1962 Chevrolet catalog saver.


One of charlie's promotion pieces for his western paintings. That's Charlie in the above left painting.


Charlie was a great friend to have known and worked with.

Illustrations for Ward's Quarterly Magazine

In 1965 I was a freelance illustrator and also the art director of an automotive magazine, Ward's Quarterly. The publication had no budget for illustrations, so I did most of the art and a few illustrator friends pitched in occasionally. Below are some of the various styles that I used to add variety to the magazine.

A friend from the heyday of automotive illustration

Yesterday an old friend from fifty years ago, Bob Pearson, visited me. Bob is an award winning automotive artist who learned his craft in the commercial art studios of Detroit during the years when the ad business was booming there. He started out as an apprentice for me and a small group of artists, which included top notch automotive illustrators such as Dave Lindsay, Ted Lodigensky, Jack Mills, Ted Paul, Jim Jackson and Del Nichols. He also worked for other Detroit studios and even became an art director at Campbell Ewald Advertising. Bob later moved to Toronto, Canada and worked for several ad agencies there as an art director. Now retired from the ad business, Bob has returned to his first passion, illustrating cars. If you would like a wonderful portrait of your favorite classic car, give him a call at 416.484.8180. Below are a few examples of Bob's great work.







The two cars below were painted for me when I was the art director of Ward's Quarterly magazine in 1965.

More ink line art and a color illustration

Texstar was an interesting company to visit as they produced some very interesting items such as space helmets for the astronauts and aircraft canopies. They even built a full scale mock up of an Navy VFX aircraft out of plastic.










A full color acrylic illustration for Texstar.


Detail of the illustration.


For the cover of the brochure I decided to to do an abstract painting showing the plastic molding process.

Ink line spot illustrations for Texstar

The Premier Corporation flew me down to Grand Prairie, Texas to photograph and illustrate the operations at one of their companies, Texstar Plastics. It was an interesting trip and my wife came along, so we also had sort of a vacation. One night the company's executives flew us down to have dinner in Mexico. These ink line drawings were spot illustrations that would be used in a brochure that I designed. They were drawn with a technical pen and the black accents were done with a brush.










A great assignment to have between all the hard boiled automotive work that I was working on in Detroit.

More ink line art

Here are a few ink line drawings that demonstrate the variety of styles and work I have done through the years.


An ink drawing done for a Detroit TV station newspaper ad.


A logo design for the Paul Scott Realty firm.


I've done a lot of tightly rendered product ads like this.


This rendering and the two below were done for the Transcontinental Travel company.






The Detroit Free Press assigned me a story to illustrate that was about Aristotle Onassis. Below are two additional illustrations. These were ink line and wash illustrations.

An interview on ink line drawing

My wife and I were moving to Paris, France in 1977 and I was trying to think of some things I could do to guarantee me some sort of income from clients in the States before we left. I sold a few cartoons to Penthouse Magazine and would continue submitting work to them while in Paris. I also proposed a book on ink drawing to Watson Guptill publications which they bought, and had several other book ideas. The American Artist Book Club interviewed me when my book DRAWING IN INK was published in 1977 and I have posted the interview below.


Here is the Japanese edition of DRAWING IN INK, there also was an Italian edition.









My association with Watson Guptill Publications was long and I wrote several "How to..." books for them. I had a very successful career in Paris as an illustrator/ designer and worked there for several years before moving to New York City.
DRAWING IN INK is long out of print but can easily be found on Amazon or other used book outlets. In 2002 Dover Publications republished DRAWING IN INK and DRAWING IN PENCIL under the title PEN AND PENCIL DRAWING TECHNIQUES and it is still available new.

Small ink line art

During most of the 1960's through 1977 about 75% of my illustration work was black and white ink line drawings. Below is a sketch of me in my studio with my faithful dog Angus, who was always hanging around.


In 1973 I did the illustrations for a book titled GREAT TALES OF HORROR AND SUSPENSE. I did the line art for the Dracula section including several large ink line drawings and quite a few smaller spot illustrations which are shown here.






The art was rendered with a Crowquill pen with brush accents using India ink. It was a fun assignment and a real break from some of the Detroit automotive work that I was involved with at the time. Randy Mulvey, my New York during that period, landed this assignment for me as well as a series of Dracula paperback covers.