Some Art I Did Around 50 Years Ago...

Are there drawings and paintings you did a long time ago and lost because you had no way or enough income to copy them?

Great Harold you are master

Harold, back in the early 60's (when I was 9-10ish), I switched from doing all sorts of pencil drawings on notebook paper to using charcoal pencils and cheap chalk. I think I probably did charcoals of all the Breck girls and the dogs on the back of cereal boxes. I still have most of them. I was growing up in a small, rural town in the Deep South, where there were no art stores and no other art people around me who did any kind of art except my mother, ... I was an island unto myself as regards to art. My inspiration and self-learning came from studying works by people like you... ILLUSTRATORS. I spent tons of hours in the city library looking at magazines and pictures in books... just dissecting how they did it. Oddly, the first oil painting that I saw was the first one that I did myself. So, thank you, for being part of the group that fueled my art.

Note: At some point, when I get a sufficient number done, the photographs in my profile will be replaced with my original art. I've transitioned from doing portraits to landscapes and wildlife. I'm a realistic painter and good work takes time (plus, I work).

Harold,

I agree you are a hugely talented artist.

BTW who is that man two up?

Dave

Lombardi

Rotflmao.......

The Real Dave

:D

THank you Digital and David.

David, are you The Digital?

Sarah, I really appreciate what you said and I fell into the same kind of education as you did - with one exception, I met and worked with famous illustrators. They were my teachers. Comon, how are you going to find better teachers than - Frank Frazetta, Neal Adams, Earl Norem, Charles Moran, Bernie Wrightson, Michael Kaluta, Dick Giordano and so many others. Sure, I am a name dropper because all my friends were famous names.

No we are not same its long story you can See it Ronalds thread :D

i was arguing why he dont do cropping famoous paintings and for more demonstrait i made it :D also he can look that he can be more creative that :D :D :D

Here's a watercolor rendering of a car for a toy package. As you can see, back in those days you had to be versatile and fast in order to make a steady income as an illustrator in New York City. I did many car paintings for toys. I will give you a clue to make a very good living as an artist. Become an expert at painting or photographing cars or children and you will get tons of work.

Wow, incredible! Thanks for sharing them :)!

Ah, nice! And, in watercolor!! Reminds me of a 240Z.

Just curious, was airbrushing used much by illustrators then?

Really cool stuff, Harold! I also wanted to be an illustrator, at the beginning, and studied the Reilly Method at the Art Students League. My teachers at the time were Jack Faragasso and Robert Schulz. (But I learned most of what I knew from studying the masters of the Golden Age!).

Very nice artwork, Harold! Here is the oldest one I saved from back in 1965...

Thank you Xueling.

Sarah there was a lot of airbrushing being done by product illustrators. I did a lot of airbrushing since I worked in the toy field.

Hiya Miriam. Like you, one of the reasons I moved to NYC was to study with Frank J. Reilly but unfortunately, he died a couple of years before I arrived in the Big Apple. But I did become friends with the best crop of illustrators working in NYC at that time of my life and I wouldn't change that experience for anything.

Hiya Lutz old friend. Glad to see you're still kicking. Just like I thought, you were doing beautiful art as soon as you picked up your first paint brush.

Thank you for sharing Harold! It is fun to see older work!

It's funny to see this topic...I've been slowly cleaning house and recently found boxes of early work...some is my art I photographed and some are photographs....both slides and negatives. I was going to toss it all because what do you do with this stuff... but then I did not.

I rigged up a contraption to the front of my camera and actually photographed a few of the slides. I remembered that could be done...it sort of worked but the amount of post processing required was too time consuming for me to want to do it.

I supposed I could take what I want and have it professionally done but imagine the cost would be a lot and at this point I guess I am more into creating new work. I'll probably just save the boxes and someday in the future toss it.

It was fun to see all that old work...it brought back a lot of memories. One was a photo shoot I set up to photograph mice...they kept escaping :)

Hiya Val,
Here's how easy it is.

I took around 6 slides to Walgreens to have prints made from them. It cost me $4.50. The reason was a couple of slides were impossible to print since they had been damaged beyond repair. Now, here's where the real work began. When I got home I scanned the prints and worked my magic in Photoshop - as much as I could. By tweaking the prints with level since, contrast so, smart sharpen and layers, I saved as much as I could.

How fun. Harold, my goodness, your talent is just enormous. And Lutz, too...I love that early work of yours.

I recently dragged out all my old portfolios from under the bed, dusted them off, and showed the work to my artistic 8th grader. He was appropriately impressed that his mom could "really draw like that." lol He was pretty interested to see what he will be learning if he goes to art school, too. I also found some drawings from high school art class, about 35 years ago. Tossed a few that were pretty moth-eaten, but kept plenty. It really is fun to look back and see where you started.

Hiya Valerie.

Don't throw away any of your old drawings or paintings. When I took the prints of my paintings out of the envelope, I had tears in my eyes as I was telling the store clerk I had painted them 50 years ago. She just looked at me with this puzzled look on her face and said, "That's nice." She didn't understand what it meant to me to see my art I hadn't seen in all those years.

After seeing how cheap it was to have prints made from those old slides, I am going through all my old flat file drawers and search for any slide of my work I can find and have prints made from them. I know it's nice for one of your children to see art you had done when you were their age but do it for yourself.

Since Valerie shows up here, I have to post this item from 1965 - I know she loves typography...and all the letters are hand-drawn.

Lutz, you old dog you. I knew there was something I liked about you. Like you, I started off in art as a lettering artist too. Actually, it was my second job. I worked as a lettering artist for King Smith Art Studio way,way back in 1963.

Your art has always been top shelf Harold!

This is the oldest work I have on this site.
34Years ago....

Harold thank you. for some reason when I was thinking of making prints I was thinking big and expensive...for some reason it never occurred to me I could work with a regular size small print. Maybe I will go through those boxes again :)

Thank you for sharing, Lutz...love it!! Among my old work were some hand-lettered pieces, too...including a headline that was entirely cut out with an exacto knife. It kinda blew my mind. lol Amazing to see what we did by hand! My typography professor was a real character, but I learned SO much from him, including a love of type.

I was in the very last design class at UF to be graduated before the introduction of Macs. I learned everything manually. I used to think that was unfortunate, but now I'm kind of proud of it.

Speaking of type, I saw that Adrian Frutiger passed away on Sep 12 at age 87. Typeface genius, Master of the Univers.

Cool stuff Harold.

Wow, nice to see classic art like that Harold, and thank you for making me feel young also, when you were drawing and painting those amazing art works, I was crawling around in diapers.Lol

Beautiful work! :)

Beautiful work

Looks great, Harold. Do show more! I, have a lot of art from many years ago, but hardly any here on FAA. How should one do that,? Is it good to list the year done? And some is so different....maybe even better, who knows. Worth a try.

Thank you guys, I didn't realize when I started this thread that it would be this popular. I found 8 more that I will be dropping off for prints so with any kind of luck I will be posting some more in a couple of weeks.

Drew that's one great drawing you did.

Val all the work really begins when you get your prints home. But it's a lot of fun watching your old art come to life again.

Thanks JC. I read your fascinating post about your career and all the obstacles you had to experience. I agree, you should write a book along with the appropriate photographs. I would buy one.

Geeez and golly whiz Mario, I always thought you were older than that...maybe even older than me. Nah, there's only a couple of guys around here older than me and I know who they are.

Thank you Reb and Linda.

Hiya Mary, my process is to get prints made from my slides and then work them in Photoshop. But if you found your originals, scan them. I always scan my work, never copy them through photography. Hell, sometimes I even scan my supper before I eat it because my wife is such a great cook. I hope she's reading this. Mary, yeas you should date your work. When I am finally planted in the ground, I want my family and grandchildren to know who I was. Heck with the kind of life I led instead of flowers growing over my grave it will probably be poison ivy. :)

Just added one, long time ago, full of vigor and bold line......Was able to scan it, so fairly accurate. .....Heck, I don't want that poison ivy on my grave either. :)

WOW Mary, what authority you had when painting this. After checking out your paintings, I think you still have that commanding sense of authority and bravery when you paint. You are one talented lady Mary. When I was young I was a coward with a brush in my hands which, in a way, was good for developing my eyesight for details. I have noticed that the braver an artist is, the less details in his/her artwork. I think, in my opinion, that this bravery overflows in their personal lives as well. That observation is getting pretty deep for those of you who haven't experienced this in their own art.

Also, I have noticed that my authority has grown with age when I am painting and my sense of details has diminished. Maybe a lot of that has to do with my diminishing eyesight and my diminishing patience. I have to admit that a lot of my loss in those characteristics is growing in watching my students artwork. I don't know if that makes any sense.

To Illustrate my points above, here is an artist I knew very well because he worked for me for around 4 years. He had been at my home and I had been at his numerous times. His name is George Torjussen. http://fineartamerica.com/profiles/george-torjussen.html

He is also a member here at FAA and a very successful painter. When I knew him in the 70s he was a man with such authority that he could hold your attention for hours with his conversation and stories. His artwork may look highly detailed but when you see it up close his paintings aren't that tight. The illusion is created because he painted so large. He would purchase interior doors at Home Depot, take them to his studio, treat them with coats of gesso and then paint on that surface which had been sanded and treated by this master. But to know George as I did, you would be taken in with his overwhelming control of his knowledge and ability to control a situation. He is the type of person that you would go out of your way to invite to a party you were throwing because at the end of the evening you knew that your guests would have been entertained and had a great time as a result of George's wit and knowledge of painting. I was a very lucky guy to have been surrounded by such talented artists in the beginning of my long career.

You've been so crazy awesome, Harold...amazing work from the past!

Harold, thank you for those fine words per talent. When really young I wanted to draw perfectly, but really never quite did. The art school I attended opened up my sense and skills for freedoms no matter the medium I used, which was pencil, ink, oil, watercolor, ceramics or even a 3D project.

You, I see, were a part of the design/illustration etc., world.....as I was too, back then. I really wanted to be an illustrator, but never quite did except per a few projects.
You definitely have a commanding skill in your art, so keep on doing what you are doing.

Thank you Lisa. You are right in calling it work because that is exactly what it was. When I received a commission or project to do I considered it just another job. Back in those days of working on tight schedules -many times around the clock - there wasn't any time to pat ourselves on the back. It kept a roof over our heads and food on the table.

Thank you Mary. The desire to become an illustrator was instilled in me when I signed up for The 12 Famous Artists Correspondence course. I think it taught me most of what I needed to know to get a job as an illustrator. I was 16 or 17 years old when I took that course.

Well here is one I dug up from 1981, About as far back as I could find.