Eye Candy for Today: Franklin Booth Esty Organ advertisement ink drawing

Franklin Booth Esty Organ ad pen and ink drawing
Franklin Booth Esty Organ ad pen and ink drawing (details)

Advertisment for Esty Residence Pipe Organ, pen and ink illustration by Franklin Booth, as it appeared in the November, 1923 issue of Country Life magazine. I don’t know the dimaneions of the original art. Link is to the Organ Historical Society.

Interesting to compare this illustration to another of his for the same company.

Who knew a pipe organ could be so transcendent, etherial and vaguely suggestive?

Franklin Booth was a master of pen and ink with a unique style – formed by his missinterpretation of woodcut illustrations as pen and ink when he was learning.

He was absolutely brilliant at creating a wide range of tones from hatching. I love the way he has so effectively and sparingly used areas of pure white — from the light globes to highlights on the figures to the emphasized area of the checkered tile floor.

 
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Eye Candy for Today: Giuseppe Zocchi ink drawing

Giuseppe Zocchi ink drawing
Giuseppe Zocchi ink drawing (details)

Villa Mancini in the Vicinity of Signa, Giuseppe Zocchi; pen and black in on paper; roughly 11 x 19 inches (28 x 47 cm). In the collection of the Morgan Library and Museum, which has both zoomable and downloadable versions of the image.

Giuseppe Zocch was an 18th century Italian painter and printmaker active in Florence.

I love the way Zocchi has used different tones of ink in this drawing to create atmospheric perspective and suggest at least four planes of distance.

 
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Eye Candy for Today: Hal Foster Prince Valiant strip

Panel from Hal Foster Prince Valiant strip
Hal Foster Prince Valiant strip

A beautiful Hal Foster 1939 Prince Valiant Sunday newspaper comic strip from the glory days of newspaper adventure comics.

This is a photo of the original art. It would have been printed in color as a full newspaper page, at a time when newspapers were much larger than the ridiculous size they’ve been reduced to today (in an apparent effort by publishers to remove the last remnants of what used to make newspapers a pleasure to hold and read).

I place Foster in the tradition of great pen and ink artists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, as he, Alex Raymond, Winsor McCay and others followed in their footsteps.

Sourced from Heritage Auctions, large image here.

 
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Li Yong Hong

Li Yong Hong
Li Yong Hong

Chinese illustrator Li Yong Hong works in scratchboard, a medium that is almost the inverse of pen and ink.

Instead of drawing in ink directly on a white surface, scratchboard is done on a white board that is coated with clay and then coated with a layer of black ink. The black surface is scratched away with needle-like styli, creating white lines by revealing the clay beneath.

The only presence I’ve found on the web for Li Yong Hong’s work is his portfolio on IllustrationX.

 
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Eye Candy for Today: Bernardo Bellotto pen and wash drawing

Imaginary View of Padua, Bernardo Bellotto, pen, black ink and gray wash drawing
Imaginary View of Padua, Bernardo Bellotto, pen, black ink and gray wash drawing

Imaginary View of Padua, Bernardo Bellotto; pen, black ink and gray wash drawing; roughly 13 x 17 inches (32 x 43 cm). Original is in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

18th century Italian artist Bernardo Bellotto had a very effective pen and wash technique for rendering architectural subjects that is similar to the wonderful drawings of his uncle and mentor, Antonio Canal, better known as Canaletto.

Imaginary View of Padua, Met Museum

 
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Eye Candy for Today: Rembrandt pen drawing along the Amstel River

A bend in the River Amstel near Kostverloren House, Rembrandt van Rijn, pen and brown ink drawing, with wash
A bend in the River Amstel near Kostverloren House, Rembrandt van Rijn, pen and brown ink drawing, with wash (details)

A bend in the River Amstel near Kostverloren House, Rembrandt van Rijn; pen and brown ink with brown and grey washes, heightened with white bodycolour on oatmeal paper; roughly 5 x 10″ (14 x 25 cm). Original is in the collection of the Chatsworth Estate.

It would be easy to glance at a drawing like this — a sketch really — take it in briefly, and pass on by, on the the next, more colorful artwork. But to me, these pen and brown ink landscape drawings by Rembrandt are among my favorite works in the entire history of art.

Many of them, on more devoted looking, reveal themselves to me as transcendent and poetic.

Perhaps it’s because I can project myself into them — even better than with a more “realistic” painted view — and picture myself sitting there on the bank in the shade with my own sketchbook and pens, immersed in the day, the smell of the river, the sounds of water lapping at the boats, the gentle clop of the horses passing by, perhaps a gentle breeze waving through the sun-topped line of trees.

Just as easily, I can picture Rembrandt sitting there — a sheaf of paper in his lap, reed pen and brush in his hands with perhaps two bottles of iron gall ink at his side, one full strength, one diluted for washes — immersed in the scene and his drawing while his troubles (of which he certainly had his share) recede into the distance.

As far as can be determined, these pen, brown ink and wash drawings were created simply for Rembrant’s own benefit, either as practice, or (I think) simply for pleasure. There is no known connection identifying them as preliminary for paintings or even for any of his similarly handled etchings.

Many of these, and other Rembrandt drawings in brown ink and wash, are listed as drawings in bistre ink (made from wood-burning soot), but chemical analysis indicates that a high percentage of them may have been drawn with darker iron gall ink, usually made from oak galls, iron salts and tannic acid. I’m guessing that may be the case here.

Renbrandt’s notation is breezy, economical and seemingly effortless. Just a few gestural lines — but brilliantly sweeping, lightly touched with tone — produce a solid line of trees, a river and its bank, boats and horsemen. Their sun bathed and shade dappled textures are created almost entirely in our mind’s eye.

Because it has happened to me on occasion, I have the distinct feeling that drawings like this might have felt to Rembrandt like they were flowing directly from nature, into his eyes, and out through his pen onto the paper — while he observed. There is little feeling here of artifice or the construction of a drawing as a work of art.

You’re unlikely to see what I mean from the small image and detail crops I can present here. Go to this link and view the drawing as large in your monitor as you can to get the feeling I’m trying to convey.

 
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