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Charles
Unregistered User
(1/12/02 12:32:09 pm)
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Charles Van Sandwyck illustrations
I thought I'd start a new thread here.
Terri recently wrote:
Has anyone here seen Charles van Sandwyk's illustrations? Charles de Lint and MaryAnn Harris just sent me an absolutely gorgeous small press book of his called Animal Wisdom -- self-published (Charles van Sandwyk Fine Art, PO Box 30033, N.Vancouver, B.C. Canada V7H 2Y3) in a handsome little edition that looks like some of those old Green Tiger Press books. (Remember those?) It's stunning.
I whole heartedly agree. what a sweet little package that book is. Not only is the art to die for but the package is an obvious labor of self-produced love.
About two years ago Smithmark Publishers out of New York published another beautifully packaged production from this artist. It comes in a elagantly illustrated hinged box, containing several note cards and two individual books: HOW TO SEE FAERIES. Well worth the effort to track down.
Sigh, I guess there needs to be a central FAERIE ARTIST list to keep track of all the varied and interesting artists that are hiding in small corners away from big publishers spotlights.
Here is one of my favorites (or I should say two, since his wife
is no slouch at the art board either), Larry MacDougall (www3.sympatico.ca/underhill/).
Wonderfull stuff!!!
Best,
Charles
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Charles Vess
Unregistered User
(1/12/02 1:14:44 pm)
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Let's try that again shall we...
Here's the link to Larry MacDougall's site again as it appears that the previous one take you nowhere.
www3.sympatico.ca/underhill/
Hope it works!
Charles
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janeyolen
Unregistered User
(1/13/02 5:10:33 am)
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Palette
His palettte is a little too subdued for me. The images are quite gorgeous at times, but he seems to be channeling Froud's work without Froud's passion. That may have to do with age rather than talent. Someone to keep an eye on certainly.
Jane
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tlchang37
Registered User
(1/15/02 11:25:09 pm)
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Re: Charles Van Sandwyck illustrations
I bought the Sandwyck (don't you love that name - and spelling?) "How to See Fairies" a year or so ago. I kept the books and use the cool box to store my Froud/"Faery Oracle" cards. :-)
A couple of other interesting fairy books/illustrators from my shelves:
Laura Ingalls Wilder's "Fairy Poems", (Doubleday, 1998)
illustrated by Richard Hull. Richard was one of my illustration
professors in collage and has illustrated a number of fantastical
children's books and magazine articles.
"The World of Fairies" by Gosamer Penwyche (Godsfield Press, 2001), *illustrated* by Sandy Gardner and Catherine McIntyre. The pictures are digital photo-composites. Some are really quite striking.
Charles - are you familiar with Barry Windsor-Smith? I haven't seen alot of his work, but the few pieces I have run across look like the graphic novel version of Pre-Raphaelite paintings... Looked cool.
I'd love a list of Faerie Artists...
Tara
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Charles Vess
Unregistered User
(1/16/02 7:56:08 am)
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Barry Smith
Tara, yes I'm VERY familar with Barry's work. And perhaps too familar with him personally to be able to make any kind of an aesthetic judgement on his work, especially his current work.
There are two volumes full of his gorgeous mid-career Pre-Raph styled paintings/drawings published by Fantagraphics Books, OPUS Vol.#1 & #2. The text in the books are bizarre to say the lest, but he swears that he's telling the true story of his life (ie. abducted by aliens at an early age and given the "gift" of genius!).
Recently he has returned to drawing comics (his career began in the 1970's with drawing the early issues of the CONAN the BARBARIAN comic for Marvel) with a rather less high-minded attitude toward his readers.
Charles
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tlchang37
Registered User
(1/17/02 6:43:21 pm)
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Barry Smith
Charles,
I haven't seen of his more recent stuff. Actually, I'm pretty ignorant when it comes to the whole realm of comic book/graphic novel art. (I now have read some of the things YOU have written and/or illustrated, however. :-). I did just finish watching the DVD of
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Terri
Registered User
(1/18/02 6:56:29 am)
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Re: Barry Smith
Charles is being too modest to explain that he was part of The Studio group in New York along with Barry Windsor-Smith, Jeff Jones, Michael Kaluta and Berni Wrightson. (Was that in the early Eighties, Charles?) There was a book published about them all -- I think it's just called The Studio (is that right?), but I haven't got my copy here to check. In my humble opinion, some of B W-S's best work came out of his Studio days.
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Charles Vess
Unregistered User
(1/18/02 8:33:41 am)
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Well, not quite...
During the several years that the "studio" was together(1976 to 1980) I was (and contnued to be for 12 years) Michael Kaluta's roomate, one of the 4 participating artists,.
I was young (mid twenties) and fresh from the "farm", that is rural Virginia and eager to get on with my career.
Those four artists were major players in my pantheon of living artistic heroes. I had been collecting their work long before I ever came to meet them and it was very interesting getting up close and personal with them. Their personalities were wildly different and the play of immense egos in the loft space that they called "The Studio" was very volatile to say the least. Their artistic collective only lasted for a few short years, but it was an amazing art space to visit and to experience first hand the level of art that was being created there which was far beyond my own capabilities at the time. Needless to say I learned a great deal from each one of them.
For those of you unfamilar with their work here is a short list of their major accomplishments.
Bernie Wrightson at the time was completing his masterfull b/w illustrations for an edition of FRANKENSTEIN.
Michael Kaluta (www.kaluta.com/)
was producing a large group of paintings for publication as art
posters and begining work on his illustrated METROPLOIS.
Jeffery Jones (www.ulster.net/~jonesart/)
had just finished producing the one page strip, IDYLL for the National
Lampoon and had begun painting his BLIND NARCIUS, a later day Pre-Raph
painting of great power (think John W. Waterhouse).
And Barry Smith (www.barrywindsor-smith.com)
was in his Pre-Raph mode.
All four artists had come out of the work-for-hire world of comic books and were bursting with pent up, personal imagery usually based in myth and folk legends that they wanted to explore, free of the commercial constraints of an editor or publisher. They became, for a time, their own self-publishers producing imagery for eager and receptive fans.
The unfortunate result of their formidable egos was that they always expected publishers to come to them for their work and none of them ever seemed willing to launch their work into other fields where they were not so established. From this peak "Studio" experience and the resulting book that was published by Dragon's Dream they all seemed to slowly drift into a comfort zone where their work was eagerly sought after but there was little or no 'push' to stretch their artistic muscles. To look for another dream so to speak. Wrightson is still drawing monsters that his child's heart truely loves but that he might should have grown beyond by now. Jones is painting commisions for any that will ask and most frequently of Edgar Rice Burroughs creations, aesthetically far below the hieghts that he had previously reached. Smith has returned to work-for-hire super hero comics and seems to be drawing at a level that he's decided is acceptable for that medium. Only Kaluta restlessly moves forward, developing imagery of a personal nature, albiet in many, many genres, leaping fron Tolkien's fantasy world to the art deco streets of the pulp hero THE SHADOW to far flung worlds of gleaming rocket ships and exotic maidens as he continues to exorcise artistic demons and to excite aesthetically.
Each one of these artists has done work that the folks on ths board would enjoy so it might be worth your trouble to track them down and take a look.
Well, this was going to be a short reply and it looks like it's become an essay...
Charles
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janeyolen
Unregistered User
(1/18/02 12:39:56 pm)
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help
I couldn't get any of those links to work, Charles.
Jane
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Charles Vess
Unregistered User
(1/18/02 1:09:54 pm)
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Web links...
Jane and everyone else,
I've just used these two links (below) and arrived at their prospective sites so I'm sure that they work. BUT every time I copy a web address to this message board it seems somehow to slip in an inadvertant letter or back slash so I'll cross my fingers on these two.
The Jeffery Jones link does NOT seem to link to anything although it certainly used to, because I visited the site several months ago.
www.barrywindsor-smith.com/menu.html
www.kaluta.com/
Good luck,
Charles
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tlchang37
Registered User
(1/19/02 12:29:00 am)
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Re: Charles Van Sandwyck illustrations
I apologize for the cut-off-in-mid-sentence post (see below) - I guess as a result of the funky things the board has been doing the last couple of days (I couldn't even get on here again before today). Charles has since answered some of what I originally asked, but to finish the thought...
I haven't seen much of his (Barry Windsor-Smith) more recent stuff. Actually, I'm pretty ignorant when it comes to the whole realm of comic book/graphic novel art. (I now have read some of the things YOU, Charles have written and/or illustrated, however. :-). I did just finish watching the DVD of "Unbreakable" starring Bruce Willis (has anyone else seen that?). I enjoyed the movie -but especially enjoyed the "special feature" interviews of comic book artists on the second DVD. Talking about the archetypal implications of comic books and super heros...
Like I said, I'm not as familiar with this genre. I asked in my original post for Charles' (or anyone else's) recommendations of "must sees". I will look up the Studio guys you mentioned. Anyone else I should definately see?
Tara - hoping this posts in completion...
Edited by: tlchang37 at: 1/19/02 12:33:01 am
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Charles Vess
Unregistered User
(1/19/02 7:36:44 am)
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Comic art recomendations
Tara and anyone else that's interested,
I wrote a long string of recomendations that are in the last batch of "recomendations list" at the Endicott Studio site.
I'm also writing the "comics year in review" column for the latest editio of Terri and Ellen's YEARS BEST FANTASY AND HORROR.
There's a lot of very good comics material out there that certainly touches on the interests of the members of this board.
Charles
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