Tuesday, May 24, 2011

BATGIRL...?

Pre WW1 print by A. Penot

A. Penot, Bat Girl, 1925

Ida Rentoul Outhwaite, The Enchanted Forest by Grenbry Outhwaite, 1921

Germany, 1892. Artist unknown

Mae West in the "Belle of the Nineties", 1934

Margaret Brundage, 1933


I've been here and there. I've drawn a lot of pictures. I've written a bit, too. I'm not good at this self-promotion thing. Look, you want to know about me? just visit these websites. Okay?
www.mdjacksonart.weebly.com
http://mdjackson.deviantart.com
http://community.imaginefx.com/fxpose/mdjacksons%5Fportfolio

Monday, May 23, 2011

MONDAY MISCELLANEA - VICTORIA DAY EDITION

I know Monday is almost over but here in BC it is a holiday. It is Victoria Day where we celebrate the birth of the great unamused monarch herself.



So in honour of Victoria Day I present a special edition featuring my favourite Victorian painter John William Waterhouse.











I've been here and there. I've drawn a lot of pictures. I've written a bit, too. I'm not good at this self-promotion thing. Look, you want to know about me? just visit these websites. Okay?
www.mdjacksonart.weebly.com
http://mdjackson.deviantart.com
http://community.imaginefx.com/fxpose/mdjacksons%5Fportfolio

Sunday, May 22, 2011

DO YOU LOVE MONSTERS?





If you're like me (and a surprising number of people are) then you love monsters. And where would you have come by your love of monsters? Well, I think perhaps this little magazine might have something to do with it:


That's right, FAMOUS MONSTERS, Forrest. J. Ackerman's beloved magazine which featured covers that featured wonderful portraits of famous monsters most of which were painted by Basil Gogos. So let's read what Wikipedia has to say about Basil Gogos:

"During the 1960s, Basil Gogos provided a steady stream of illustrations for a variety of New York-based publications. The majority of his work during this period was for men's adventure magazines for which he painted many scenes of World War II battles, jungle perils and crime as well as cheesecake portraits of beautiful women. However, Gogos' greatest impact as an illustrator was the work he did for Warren Publishing.


Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine, created by publisher James Warren and editor Forrest J Ackerman, premiered in 1958 and was aimed at young readers who were then discovering the classic horror films of the '30s and '40s on television. The magazine's covers were usually eye-catching close-ups of horror movie characters. Gogos' first work for Warren was the cover of Famous Monsters of Filmland #9 in 1960 featuring an impressionistic portrait of Vincent Price from House of Usher painted in shades of red, yellow and green. Over the next two decades, he created almost 50 covers for Famous Monsters, many of which have become iconic images of that period. Gogos also provided cover art for several other Warren magazines including Creepy, Eerie, Spaceman, Wildest Westerns and The Spirit.

Basil Gogos' Famous Monsters cover art featured most of the classic horror characters such as The Phantom of the Opera, Frankenstein's monster, Dracula, The Wolf Man, The Mummy, King Kong, Godzilla and The Creature from the Black Lagoon and popular horror actors like Boris Karloff, Béla Lugosi, Vincent Price, Lon Chaney, Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing. Gogos often captured his subjects in an array of vivid colors using a technique in which the artist imagined the character bathed in colors from multiple light sources. He enjoyed painting monsters more than most of his more conventional assignments because of the freedom he was given and because of the challenge of painting such unusual characters which he endeavoured to portray as both frightening and sympathetic.

In the late 1970s, Gogos gave up full time commercial illustration to devote himself more to his original goal of doing fine art. He produced personal art pieces in watercolor and other media, while earning his livelihood as a photo retoucher in the ad department of United Artists. While there, he also did occasional illustrations for movie posters. Gogos later moved into advertising where he produced presentation sketches and storyboards for commercials for a major ad agency.

Due to a resurgence of interest in classic horror films and collectibles, Gogos returned to the horror genre in the 1990s. During this time, new Gogos monster portraits appeared on trading cards, lithographs and the covers of Monsterscene magazine. He has also painted CD covers for rock stars Rob Zombie, The Misfits and Electric Frankenstein."








I've been here and there. I've drawn a lot of pictures. I've written a bit, too. I'm not good at this self-promotion thing. Look, you want to know about me? just visit these websites. Okay?

www.mdjacksonart.weebly.com
http://mdjackson.deviantart.com
http://community.imaginefx.com/fxpose/mdjacksons%5Fportfolio

Friday, May 20, 2011

CATHERINE JEFFREY JONES

More wonderful artwork from Catherine Jeffrey Jones who passed away yesterday.












I've been here and there. I've drawn a lot of pictures. I've written a bit, too. I'm not good at this self-promotion thing. Look, you want to know about me? just visit these websites. Okay?
www.mdjacksonart.weebly.com
http://mdjackson.deviantart.com
http://community.imaginefx.com/fxpose/mdjacksons%5Fportfolio

Thursday, May 19, 2011

CATHERINE JEFFREY JONES - January 10, 1944 - May 19, 2011


One of the giants of fantasy illustration, Catherine Jeffrey Jones (Formerly Jeffrey Jones) died yesterday. Jones was an influential artist throughout the 70's and 80's, and was describes by Frank Frazetta as "The greatest living painter"




Born Jeffrey Jones 1944, the artist celebrated a long career whose highlights included a 1970s run doing cover paintings for major fantasy novels like Fritz Leiber's "Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser" and a number of comics including "Idyl" for "National Lampoons" and "I'm Age" for Heavy Metal.
While the world of fantasy illustration and comics proper intersect less than one might imagine, Jones was a figure whose work in both forms left an impression on her peers. Her work was notably praised by recently deceased fantasy legend Frank Frazetta as "the greatest living painter." Jones also shared space with a slew of legendary comics talent in the '70s under the name The Studio – a group which included Mike Kaluta, Bernie Wrightson and Barry Windsor-Smith.
Jones is also a rare example of a transgendered artist in the genre world. Though a string of personal and financial issues saw her fall on hard times in the early 2000s, recent years had seen stable living conditions and steady production of new work from the artist.
For more on Jones' life and work, visit her official website.
Jones was 67









I've been here and there. I've drawn a lot of pictures. I've written a bit, too. I'm not good at this self-promotion thing. Look, you want to know about me? just visit these websites. Okay?
www.mdjacksonart.weebly.com
http://mdjackson.deviantart.com
http://community.imaginefx.com/fxpose/mdjacksons%5Fportfolio

WHAT ONCE WAS LOST...


I found this hiding in a corner of my computer. It is artwork done for DARK WORLDS #4. It is an illustration for that issue's featuire stoiry THE BARON'S TRIBUTE by Derrick Ferguson. This was the one cover i did in Photoshop as opposed to Painter.


Here's how the cover ended up looking:



#4 was a great issue and you can still pick up a copy here.


I've been here and there. I've drawn a lot of pictures. I've written a bit, too. I'm not good at this self-promotion thing. Look, you want to know about me? just visit these websites. Okay?
www.mdjacksonart.weebly.com
http://mdjackson.deviantart.com
http://community.imaginefx.com/fxpose/mdjacksons%5Fportfolio

Monday, May 16, 2011

MONDAY MISCELLANEA - MAY 16, 2011

Still trying to maintain a regular blogging schedule but between work, family and Dark Worlds Magazine time seems to be at a premium these days. Still, here are another set of completely random pictures from my image morgue:


















I've been here and there. I've drawn a lot of pictures. I've written a bit, too. I'm not good at this self-promotion thing. Look, you want to know about me? just visit these websites. Okay?
www.mdjacksonart.weebly.com
http://mdjackson.deviantart.com
http://community.imaginefx.com/fxpose/mdjacksons%5Fportfolio