Andrea Brown Holiday Card: Step by Step

I thought for sure I had shared this here, but apparently the craziness of the holidays took its toll on me and I completely forgot. Better now than never, right? Well, I had the wonderful opportunity to illustrate the annual holiday card for the Andrea Brown Literary Agency. My agent, Jennifer, is of course, one of the agents and she asked if I could offer my talents for such an honor. I immediately said yes. Here's a little step-by-step of my process working on the card (click on each to view larger in Flickr):

Here are my first initial ideas put together and presented to the powers that be at the agency. Idea A was too similar to an earlier card that was done several years ago (and I think that I might've remembered my agent mentioning the idea to me and just had it in the back of my mind - by the way, the agency is based out of San Francisco, hence the 'painted lady' reference). Idea B would've been too involved, considering that our time was of the essence at the time (trying to get it out before the holidays, of course!). They went for Idea C, which I thought would work best anyway.

After getting all the reference photos of the agents together and doing some rough sketching in my sketchbook, I then scanned what I thought were the best rendition of each agent and put them together to see how it would all look. As you can see, the background was a separate drawing and I just shifted and moved around the faces until I liked what I saw.

After getting the composition down and all the agents in place, I drew over the rough pencil sketches on my Cintiq a more refined sketch - this was then printed out in greyscale and I drew over that (on my animation disc) the final pencil lines for each of the agents. They are all drawn separately, in order for me to have the freedom of moving them around, just in case.

If you look at the final, you can see that I changed the hair for two of the agents, as they had since changed their hairstyles. No biggie!

And violá! The end result:


I had such a great time working on this card! It's always a pleasure for me to do something Christmas-y or wintry - the ribbon-like lettering was really fun for me to work on as well.

Hope you enjoyed this process post! If you have any questions as to how I work or my thoughts on what I did here, feel free to ask away in the comments.

Merry Christmas

I've posted this several Christmases before and it's always worth posting again: The First Noel, a small Golden Book illustrated by the brilliant husband-wife team of Alice and Martin Provensen, 1959.

You can view the book in its entirety HERE.













Here's to a very Merry Christmas to you and your family.

Peace,
Ward

hello, little snowflake

Thank you for showing up today.

The Golden Bible: New Testament by The Provensens

Alice and Martin Provensen created some beautiful work for this giant Golden Book edition of The Golden Bible: The New Testament from 1953. Absolutely brilliant. I find it hard to take my eyes off these pages. When I look at their work, I feel hopeful, joyous, optimistic. Much like the idea of what Jesus's birth was meant to be: the promise of something new. Of joy and peace. Happiness. When I look at these illustrations, I am happy:


The Golden Bible: New Testament; Edited and arranged by Elsa Jane Werner; Illustrated by Alice and Martin Provensen. © 1953, Simon and Schuster.











I'm sitting here looking out at a scene that's covered in over a half foot of freshly fallen snow. It is Christmas Day. I feel peaceful, I feel optimistic. I wish the same for your Christmas.

A very Merry Christmas to you and yours,

- Ward Jenkins

Here's to Safe Travels

This is a huge State Farm Road Atlas from 1950. No mention of illustrator. It took six scans and lots of photoshopping to put it all together and get rid of all the scratches and torn areas. It was in pretty bad shape, but now you can enjoy it looking as close to what it's supposed to look like back in the day.

Click here to view larger.

Hope you stay safe in your travels this Holiday Season!

You know, Santa Claus and ho-ho-ho, and mistletoe and presents to pretty girls...

I would say that about a third of my old stuff collection consists of little booklets, pamphlets, brochures and various forgotten bits of ephemera that were printed as some sort of promotional insert or handout for companies, obviously trying to get in good with your typical consumer at the time. Most would include fun illustrations, which, of course, is the reason I collect them. Here are a few Christmas-themed ones, perfect to get you in the Christmas-y mood:

A Treasury of Christmas Ideas: Not sure who put this out, but it says on the inside cover "Published by Raymond A. Sholl & Co., Upper Darby, PA." Everything is based on electricity - electrical gifts, lighting, appliances. With some recipes thrown in for good measure. No date, but guessing late 50s to early 60s:








It's illustrations like the woman with the present that make me grin like a fool.


Always a good thing to include all the latest stereo equipment and consoles.

Rit® Fun Fixings for The Holidays: Now, here's a fun little booklet from 1962 on holiday trimmings and whatnot printed up by Rit Dye. Cute illustrations. Yeah, I said cute:






Candles! More candles!



More great illustrations to share with you soon.

You know, deck them halls and all that stuff?

CHRISTMAS! Can't wait for it!

The following ads were found in Collier's Magazine, December 24, 1954. This issue had part of the on-going saga of "The Body Snatchers" by Jack Finney. This story, of course, would eventually be published a year later as "Invasion of the Body Snatchers." So fitting for the Season, you think?


The Minstrel 3-Way Portable Radio ad with some fun characters at the top there.


Esterbrook pens ad. I love the individual characters for each of the pens shown. Looks a lot like JP Miller, but I'm pretty sure it's not. No illustrator credit given. Notice all the females have clerical or secretarial jobs. Typical!

Here's a high-res version of it for you: Esterbrook Pens BIG. It was very difficult to get the right levels and tones here - the subtle grays in the illustrations were so fine and delicate, it was hard for me to find the right look without blowing the image out too much. Sorry.


Fun Jell-O ad illustrated by the awesome Jack Welch.

This was part of a big campaign. You can check out more of the ads by clicking HERE.


Classic Santa Coke ad illustrated by Haddon Sundblom, of course. Not what I typically post here, but thought that it was a pretty cool ad to share. Plus, I love Christmas. And Coke. So there.

The following ad was not from Collier's but from Everywoman's Magazine, December 1957. The cutest little cook you'll find this Season using tin foil:




Not that Christmas-y, but still cool nonetheless, this illustration was done by Herschel Levit. Apparently he taught at Pratt at one point.

Hope you're enjoying the Season so far. I know I am. I've been listening to nothing but Christmas music all day long. Not tired of it one bit. Well, not yet, anyway.

Good Housekeeping's Christmas Cook Book 1958

Good Housekeeping's Christmas Cook Book, ©1958. Illustrations by Davi Botts. Davi was busy during the midcentury era, illustrating many paper doll collections, not to mention other cook books. She illustrated another edition of the Good Housekeeping series of cook books: Book of Cookies. Cakes & Tortes was another one (but not GH). Her work shines off the page with joy and fun. A perfect fit to illustrate the Christmas cook book for GH, wouldn't you think? Click on each image to view it larger:


Here's a selection of various spot illos.




Fun use of the separation between the columns here.


A selection of various section headers.


Now, eggnog - that's what I'M talking about. Actually, I dig it without the alcohol. I know, I'm weird.

More links for you to clicky-click:

My Vintage Christmas set
My Vintage Cooking set
My Fun Ephemera set

and...

Vintage Cookbooks Group
Vintage Christmas: 1945-1970 Group
Midcentury Illustrated Group

The Discriminating Lush

The holidays are in full thrush here at the Jenkins household. So excited! I love the Christmas holiday season. Looking forward to having egg nog 24/7 and throwing a log into the hearth and starting a fire whenever I dang well please. And the music, too, of course. Now I can stop pressing 'skip' when a Christmas-themed song comes up in my iTunes shuffle. Yeah, I never got rid of my Christmas songs from last year. So sue me!

The sale in The Ward-O-Matic Shop was a success—I thoroughly enjoyed sending out prints to new customers in various new places. Always a big thrill. Hope you all enjoy the prints!

A new illustration to share. This was for the Boston Phoenix, for their holiday supplement. This guy is labelled "The Discriminating Lush." Whenever I need some help with fashion for any of my subjects, I call upon my good friend Robert Pope of Dagnabit! He knew exactly what my character should wear. I followed his advice and I'm very thankful for it. Many thanks, Pope! You big lush. And by the way, kids, don't drink and drive.


Vintage stuff to share with you soon. Don't shop too hard, people!

Christmas Angel Book

Merry Christmas, everyone.

With love,
The Ward-O-Matic























The Christmas Angel Book by William Dugan. ©1965 Golden Press, Western Publishing Company, Inc.

William (or Bill) Dugan is one of my favorite illustrators, creating some of the more interesting and colorful books for children during the midcentury era. There were certain details that Bill focused on for some of his pieces, like the hair and fabic, that stood out from the usual stuff.

We read this each year for Christmas.