Illustration Friday - Robot

My original, finished robot pattern

It's been a while since I've submitted anything for the Illustration Friday weekly challenge, but when I saw that this week's challenge was "Robot," I couldn't resist.  Coincidentally, I was working on an update of a robot pattern that I had originally designed for my Spoonflower shop. My aim was to create a fabric design with some kid-friendly, retro-looking robots.

My original pattern featured 5 different robots (plus one that was repeated within the basic repeat module). Below, is the sketch for their original design. To the right, is the finished color pattern showing how it repeats. To the finished version, I added some textures in Photoshop to help give the image the feel of vintage cloth.

If you scroll down to the bottom, you can see my updated version that uses the original robots, plus a couple of new ones.

The original sketch for my robot pattern

A test, using the sketch, to see how the pattern lined up when repeated

For the updated version, I added two more robots, and lots of little gears to fill in blank spaces. I also changed the color scheme.

My recent updated robot pattern where I added two new robots and lots of gears

A sheet showing how the new pattern repeats

Toys That Remind Me of My Childhood Part 2

As much as I try and keep this blog to the subject of illustration and favorite illustrators, I tend at times to drift into areas of nostalgia, in particular, nostalgia for my childhood. But even when I'm indulging in nostalgia, I try and have a link to something illustrated. In this posting, I'm going to share another toy from my childhood, that is if you can count a card game as a toy (since the back of each card has a small logo on it that says "A Built Rite Toy," I guess I'll let that be my confirmation that they are toys). 

I have three old card games from my childhood that were based around cartoon or comic strip characters. In this posting I will show you the cards based on the Harvey cartoon characters.

The Harvey cartoon characters that we all know and love, the most well known of which is Casper the Friendly Ghost, have a rather convoluted background.  Casper (who is not represented in this card game) was a cartoon character developed in 1945 by Famous Studios (which itself came into being after Paramount absorbed the Fleischer brothers' debt-ridden studio).  In 1951, Harvey Comics, who was already licensing newspaper comic strip characters like Dick Tracy, licensed Famous Studios' cartoon characters, including Casper.  At the same time they began releasing comic books with characters that they had created (Wendy the Good Little Witch, Little Dot, Richie Rich, etc). In the late fifties, Harvey Comics stopped licensing the characters from Famous Studios and purchased all rights to them. In 1963 they started producing their own cartoons, the "Harveytoons," that I'm sure many of you baby boomers remember from your childhoods. (Thanks to Don Markstein's Toonopedia website for this background information).

I don't know the individual histories of the characters represented on these cards or even when these cards were manufactured (there is no date or copyright marked anywhere that I could see). I suspect they are from around 1963 or 1964. I believe that Wendy the Good Little Witch, Spooky, Nightmare and the Ghostly Trio were all spinoffs from the Casper series.  I have strong memories of seeing all of these supernatural characters in either cartoons or in comic books.  I have vague memories of cartoons starting Inchy and Wolfie, but I have no memory of Pedro or Little Feather.  Wily Fox, Moe Hare and Tommy Tortoise are so generic that if I remember them at all, I may be confusing them with similar characters created by other studios (what studio didn't create their own version of the Tortoise and the Hare story?).

It would have been great if the backside of the cards depicted a grouping of the Harvey characters, but instead we have a group of generic funny animals and goofy people. In closing, I'll mention a few things about the cards that I love - Besides the great artwork of these once famous characters, I love the wavy edge of each card, which according to the box top, was designed to more easily fit the hand, making them easier to hold. I also love the box itself which has a clamshell opening design, which is much sturdier than the other card game boxes I have where the flaps have torn and in some cases gone missing.

I hope seeing these cards, have jogged a few memories for some of you.  For those of you new to the Harvey characters, I hope you have found this interesting and will be curious enough to seek out their old comics or to read them in their newly released archive collections being put out by Dark Horse comics.

Library Discard Book Finds

Our local public library here in Bloomington, Indiana, recently held one of its clearance sales where they get rid of discarded books and books that have been donated to raise money for the library.  I have very fond memories of going to library sales as a kid with my parents and my sister.  We were all readers in my family and none of us could resist a bargain so it was an event that we all looked forward to.  The public library in my hometown of Riverside, CA held their sales on the lower level of the Riverside Municipal Auditorium.  The Auditorium is a beautiful building that was dedicated in 1929 (see above picture). We always arrived at the sales early and I remember standing outside in the auditorium's beautiful Spanish courtyard waiting for the doors to open.  Once inside we were each given a brown paper shopping bag and then we were set loose to browse for treasures.  We never failed to fill up our bags.  My dad filled his bag with non-fiction, often books about the French Revolution or books on science.  My mom loved mysteries and historical fiction, so she was always on the look out for books by Mary Roberts Rinehart, Mary Stewart, or Eileen Goudge. I think I had recently discovered Daphne DuMaurier and A.J. Cronin, so I kept an eye open for books by them.  My sister was interested in literary fiction and dog stories. We were also both interested in books connected with the movies and star biographies.  A book that I featured on this blog not long ago, "Those Daring Young Men in Their Jaunty Jalopies," with illustrations by Ronald Searle, was purchased at one of those sales.


Anyway, back to the local library sale that I recently attended. At this sale I spent a good deal of time and most of my money on children's books.  I found some wonderful picture books from the 1960s and even a couple of much older books from the 1940s.  I found two books illustrated by Adrienne Adams, an illustrator who was a two time winner of the Caldecott Honor Award (for "Houses from the Sea," and "The Day We Saw the Sun Come Up.") Adams who was born in 1906, was at the height of her career in the fifties and sixties and was known for her illustrated interpretations of various fairy tales.  The two books I found, illustrated in very different styles are "The Twelve Dancing Princesses," and "The Mouse Palace," by Frances Carpenter.

Her illustrations for the "The Twelve Dancing Princesses," are done in a flat, but colorful style, where each scene is depicted in an almost tableaux format.  Some of them, like the illustration of the three riders (above right) suggest a medieval tapestery. In the two page spread (below), I love how she has heightened the colors of the princesses' dresses by placing them against a black background and then echoed the colors of their dresses in the awnings covering the little gondolas on the opposite page.

In this illustration, Adams has framed the figures with the trees, an arrangement that to me suggests the layout of a stained glass window or an illuminated manuscript.

In this particular book, Adams avoids using close-ups, keeping the viewer at a slight distance from her subjects. Every figure is seen in (to use cinema terminology) medium to long shot, so that their whole body is always on display. Once again, this choice seems to reinforce the illustration's links to medieval tapestries or stained glass windows, a fitting choice for this classic fairy tale.

I have to admit that I have not read "The Mouse Palace," yet, but from glancing at it, I know it takes place in old Siam (Thailand). In the book's forward, the author Frances Carpenter informs us that she was inspired to write the story after visiting Thailand and seeing the little palace that was built to house the pet mice of the king's children. Like the king in Margaret Landon's story "Anna and the King of Siam," and the same character in the musical version "The King and I," the king in this story seems to be the father to many children. I suppose it might even be the same king.

The illustrations in this book are done in what appears to be pencil and colored pencil with some areas of flat color laid in.

 Here is the king with his children. The bright red coat of the king, makes him the focal point, but his gaze toward the children directs your eye down to the right of the image where you can take in the delicate drawing of the children's costumes and faces.

I particularly like the mood that Adams has created in this black and white drawing of one of the king's children outside under a full moon.

And I love the soft coloration, the poses and the facial expressions of this group of Siamese cats.

Finally, here is an illustration of the little mice born at the end of the story. I think Adams has done a wonderful job in this illustration of utilizing the negative space created by the white coats of the baby mice against their somewhat darker background.

Before finding these two delightful books, I wasn't familiar with Adrienne Adams, but I'm happy that I discovered her and I'll definitely be keeping my eye open for some of her other titles the next time I'm at a used book sale.

Work in Progress - Above and Below

For the past couple of days I've been working on a somewhat detailed illustration that was inspired by the old Masterpiece Theatre show, "Upstairs Downstairs." For those of you who don't know this program, it detailed the lives of the wealthy Bellamy family (the 'upstairs' part of the program) and their servants who worked downstairs.  Their story, set in London, begins in 1904 and ends around 1930. Both the upstairs and the downstairs families are touched by such events as the sinking of the Titanic, World War I, the 1918 flu epidemic and the start of the depression. It's a show that often discusses social class, the discrepancy between those born of nobility and wealth and those born to more common circumstances.  But the show also had elements of high class soap opera detailing the scandals of both sets of families - extra-marital affairs, children out of wedlock, suicide, and even a hostage taking.  Yes, the show could sometimes be a bit 'talky' but above everything else, and what made me such a big fan of the show was the careful attention to the creation of the characters and how they grew over the course of the 25 years that the series covered.  This was a time of great social change and upheaval, a time when class distinctions began to break down.  This is especially evident in season 4 that covers the World War I period.  Some of the servants get jobs outside of the house to aid in the war effort.  These characters, who in the beginning of the series believed that they would spend their entire lives in domestic service, are shown that the world outside offers them other opportunities.  Some, like the rigid household butler, Hudson, cling to the ways of the past.  He sticks to the moral code of the past and feels that society is crumbling when changes in the household bring about new attitudes and behaviors.  Others, like Rose the upper house parlor maid, who as played by the wonderful Jean Marsh, becomes the heart of the show, are young enough to have an open mind and adapt to the changes in the world.  This show is in my top 10 of all-time favorite television shows.  The last episode of the series, when it first aired in 1975 brought tears to my eyes.  As I recall, it was the first time that a television program made me cry.

Over the past few weeks my partner and I've been watching the show on DVD. My partner had never seen it, while I have fond memories of watching the show with my family when it first aired in the seventies.  As I've been watching the show, which as I've mentioned is about two families (and yes, the servants, though they're not related to one another, do make up a family), I began to think about an idea for a children's illustration. My illustration wouldn't have anything to do with servants, or class issues, but two very different types of families that live in close proximity to one another. The above ground family would naturally be a human family, while below ground is a family of rabbits. Since I love the look of the Edwardian period in which "Upstairs Downstairs," is set, I decided I would set my illustration in the same period. While working on this illustration, I've been looking at a lot of work by Mary Blair, the artist who was one of Disney's top designers in the late 1950s and 60s. She excelled at stylized backgrounds and creating scenes with lots of characters. I love the way that she drew children and especially the look of her plants, flowers and trees. So, I still have a lot to do on this illustration, but here is a shot of it in progress. This shot shows the original sketch superimposed on top of the painting, which, by the way, is being done using Painter 11. When it's finished, I'll post the completed image.

Illustration Friday - Equipment

Earlier in the week I had been drawing some rabbit characters, so when I found out the word for this week's Illustration Friday challenge, which this week is 'Equipment,' I decided I would incorporate one of these characters into my drawing.  One of the characters that I drew was an old female rabbit character who is using a walker.  She was inspired by my late mom and my first idea was to do something using this character, showing all of the equipment necessary to make an older person's life easier. But when it came to how I would set up this scene I was at a loss for inspiration.

Instead, I decided to do something inspired by my late father who was a plant pathologist.  He had a laboratory filled with all sorts of scientific equipment which I thought would be a perfect setting for this challenge.  I made his laboratory underground, which seemed natural for a rabbit scientist and I gave him equipment that was a little more on the "mad scientist" side of things, rather than the beakers and centrifuges that my father used. I thought of my rabbit as a scientist who is trying to create the perfect carrot and needs a lot of scientific equipment to do so.

I've included my page of rabbit characters that I was working on prior to this week's IF drawing.  You can see the old female rabbit character in the upper left.  I like her quite a bit so I will try and find a setting for her in a future drawing.  I think you can probably spot the character that I ended up using as my scientist.

I've also included my original digital pencil sketch and two in progress shots so that you can see the image in different stages of development.  I had orignally thought of doing this image completely in pen and ink, but as I began working, I began to envision it with a simply colored background.  I tried to go for the style of a 1950's or 1960's animated cartoon, where the line work is fairly sketchy and the color is made up of blocked shapes that don't always stay within their outlines. I started out making the colors fairly dark, but then decided I wanted to emphasize the pen lines, so in the final image, I dialed back the opacity of the layer that contained the painted color shapes. You can see in the final image that I also decided to put my scientist in a lab coat and gave him a giant carrot to hold.

A Paper Doll That I Can Call My Own Part 3 - Betsy McCall

In two previous blogs I've written about my fond memories of playing with paper dolls when I was a little boy and I've posted some examples of some of the dolls that are still in my possession.  Readers of this blog will probably know by now that I still have many of my childhood toys and playthings.  Today I came across more of my paper dolls.  This time I stumbled upon my collection of my old Betsy McCall paper dolls. In preparing to write this blog, I did a little research on the internet and found out that Betsy McCall first appeared in McCall's magazine in 1951. I happily discovered a site that has documented her history and even has scans of many of the complete pages (http://www.thebleudoor.com/betsymccallhome.htm). I was very excited to see that many of the dolls in my collection were listed on the site.  Now I can put a date to them. My three oldest dolls (two from 1958 and one from 1959) are in the worst shape due to an unfortunate mending job done years ago using Scotch tape that has yellowed and darkened. You can see in the above image the way that the dolls look today.  On the right, I've posted my attempts at restoring the same dolls (click on the images to enlarge them).  The doll on the far left is from the Valentine's Day issue of 1958. Each doll was always accompanied by a couple of outfits and a short story with a cute illustration.   The image of the page on the right shows the doll the way that it appeared with its clothes and accompanying story in McCall's magazine.

Most of you probably know that there was also a Betsy McCall doll that had her own line of doll clothing.  My sister had the doll and several of her outfits (my sister also had the plush toy version of Betsy's dachshund, Nosy).  I loved playing dolls with my sister and I was a bit jealous when she received her Betsy McCall doll. Even though I had a few dolls of my own, my mom resisted getting me my own Betsy. It looked like I was going to have to settle for playing with the paper dolls version until one day my sister's Betsy McCall doll had a medical emergency - her jointed leg popped out of its socket. Somehow the doll's hip joint had separated a wee bit which meant that the leg would not stay in the socket. I think my mother tried tightening the joint with a cloth bandaid, but it didn't help. It looked like poor Betsy was going to live out her life with just one leg. Finally, I suppose after witnessing how sad this must have made my sister, my mother told my sister that she would take the doll to the doll hospital. The next day, Betsy was back and as good as new, her leg snug in its place. But, and here's how I came to have my own Betsy McCall doll, one day when my sister and I were both home sick from school and my mom had gone out on an errand, my sister and I decided to snoop through my mom's dresser. We were shocked and surprised when we found a Betsy McCall doll hidden under my mom's slips. It only took us a moment to realize that this was my sister's original doll, the one with the broken leg, the one my mom had told us she had taken to the doll hospital. The "good as new" Betsy that my mom said had been repaired at the doll hospital was actually a brand new doll. I don't remember exactly what happened next, but since I wanted my sister's original, broken doll for myself, I know what happened next must have involved admitting to my mom that we had been snooping and found the doll. I did end up getting to keep the broken doll and somehow I managed to put some tape around the leg to hold it in. Yes, she now had one leg that appeared to be slightly longer than the other, but I didn't care, I had my very own Betsy McCall.

Well, back to the paper dolls.  The second doll from the left in the above group, is also from 1958. In the image on the right, you can see how she looked in the original magazine page from October of that year. The accompanying story is about her family going out to dinner. Betsy McCall's purpose in the magazine seems to have been to help sell clothes for little girls. Each story and paper doll was accompanied by a footnote telling the reader what stores carried the clothing shown in the illustrations.

As Betsy entered the 1960s, she adopted a more modern look. In this period, she has an almost Jackie Kennedy look to her (I think it must be the hairstyle).  Even her mother, who you can see in the group on the right, looks a little bit like Jackie. The other characters in this group are Betsy's male cousin, Sandy McCall and another cousin, Linda.  The hand drawn Betsy image with the askew face, was my attempt to copy the Betsy McCall paper doll that appeared in this 1962 issue where she goes to dancing school.

The clothing of this period looks like something that you would see Don Draper's daughter wearing in "Mad Men," which shows what a good job the costumer designer for that show has done in capturing the era of the early 1960s.

In the group on the left, you'll notice a tiny Betsy McCall paper doll.  This was from an issue in 1965 where Betsy's mother makes some new clothes for Betsy's new doll, which in Betsy's fictional world, I believe is supposed to be a doll patterned after her.  So, this is a paper doll version of another paper doll's doll. Got that? It's metafiction in the world of paper dolls. And of course, in the story, Betsy just happens to mention which McCall's pattern number her mother used to make the clothes (just in case you want to try making them yourself).

Below, you can see the technique I used to strengthen my magazine cut-out dolls.  This backside view shows how I use to glue them on to scraps of cardboard to give them added durability. And boy oh boy, I remember how difficult it was to cut out the doll shapes from the cardboard using only a pair of children's scissors.

The Betsy on the left of the above group is not out of McCall's magazine.  It is one that I sent away for from McCall's.  In each issue, at the bottom of the Betsy page, was information on where, for ten cents, you could send for a paper doll that was printed on card stock that came with a set of clothes.  So of all of the dolls shown, this is the only one that I didn't have to paste on to a piece of card board.  Because of this, she's the one that's in the best condition.

Below, you can see more of Betsy's clothes, including an outfit that was never cut out of the magazine (I think I must have been confounded on how I would cut out the Lily that she's holding).

Betsy McCall paper dolls appeared in the magazine on and off through the 1980s and 90s, though the art that I've seen of these dolls has none of the charm of these dolls from the late fifties and early sixties.