I'd forgotten I had a scan around of the original drawing of the cover featured in the previous post. Take a close look and it tells a story. As is plainly evident, the painting was barely altered at all from this sketch. Also clear is that it would have taken Bolles mere minutes of effort to whip this out, meaning the art editor of
Spicy Stories would approve a cover based on the "barest" of efforts. Even after producing film fun covers for nearly 20 years, Bolles often would complete fully rendered comps (detailed concept paintings done on 9 by 12" canvasboard) of potential covers for
Film Fun. I have other examples of cover concept sketches that didn't see the light of day so it's likely that he would show a batch of them at a time. Another thing that is evident upon inspection is just how precise a line Bolles had. He started out drawing, not painting and won, not once but twice the Charles Loring Elliot medal for drawing from the National Academy of Design. Oh how I wish the art that got him the awards was still around.
2 comments:
wow- this is fascinating. Please publish more sketches. I can't believe the fluidity of his line - no sketchieness, just a perfect rendering. Hard to believe. Do you know the stock of the paper - is there any way it was traced? I wonder if the group that gave the award has any archival material?
Can't put it all on the blog otherwise there will be nothing left for the book! Check out my article on Bolles in Illustration #9 for more drawings. But I will be putting up some unseen material on the blog soon so stay tuned.
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