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art students are usually asked to create an INFLUENCE MAP, assembling artwork of artists that infuences them the most. classical paintings, contemporary illustrations, comic strips, character-/concept-designs from animated movies are among other things where we consciously or subconsciously borrow elements, techniques or looks from. as an artist we always need to be inspired, we get a lot of that from life around us. and the endless resources within the world of the internet provide us with all the information and reference we could dream of.
before the time of the internet most illustrators had a huge cut-out archives, reference images cut from magazines and books, and archived alphabetically. I still have cabinets full with those treasures. it took forever and was not cheap. today google is much cheaper and more important – faster.

probably about 15 years ago, when the internet speed in this part of asia where I live, improved, I started the same what I had done years ago, to collect all different reference images – but this time downloaded from the internet and nicely archived ( not always ) in folders for easier locating them. reference photography, classical art, children book-/magazine-/book-illustration, concept art and production design for live action and animation, comic strip. so far some million files.

during this pandemic, for longer than six months I am more or less stuck at my home, what gave me the opportunity to dig through my collections. you have seen already some of the results in my last posts, more to come.

today i wanna show you my version of influence maps, compilations of inspiring artwork that I put together randomly, from those thousands of reference folders.

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Krazy Kat (also known as Krazy & Ignatz in some reprints and compilations) is an American newspaper comic strip by cartoonist George Herriman, which ran from 1913 to 1944. It first appeared in the New York Evening Journal, whose owner, William Randolph Hearst, was a major booster for the strip throughout its run. The characters had been introduced previously in a side strip with Herriman’s earlier creation, The Dingbat Family.[1] The phrase “Krazy Kat” originated there, said by the mouse by way of describing the cat. Set in a dreamlike portrayal of Herriman’s vacation home of Coconino County, Arizona, Krazy Kat’s mixture of offbeat surrealism, innocent playfulness and poetic, idiosyncratic language has made it a favorite of comics aficionados and art critics for more than 80 years.
( from wikipedia )
I recommend to look at these 2 ( one / two ) articles about herriman

© george herriman

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maritime artists –
ivan konstantinovich aivazovsky , pieter bruegel the elder, bryan booth, jacob loutherberg, samuel scott, montague dawson, john stobart, marek ruzyk, geoffray huband, yves berube, alexander shenderov, winslow homer, willem van de velde, geoff hunt, william hodges, james brereton, patrick o’brien, caspar david friedrich, roger morris, andy simmons, samuel atkins, ludolf bakhuizen, joseph mallord william turner, philipp jacob loutherbourg, alexey bogolyubov, george hyde chambers, peter monamy, nicholas pocock, charles brooking

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I realized how many more books illustrated by WILHELM M.BUSCH I have, and decided to prepare some more chapters about this ‘illustration giant’. his artwork below is from the book ‘LIEBE IN FRANKREICH’ ( love in france ). look how effortless these sketches were ‘written down’…

© wilhelm m.busch

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below I have collected some of my own artwork containing house-designs from all over the years…

© walt disney enterprises
© universal pictures/amblin entertainment

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as long as I can remember there was this fascination with pirates. I loved to read PETER PAN and STEVENSON’S TREASURE ISLAND, and then there were the old hollywood swashbuckler classics like CAPTAIN BLOOD, THE BLACK CORSAIR, THE BUCCANEER, THE SEA HAWK, THE BLACK SWAN and of course lately THE PIRATES OF THE CARIBEAN.
but it was not just the adventurous stories, the sword fights and buried treasures, that made it all so interesting, for me it was the world where all that took place – those huge sailing ships and the endless oceans, the huge waves and the storms.
a while ago I found more accidentally beautiful artwork that depicted this world, paintings done by MONTAGUE DAWSON and IWAN KONSTANTINOWITSCH AIWASOWSKI. and recently, with more time, I started to search more intensively through the endless world of the internet, and found hundreds of the most amazing paintings. this genre is called NAUTICAL-, MARINE- or MARITIME ART depicting the world of ships and the seas.
in a lot of cases these paintings are available without the name of the artist and the year they were painted. thats why I decided to give you just a general list of maritime artists and you can find out more about them in case you are interested.

maritime artists –
ivan konstantinovich aivazovsky , pieter bruegel the elder, bryan booth, jacob loutherberg, samuel scott, montague dawson, john stobart, marek ruzyk, geoffray huband, yves berube, alexander shenderov, winslow homer, willem van de velde, geoff hunt, william hodges, james brereton, patrick o’brien, caspar david friedrich, roger morris, andy simmons, samuel atkins, ludolf bakhuizen, joseph mallord william turner, philipp jacob loutherbourg, alexey bogolyubov, george hyde chambers, peter monamy, nicholas pocock, charles brooking

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let me quote DAVID APATOFF in his incredible blog ILLUSTRATION ART –
‘HENRY PATRICK RALEIGH, (1880-1944), started and ended life in poverty and despair. but in between, he spent decades painting high society pictures and living the opulent life of one of the best paid illustrators in the united states.’
RALEIGH’S illustrations belong to the best I have ever seen, and it is not just the draftsmanship in his drawings, it is his amazing talent to tell us a story in these images, you know what the characters are saying and thinking! it is a rare talent that you can only find in a few artists. I am in awe.

here are a few links ( 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 ) where you can find more information about him, as well as more artwork.

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todays collection is about german illustrator WILHELM M.BUSCH, 1908 – 1987. in the past I published already 43 posts about his extraordinary work, that’s why I thought an overview over his life work might be interesting, where you can see changes in style and drawing techniques. the images in this chapter are from 2 major work-catalogues.

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this is the first part of a new SERIES – ILLUSTRATION ARCHIVES -, where I am planning to share with you some of the hundreds of illustatrators I have collected over the years.

JOHN CONRAD BERKEY,1932 – 2008, was an american artist known for his space- and science fiction-themed works. some of berkey’s best-known work includes much of the original poster art for the STAR WARS trilogy and the poster for the 1976 remake of KING KONG, berkey produced a large body of space fantasy artwork, creating utopian scenes of bubble-shaped, yacht-like spaceships. his distinctive painterly style has been evaluated as “at once realistic, yet impressionistic and abstract”, and his space craft designs as being “distinctly elegant, yet clearly technological and unmistakably BERKIAN, more inspired by luxury yachts and manta rays than NASA”. he has been described as “one of the giants in the history of science fiction art”.
( from wikipedia )

© john conrad berkey

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this is not about architecture. I want to compare the different styles artist from the last centuries have seen and painted houses. in the next chapters I might include the house-look in animation. I love the variety and I hope one day that variety will even show in CG-animated films. with the historic disaster WILD LIFE I tried to do that already 20 years ago, so far there has not been too much exciting style-wise in CG animation.

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it’s very interesting to see the style evolve over the months EARLE was working on it. how he comes up with a special technique, the use of a sponge, to give the bark on the forest trees their typical look. and how he repeats the same sponge look on the stone walls in the castle. somehow he needed to bring the look of the forest and the castle interior together, another element was the long stretched cathedral-like pillars in the castle, and similar stretched trees. the cottage interior was easier, since there was a lot of wood and bark, together with repetitive textures, repeating what he used on the forest floor, grass patterns. and that came from the persian miniatures.

the choices of color are amazing as well. very tasteful and moody combinations, especially in the forest where the colors range from fresh springlike to very somber and subdued. today, painting in photoshop, it is easy in the last steps to adjust the color range. that way you don’t really have a problem to make dozens of backgrounds painted by a dozen of background painters look similar, and in the exact same color range. but, imagine in those days – everything had to be painted in acrylics and gouache, with a touch of airbrush once in a while. not just the absolute same colors in a sequence, all the details and textures painted the same way. looking at the backgrounds in SLEEPING BEAUTY, they nearly all look like painted by one artist.

the LAYOUT artists –
RAY ARAGON, TOM CODRICK, BASIL DAVIDOVICH, DON GRIFFITH, VICTOR HABOUSH, JOE HALE, JACK HUBER, HOMER JONES, ERNIE NORDLI, MCLAREN STEWARD

and the BACKGROUND artists including EYVIND EARLE –
AL DEMPSTER, DICK ANTHONY, FRANK ARMITAGE, RALPH HULETT, BILL LAYNE, FIL MOTTOLA, WALT PEREGOY, ANTHONY RIZZO, RICHARD H.THOMAS, THEKMA WITMER

© walt disney enterprises

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first I would like to refresh your memory with an art timetable, where you can locate the different style epochs and their according years in time.

wherever you go to study the architectural details of some of the GOTHIC cathedrals, CHARTRES, REIMS, PARIS, COLOGNE, ULM, MILAN, AMIENS, or SALISBURY, you will find the same style elements. it is interesting to compare those characteristics with the style of the handwritten lettering of the manuscripts. it is mainly the emphasis on the vertical and the playful ornamental opening-letter designs that seem to be repeated in the supporting beams outside the cathedral as well as in the stainless window structures.

what EARLE doesn’t mention in his autobiography, is one of the key reference elements for the style of SLEEPING BEAUTY, the french tapestries around the UNICORN. THE HUNT FOR THE UNICORN and THE LADY AND THE UNICORN, 15th century. JOHN HENCH, one of the old timers, – layout, background and production design -, had seen the tapestries and recommended them to EYVIND EARLE.

tomorrow I will post the last part…

© walt disney enterprises