Happy New Year!

Happy Holidays

I would like to take this apportunity to wish each and everyone of you a very happy holiday season.  And may the New Year bring you joy,  laugther and good health . I also want to thank everyone who have supported me with my books and for all the kind words you have expressed which I am extremely grateful.

My best wishes to you all.

Manuel Auad

Albert Dorne: Master Illustrator

Albert Dorne: Master
Illustrator is the latest addition to
Auad Publishing’s Famous Illustrators series. It’s a worthy
successor to our best-selling Robert Fawcett: The Illustrator’s Illustrator,
and fans of that book are in for another treat as we present the first book
about Dorne, the reknowned artist responsible for the Famous Artists’ School.

The introduction is by Howard Munce, a truely great illustrator and teacher who
knew Dorne Personally.

Echoing the Fawcett book, David Apatoff writes the text, further solidifyig his
position as one of the foremost historians of the Golden Age of magazine
illustration.

The book also contains a Preface by Apatoff and “Memories of My
Father”, an affectionate and very insightful tribute to her father by
Barbara Dorne Bullas. As a small filip of further testament to Dorne’s place in
the illustration firmament, Jack Davis contributes a graphic Foreword.

All this in service to the 160 pages of color illustrations, some from
originals, on glossy stock. 9″ x 12″, hardcover with dust jacket.
Price is $34.95 plus $5 shipping and handling. Available for immediate
pre-order direct from the publisher.

 

WORLD CHAMPS!

Congratulations

to the San Francisco GIANTS for winning the 2012 World Series!

Artist: J.C. Leyendecker

Copyright, Curtis Publishing

 

Autumn

 

 

Where there is wind and weather, and a clear reach of sky.

The trees will flock together, with leafy skirts held high.

Friendly guardians of the way, trees shed their grace on passers-by.

And from an autumn fountain spray, leaves that watched a summer die.

President Eisenhower & the cartoonists

The people who visit the White House, aside from the occasional tourists, are mostly dignitaries and heads of State. In some cases a well known celebrity or an entertainer will be invited to perform for a special event. But cartoonists…?

In June, 1954, President Eisenhower met with members of the National Cartoonists Society in Washington. The Society, composed of men and women who are considered to be among the foremost exponents of the cartoonist’s art in the nation, wished to confer honorary membership upon one of the few Presidents since Thomas Jefferson who was evidenced and exercised any talents as an artist.

The occasion took the form of a breakfast. While the courses were being served and exchanges of talk were going on, artists had free hands with drawing paper, pencil or pen sketching the president.

 

 

The Creative Artist

Some people collect things, I collect stuff. What’s the difference? Probably nothing, but I just like stuff better.

Occasionally, when I have trouble sleeping, I seek the comfort of my ‘inner sanctum’. It’s in our basement and there I spend most of the time going through my stuff. After a recent lost bout with The Sandman, I came across a newspaper clipping I’ve had for more decades than I care to count.

In the early sixties I often read a column by Sidney J. Harris. He was an American journalist for the Chicago Daily News and later for the Chicago Sun-Times. Once in a while I would find his column worthy of saving. I would clip it out of the paper and save it with my stuff.

Here now is that column I cut from one of those paper 49 years ago, to be painfully exact:

A college student majoring in music asked me after a lecture not long ago, “What would you say is the chief difference between the artist and the layman?”

I gave him some long clumsy and not quite satisfactory answer. The question rang a dim bell in my mind, however, and upon returning home I hunted through my library and eventually found what I had been looking for.

It was a paragraph from the preface to a collection of short plays, The Angel That Troubled the Waters, published by Thorton Wilder nearly 40 years ago. In speaking of the anguish involved in the creative process, Wilder says

“An artist is one who knows how life should be lived at its best and is always aware of how badly he is doing it. An artist is one who knows he is failing in living and feeds his remorse by making something fair, and a lay man is one who suspects he is failing in living but is consoled by his success in golf, in love, or in business”.

Sidney J. Harris (1963)

Thanks for reading, Manuel (2012)

v

ALBERT DORNE: Master Illustrator

Alex Nino at the S.F. Academy of Art

Last month, March 27^th to be precise, a plane broke through the dark clouds hovering above the bay around noon and eased on down to a rain soaked runway at the San Francisco airport. While the plane was still in the process of taxing to its berth the passengers had already started grabbing their carry-ons and impatiently stood blocking the aisle. As the door finally opened it spewed passengers one at a time. In that crowd was the well known and admired comic book artist Alex Niño.

Alex came to San Franciscoor Bagdad by the Bay as the natives here like to call it, to do a demonstration at the San Francisco Academy of Art from an invitation sent by the Academy’s art director, Charles Pyle.

It was a miserable afternoon as the incessant rain for over a week never gave the sun a chance to break through. A cab took Alex to the Academy while the driver cursed at his wind shield wipers for not wiping the rain off his windshield fast enough.

A small flyer announcing Alex Niño’s arrival had been posted by the front door of the Academy in the hope to lure some students for Alex’s demo that afternoon. Before the appointed hour a few students began trickling in. As the hour got closer for Alex’ appearance, more students began showing up in spite of the unrelenting rain pouring down. Umbrellas of all shapes and colors wilted from the rain and students soaked to the skin tried to shake themselves like dogs do. It was soon apparent that the organizers for the demo had underestimated the number of students who would show up and watch Alex illustrate his artistic talent. Most of them had to contend to watch while standing or sitting on the floor. There just weren’t enough chairs to accommodate everybody.

The demo lasted over two hours and even after it was over students hung around Alex like bees in a beehive. The rain never damped the student’s admiration of Alex’s drawings.

The next day Alex Niño flew back to Los Angeles and for jus a moment there was a sliver of sunshine as the plane lifted off.

Spring