Aviation Art

Hello all,

My favorite artists have to be Gerald Coulson and Barry Weekley. Both do great WW1 stuff.

Bob

QUOTE: Originally posted by lpolpo22 Hi Will, I hope this string isn't closed. I enjoy all aircraft art and have checked out each one that has been suggested plus what I have managed to surf on my own. If you are interested in what it takes to create one of these art works from concept to finish check out wanemeyersart.tripod.com and click on Eagles of Thunder parts 1&2. BTW cool pic on your profile. Are you in it?

... lead a/c These were two of the four assigned while I was CO of VAW-122. Picture was taken on our last deployment (before decom in 1996).

Hi Will, I hope this string isn't closed. I enjoy all aircraft art and have checked out each one that has been suggested plus what I have managed to surf on my own. If you are interested in what it takes to create one of these art works from concept to finish check out wanemeyersart.tripod.com and click on Eagles of Thunder parts 1&2. BTW cool pic on your profile. Are you in it?

Maybe I missed it (wouldn't be a first), but as long as this thread has gone, I can't believe R.G. Smith hasn't been mentioned...

Trupr:

Lonnie Ortega always has a booth set up at air events around So. California. I enjoy his work very much.

Jim, sorry to hear about Bob St. Vincent, there are to few like him.
Rich

Jim,

Sorry to hear, guy.


Fade to Black...

Richard Groh...
Another great pencil artist.

Check eBay . Lots of stuff out there and I have added several pieces of more affordable artwork to my collection. John Young does some nice work . Gil Ortega does some beautiful pencil drawings too. Here is a link to his site.... http://www.lonnieortegaaviationart.com/

Per the two 368th FG P-47 painting images I had posted above, I just received word that the artist and very close friend Bob St. Vincent passed away. He is probably at this very moment up there drumming up commission painting jobs from all of the Jug pilots who had preceded him.

As the Billy Joel song goes - only the good die young.

Jim

If anyone wants to peruse aviation art this is the place to go. I found it today. www.asaa-avart.org/

There Is a less expensive way to obtain a collection of these prints. That is to buy one of the many books that contain the collections. eg. The Aviation Paintings of Robert Taylor vols 1 and 2 These vols cost me about $100 and I had them signed by Mr Tayllor and several fighter and bomber pilots and air crew.
Dai

I've been fortunate to come across two original pieces in my travels, one from Lou Drendel's "Gunslingers" and one done by an artist named Jaffee in the late 1930s. I am, of course, partial to Keith Ferris' work and also Joe Kline's (since I'm a rotorhead!)

Has anyone heard of Jaffee's work? His paintings were usually tempera paint on posterboard. Numerous prints of his work were done throughout WWII as posters, postcards, etc. The one I have is 3 SB2U-1s from VB-10 in prewar Navy colors. Its a really nice piece, but none of the galleries I've found have had any idea about Jaffee.

My Drendel AH-1G Cobra is hanging over my TV now. Looks great!

An artist I recently found out about who's work I like very much is a fellow named Wade Meyers. He did what I think is an excellent painting of Don Gentile's "Shangri-La".

Check out his site: http://wademeyersart.tripod.com/

A local So. Cal. artist I also like is Robert Karr. He had a one-man show at the San Diego Aerospace Museum late last year. He is also an excellent modeler - a scratchbuilt 1/48th Gotha bomber and 1/48th 94th Aero Sq. airfield diorama are on display at the Planes of Fame Museum in Chino Ca.

Robert's web site is at: http://members.aol.com/karrart/

Jim

I do have this one that I received for Christmas a few years back from my beautiful wife:

http://www.milartgl.com/HTML/Prelude-to-Peace.htm

We both liked the aspect of it that these bombers were given amnesty to drop food to the population in "Operation Manna". It actually hangs above our dinner table and is always a discussion piece. I like the aspect of speed he put in-- the trees are a little blurred and you see only small detail in the two people on bikes below....

You could hire a hungry art student to do the job for you....Be careful not to select a modern school advocate though....

hey, thanks for the tip there blackwolf. that book idea is a good one. smaller prints too so I can fit more on my wall. The $50 would be perfect too, thatd probably be somwhere around $4-$5 per print, maybe even less...I need a good bomber print to go with my Julie Strain (Heay Metal) print. Nothin like having a mix of T & A & P (planes) all in the same :)

Just couldn't resist putting in a shameless plug for a friend of mine. Over the last 15 years or so Bob St. Vincent has been doing comissioned paintings for P-47 Pilots Association members. Bob also has examples of his work on display at both the Air Force Museum and Edwards AFB.

"HOTSHOT" flown by Lt. Bill Dunbar, 368th FG, 396th FS "Thunderbums".


'ARIZONA LORAINE" flown by Lt. Earl Kielgass also of the 396th FS.


I have had the pleasure of meeting both of these pilots at P-47 Pilots Association reunions. Both of these images can be seen at the 368th FG web site. I first met Bob at the Chino Planes of Fame airshow in 1998 - he was by the P-47 doing sketches of it. Bob never goes to an air event without sketchbook in hand.

Jim

Sven, you mentioned the Waki brothers, didn't one of them have a feature article in FSM many, MANY years ago? I'm thinking of a braille-scale hyper-detailed Fw 190 with not only removable cowl pieces but functioning hinges and latches. (And lotsa other goodies.) 32nd or 24th I think it was. That was a groovy build.

Monsterarmor,

Some artists have fairly cheap prints available. Stan Stokes is one; he has a series of prints for around $40-$50 each. Still a chunk-o-change, but nuthin' like paying $175 or more for, say, a Taylor. I too would be satisfied with a lower grade and less expensive print.

Actually, a good way to build an art collection of sorts is to grab a couple copies of books like those by Taylor. One to keep and one to dismantle. Most of the images in his books are large enough to satisfy most folks. All you'd have to do is take a page out, matte it and frame it.

Every year a semi-local publisher/distributor has two book sales to clear out old stock and/or seconds and returns. They had several copies of each of the Taylor books for cheap and I was going to grab them all on a return trip, but they were gone.

If you want a collection, then the book-cannibalization thing is an attractive alternative. It may seem a shame, at first, to do that kinda thing but it's less of a hassle than hunting down some of these prints, many of which are VERY hard to find sometimes. And when you do find them they're all too often ridiculously priced; so at that point, cutting up a $50 book doesn't seem like such a crime after all! And, also, these would be relatively small. Not everyone has a huge amount of wall space to hang a ton of full-size prints on.

Oh, another guy whose work I really like is "The Mustang Artist", Harley Copic. A pal of mine has a Copic print of Gentile & Godfrey from the 336th FS, 4th FG. That's one fine piece of art and I envy him for owning it.


Fade to Black...

wow, talk about an expensive collection that would be. $750 for a picture! Let the rich guy have it, I know its worth it, but wheres the plain old poster prints for $10 or $20 for us non lottery winning people here?

That's the one Blackwolf and again you are right on the mark.

Rich

I'm awe struck at how great alot of this art is.

Ah, 'Mud in Your Eye' is a painting by Jim Dietz. He's another fave. No matter what the actual subject of the painting is, the main point of interest is always the human element in Dietz's paintings.




Fade to Black...

QUOTE: Originally posted by lpolpo22 QUOTE: Originally posted by blackwolfscd I don't think I have a true fave. A sentimental favorite would be Keith Ferris, but only because he's the first Av Artist I was exposed to. I actually really dislike some of his work, but there are many Ferris pieces which I continually marvel at. I've seen several Ferris originals but never got an opportunity to inspect one close up until last year when we took our annual trip to the Region 1 convention, this time in Sturbridge Mass. During the weekend we visited the New England Air Museum in Windsor Locks Connecticut where there's a Ferris original entitled "The Palm Sunday Massacre". The painting is 7 x 5 feet and depicts 57th FG P-40's in combat on that famous day of April 18th, 1943. I was absolutely stunned at the surface quality of this piece. Smooth as silk! Many oils I've seen have a varying degree of texture and surface relief, but this was absolutely beautiful. At the risk of starting an argument, I'm surprised at not only how much bad art there is out there, but how much of it actually sells. Although perhaps there are collectors out there who collect it just because it's there. Same as model collectors, I guess. I wouldn't build a Frog kit if you payed me, but I'd love to collect 'em... Anyhoo, alotta people like Robert Taylor's stuff and, on the whole, I'm one of them. But I find many faults in his work, mostly in the areas of shape and contour representation. Nicholas Trudgian has a similar style to Taylor, but his work also exhibits the same faults as mentioned above, albeit not as frequently. Regardless, Taylor and Trudgian are two of my favorites. They both have outstanding talent in the area of composition and the overall look of their work is excellent. Very atmospheric and most of their paintings give you a feeling of having been there or a desire to have been there. Very inspiring stuff, on many levels. Stokes is another fave, although his paintings tend to be a bit more vibrant and... almost cartoonish in appearance. This isn't a bad thing by any means, he's just got a very distinctive style. I also like Shigeo Koike, and was going to provide a link, but Pix beat me to the punch! If you haven't checked it site out, do so. Alotta the images on that site would do very nicely for wallpaper. But some of them are resized for use on the website. If there's an image you'd like to see a bit larger, just get the URL of the image (right-click, properties) and then copy and paste the image URL into your browser. Some of them will come up as larger images. Anyhoo, his work is sometimes nothing more than a simple portrait of an aircraft, but very inspiring nonetheless. Someone mentioned Watanabe, I love his profiles. Especially those from the old series of large format books published by several different publishers. The ones I have are by Crown and Arco. These are the same books that make up the "Great Book of WWII Airplanes", that 2-ton monster you see for cheap at Borders and Walden and Barnes & Noble every Christmas. (Okay, maybe not THAT cheap and not EVERY Christmas...) I also used to collect the inserts from the old Otaki kits. Those were way-cool for decorating the workshop. My favorite profile artist would have to be Tom Tullis. There's just no equal out there to this guy's work. Well, few equals! LOL Man, I could go on and on but I ain't gonna. I'm too tired... Fade to Black...I couldn't agree with you more Blackwolf. I didn't want to put myself in the position of critic but I'm sure even Picasso - no, wait - poor example, I'm sure even Rembrant had one or to slips of the brush. (I wonder what a P-47 would look like if Picasso had painted it?) I don't know about you but I've book marked all of these sites and would like to see more. I once saw a print of what I believe was a Spad that had crash landed in an allied trench and the pilot was having a cup of coffee with the doughboys. The name of the print was "Mud in your eye". I saw it in a local hobby store called A.I.R. who, I think, at one time made decals. I fell in love with this print and should have bought it when I first saw it but A.I.R. sold it a long time ago. Are you familiar with it?

Sorry Blackwolf some how I got posted inside your Quote.

QUOTE: Originally posted by blackwolfscd I don't think I have a true fave. A sentimental favorite would be Keith Ferris, but only because he's the first Av Artist I was exposed to. I actually really dislike some of his work, but there are many Ferris pieces which I continually marvel at. I've seen several Ferris originals but never got an opportunity to inspect one close up until last year when we took our annual trip to the Region 1 convention, this time in Sturbridge Mass. During the weekend we visited the New England Air Museum in Windsor Locks Connecticut where there's a Ferris original entitled "The Palm Sunday Massacre". The painting is 7 x 5 feet and depicts 57th FG P-40's in combat on that famous day of April 18th, 1943. I was absolutely stunned at the surface quality of this piece. Smooth as silk! Many oils I've seen have a varying degree of texture and surface relief, but this was absolutely beautiful. At the risk of starting an argument, I'm surprised at not only how much bad art there is out there, but how much of it actually sells. Although perhaps there are collectors out there who collect it just because it's there. Same as model collectors, I guess. I wouldn't build a Frog kit if you payed me, but I'd love to collect 'em... Anyhoo, alotta people like Robert Taylor's stuff and, on the whole, I'm one of them. But I find many faults in his work, mostly in the areas of shape and contour representation. Nicholas Trudgian has a similar style to Taylor, but his work also exhibits the same faults as mentioned above, albeit not as frequently. Regardless, Taylor and Trudgian are two of my favorites. They both have outstanding talent in the area of composition and the overall look of their work is excellent. Very atmospheric and most of their paintings give you a feeling of having been there or a desire to have been there. Very inspiring stuff, on many levels. Stokes is another fave, although his paintings tend to be a bit more vibrant and... almost cartoonish in appearance. This isn't a bad thing by any means, he's just got a very distinctive style. I also like Shigeo Koike, and was going to provide a link, but Pix beat me to the punch! If you haven't checked it site out, do so. Alotta the images on that site would do very nicely for wallpaper. But some of them are resized for use on the website. If there's an image you'd like to see a bit larger, just get the URL of the image (right-click, properties) and then copy and paste the image URL into your browser. Some of them will come up as larger images. Anyhoo, his work is sometimes nothing more than a simple portrait of an aircraft, but very inspiring nonetheless. Someone mentioned Watanabe, I love his profiles. Especially those from the old series of large format books published by several different publishers. The ones I have are by Crown and Arco. These are the same books that make up the "Great Book of WWII Airplanes", that 2-ton monster you see for cheap at Borders and Walden and Barnes & Noble every Christmas. (Okay, maybe not THAT cheap and not EVERY Christmas...) I also used to collect the inserts from the old Otaki kits. Those were way-cool for decorating the workshop. My favorite profile artist would have to be Tom Tullis. There's just no equal out there to this guy's work. Well, few equals! LOL Man, I could go on and on but I ain't gonna. I'm too tired... Fade to Black...I couldn't agree with you more Blackwolf. I didn't want to put myself in the position of critic but I'm sure even Picasso - no, wait - poor example, I'm sure even Rembrant had one or to slips of the brush. (I wonder what a P-47 would look like if Picasso had painted it?) I don't know about you but I've book marked all of these sites and would like to see more. I once saw a print of what I believe was a Spad that had crash landed in an allied trench and the pilot was having a cup of coffee with the doughboys. The name of the print was "Mud in your eye". I saw it in a local hobby store called A.I.R. who, I think, at one time made decals. I fell in love with this print and should have bought it when I first saw it but A.I.R. sold it a long time ago. Are you familiar with it?

I don't think I have a true fave. A sentimental favorite would be Keith Ferris, but only because he's the first Av Artist I was exposed to. I actually really dislike some of his work, but there are many Ferris pieces which I continually marvel at.

I've seen several Ferris originals but never got an opportunity to inspect one close up until last year when we took our annual trip to the Region 1 convention, this time in Sturbridge Mass. During the weekend we visited the New England Air Museum in Windsor Locks Connecticut where there's a Ferris original entitled "The Palm Sunday Massacre". The painting is 7 x 5 feet and depicts 57th FG P-40's in combat on that famous day of April 18th, 1943. I was absolutely stunned at the surface quality of this piece. Smooth as silk! Many oils I've seen have a varying degree of texture and surface relief, but this was absolutely beautiful.

At the risk of starting an argument, I'm surprised at not only how much bad art there is out there, but how much of it actually sells. Although perhaps there are collectors out there who collect it just because it's there. Same as model collectors, I guess. I wouldn't build a Frog kit if you payed me, but I'd love to collect 'em...

Anyhoo, alotta people like Robert Taylor's stuff and, on the whole, I'm one of them. But I find many faults in his work, mostly in the areas of shape and contour representation. Nicholas Trudgian has a similar style to Taylor, but his work also exhibits the same faults as mentioned above, albeit not as frequently. Regardless, Taylor and Trudgian are two of my favorites. They both have outstanding talent in the area of composition and the overall look of their work is excellent. Very atmospheric and most of their paintings give you a feeling of having been there or a desire to have been there. Very inspiring stuff, on many levels.

Stokes is another fave, although his paintings tend to be a bit more vibrant and... almost cartoonish in appearance. This isn't a bad thing by any means, he's just got a very distinctive style.

I also like Shigeo Koike, and was going to provide a link, but Pix beat me to the punch! If you haven't checked it site out, do so. Alotta the images on that site would do very nicely for wallpaper. But some of them are resized for use on the website. If there's an image you'd like to see a bit larger, just get the URL of the image (right-click, properties) and then copy and paste the image URL into your browser. Some of them will come up as larger images. Anyhoo, his work is sometimes nothing more than a simple portrait of an aircraft, but very inspiring nonetheless.

Someone mentioned Watanabe, I love his profiles. Especially those from the old series of large format books published by several different publishers. The ones I have are by Crown and Arco. These are the same books that make up the "Great Book of WWII Airplanes", that 2-ton monster you see for cheap at Borders and Walden and Barnes & Noble every Christmas. (Okay, maybe not THAT cheap and not EVERY Christmas...) I also used to collect the inserts from the old Otaki kits. Those were way-cool for decorating the workshop.

My favorite profile artist would have to be Tom Tullis. There's just no equal out there to this guy's work. Well, few equals! LOL

Man, I could go on and on but I ain't gonna. I'm too tired...


Fade to Black...

As an art enthusiest i like most of those mentioned although I'm not overly enthused by Nicolas Trudgian. One artist that has sofar not been given a gurnsey is the late Terrence Cuneo. More noted for his railway paintings he nevertheless painted some very good aviation pictures. My grandchildren love his work. Not for his work but because he always painted a mouse in his work and they spend hours looking for it. It is a good way of getting them to see and eventually appreciate.
Incidently i have a print of Schlache! (or what ever is the German word for Chechmate!) showing Big Beautiful Doll shooting up a German locomotive.
Dai

I should also mention this guy:

http://mysite.verizon.net/nealart/

He does pencil sketches and not paintings-- but he does really nice work-- and it's cheap too! I have the Dauntless, Lightning, and Wildcat- and am anxiously awaiting the Avenger! They look great in my new home office....

Rikyu Watanabe

or isn't that the kind of art you're talking about?

ed.