Encaustic painting, also known as hot wax painting, is a form of painting that involves a heated wax medium to which colored pigments have been added. The molten mix is applied to a surface—usually prepared wood, though canvas and other materials are sometimes used. The simplest encaustic medium could be made by adding pigments to wax, though recipes most commonly consist of beeswax and damar resin, potentially with other ingredients. For pigmentation, dried powdered pigments can be used, though some artists use pigmented wax, inks, oil paints or other forms of pigmentation.
An illustrator is an artist who specializes in enhancing writing or elucidating concepts by providing a visual representation that corresponds to the content of the associated text or idea. The illustration may be intended to clarify complicated concepts or objects that are difficult to describe textually, which is the reason illustrations are often found in children's books.
Burne Hogarth was an American artist and educator, best known for his work on the Tarzan newspaper comic strip and his series of anatomy books for artists.
Clarence Coles Phillips was an American artist and illustrator who signed his early works C. Coles Phillips, but after 1911 worked under the abbreviated name, Coles Phillips. He is known for his stylish images of women and a signature use of negative space in the paintings he created for advertisements and the covers of popular magazines.
John Carl Schoenherr was an American illustrator. He won the 1988 Caldecott Medal for U.S. children's book illustration, recognizing Owl Moon by Jane Yolen, which recounts the story of the first time a father takes his youngest child on a traditional outing to spot an owl. He was posthumously inducted into the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame in 2015.
The American Weekly was a Sunday newspaper supplement published by the Hearst Corporation from November 1, 1896, until 1966.
Virgil Finlay was an American pulp fantasy, science fiction and horror illustrator. He has been called "part of the pulp magazine history ... one of the foremost contributors of original and imaginative art work for the most memorable science fiction and fantasy publications of our time." While he worked in a range of media, from gouache to oils, Finlay specialized in, and became famous for, detailed pen-and-ink drawings accomplished with abundant stippling, cross-hatching, and scratchboard techniques. Despite the very labor-intensive and time-consuming nature of his specialty, Finlay created more than 2600 works of graphic art in his 35-year career.
Joseph Christian Leyendecker was one of the most prominent and financially successful freelance commercial artists in the U.S. He was active between 1895 and 1951 producing drawings and paintings for hundreds of posters, books, advertisements, and magazine covers and stories. He is best known for his 80 covers for Collier's Weekly, 322 covers for The Saturday Evening Post, and advertising illustrations for B. Kuppenheimer men's clothing and Arrow brand shirts and detachable collars. He was one of the few known reportedly gay artists working in the early-twentieth century U.S.
Franklin Booth was an American artist known for his detailed pen-and-ink illustrations. He had a unique illustration style based upon his early recreation of wood engraving illustrations with pen and ink. His skill as a draftsman and style made him a popular magazine illustrator in the early 20th-century. He was one of the first modern ex libris designers in the United States.
Claybord Black is a clay coated hardboard panel for scratchboard that is coated with India ink. Comparable to traditional paper scratchboard, it’s more durable and easier to scratch into for cleaner and crisper details and lines. The surface is made of a special clay coating that allows for precise detail and fine lines in drawing, painting, and other artistic techniques. The black background provides a striking contrast for white or colored mediums, making artwork stand out. Artists often use Claybord Black for techniques such as scratchboard, scratch art, and ink drawing. For added dimension, colored inks can be added to the white areas and then scratched again for additional highlights and volume.
Classical Realism is an artistic movement in the late-20th and early 21st century in which drawing and painting place a high value upon skill and beauty, combining elements of 19th-century neoclassicism and realism.
Edmund Evans was an English wood-engraver and colour printer during the Victorian era. He specialized in full-colour printing, a technique which, in part because of his work, became popular in the mid-19th century. He employed and collaborated with illustrators such as Walter Crane, Randolph Caldecott, Kate Greenaway and Richard Doyle to produce what are now considered to be classic children's books. Little is known about his life, although he wrote a short autobiography before his death in 1905 in which he described his life as a printer in Victorian London.
Michael McCurdy was an American illustrator, author, and publisher. He illustrated over 200 books in his career, including ten that he authored. Most were illustrated with his trademark black and white wood engravings, with occasional color illustrations. His illustrations often have historical or natural themes.
Floyd MacMillan Davis was an American painter and illustrator known for his work in advertising and illustration; Walter and Roger Reed described him as "someone who could capture the rich, beautiful people of the 1920s: dashing, mustachioed men; the cool, svelte women. But Davis was just as capable at capturing just-plain-folk, and with a cartoonist's sensibilities and a fresh humor, he expanded into story art and ad work that called characters of every persuasion.
Henry Clarence Pitz was an American artist, illustrator, editor, author, and teacher who wrote and/or illustrated over 160 books, and dozens of magazine covers and articles. His most well-known book is The Brandywine Tradition (1968).
Lillian Chestney was an American illustrator and painter. She studied in New York City and illustrated children's books, comic books, and magazine and book covers at a time when few women held artist positions in the industry.
A colored pencil, coloured pencil, colour pencil, map pencil, pencil crayon, or coloured/colouring lead is an art medium constructed of a narrow, pigmented core encased in a wooden cylindrical case. Unlike graphite and charcoal pencils, colored pencils' cores are wax- or oil-based and contain varying proportions of pigments, additives, and binding agents. Water-soluble (watercolor) pencils and pastel pencils are also manufactured as well as colored cores for mechanical pencils.
Scott McKowen is an American illustrator, art director, and graphic designer. He was born and raised in Michigan, and his studio is in Stratford, Ontario. He designs posters for theaters and other performing arts companies across North America, and he creates illustration for books and magazines. He is known for his drawings on scratchboard, a process in which he uses a knife blade to carve white lines onto a black board. It is somewhat similar to engraving or woodcutting, in the sense that images are formed by carving white lines. In the last stages, color is often added to the illustrations.
Charles Clark Reid was an American painter, illustrator, and teacher, notable for his watercolor style. He won numerous national and international awards for both his watercolor and oil works, and also hosted many workshops in the US and abroad. He published numerous books and instructional DVDs and created a postage stamp and an iconic ad campaign with his watercolor depictions. His watercolor works and oil paintings are in private and college museum collections.
Edward Howard Betts was an American painter, collagist, author, and teacher. He was known for his abstract paintings which he developed using an improvisational method. He was also an accomplished painter of realistic watercolors. Betts published three instructional books on painting and taught at the University of Illinois.
Sunflower and Silver by Diana Lee
A detail of Sunflower and Silver to show scratching technique
