To understand why I love art illustrations requires a bit of understanding of the origin of where I started. Ironically enough, it was art and handwriting that prevented me from making honor roll as a child initially as I didn’t put the effort in either from 5th-7th grade. My friends thought it was funny for me to be a A/B student in Math, English, and Science but C/C- in art and handwriting. Even more ironic was the fact I was raise partly by my grandmother who had impeccable handwriting, I use to tease her that she would make the founding fathers like John Hancock jealous. My mother who was a nurse was actually a artist in high school and a very good one. She collected artworks from flea markets allover when I was young and still does. My hobbies were actually toys and baseball cards and I actually credit those things as not only help in paying my way through college but starting a online business to begin with. Because I had a very large toy collection (of mostly new stuff), it was in some way fulfilling too the lifelong dream of being the next “FAO Schwarz” in my head.

The introduction to Bob Ross TV show forever change my perception of art a least in watching others do it for pleasure. I really could see as a child a man who was doing something he really love with no financial intent playing a part in it. In around the same period, I took a liking to another hobby which I neglected for most of my early childhood and that was reading comic strips particularly on Sunday. Now this was hobby of my grandmother but one I really didn't acknowledge like cooking, knitting, or personal handwriting. Charles Schulz, Bill Watterson, Mort Walker, and Hank Ketcham are clearly my favorite comic strip artists. I think I called Bill Watterson the “Greta Garbo” of comic strip one time in college because of his “I want to be alone” personality. In some ways I think I appreciate artists for that nature more than despise it because my own nature was that way at times throughout my life. Some people think all people who adore seclusion from society are hermits. This actually not true in my view at all. I think wanting to be alone is important in helping not only human contemplation of life easier on the mind but also help people craft their work better. Nobody made a big fuss over Albert Einstein, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Stanley Kubrick, or Michael Jackson. In what they all have in common is being one of the best not only of their generation but all-time in their industry of work. I actually credit my temporary seclusion at times for making me a better person. In some ways I felt more comfortable in society because of it and I think college proved it where I esteem myself as one of the best public speakers on campus for any topic from environmental issues to issues about middle east peace to talks regarding art.

I get ask a lot why Charles Schulz is my favorite comic strip artist online. That’s a long story! For starters, my grandmother introduce me to the tv show during holidays before I started reading the comic strips. In fact the last Thanksgiving I spent with my grandma in 2010 we were watching yes Charlie Brown. Even my mother was a avid collector of Snoopy plush toys, more than I can count for myself and those magical glass snowball globes that you shake endlessly. I started to collect comic sketches toward the start of college. It was really the 1st time in my life that I had enough money to afford paying over $100 for sketches. I actually remember taking my Schulz sketch collection of 3 to college in my last under-graduate semester to show and tell with friends. My girlfriend at the time was one of those students who was just as much into Peanuts as I but also very much into the grotesque and repulsively ugly “Garbage Pail Kids” which to me was a obvious spinoff of the “Cabbage Patch Kids” with comically distorted figures that repel the eye. I think it was at this point I realize why I like Peanuts to begin with, it didn’t fill me with distaste in any way. I think Mr. Schulz created good character designs that were funny but at the same time kinda limited on how happy one could be about life. I like his strips because he was not too culturally primitive on his character’s personalities and he avoided graceless attributes for the most part with his characters or smutty/vulgar language of conversation found in many animations I see on TV now. Furthermore he not only could write well but draw stuff that was amusing to look at. James Thurber was a dreadful drawer as a cartoonist but like Schulz he master making stuff amusing to look at. Now don’t get me wrong Schulz is no illustrator like a Dr. Seuss but his ability to write, draw, and create is faultless. I do admit I wanted Linus to be the center of attention for his tv shows but I think it was good that he wasn’t. I still think Schulz’s choice title Peanuts is not as complimentary compare to Ketcham’s Denace to Menace or Johnston’s For Better or For Worse but the strip itself one of the most fulfilling of all time. And like Dr. Seuss, he will succeed into future generations as a great artist which won’t be said for most in his profession of comic strip artist.

My appreciation of illustration art reached a new high when entering college. Despite getting acceptance to Dartmouth University aka Dr. Seuss Alma Mater, I chose my 1st year in Philly. Little did I know one semester there would change my perception on illustration art altogether. If you thought New York and Paris had a lot to offer you’re right in terms of art illustrations and sculptures but Philly is the next best thing. My best friend who would eventually go on to be a student at “The Tyler School of Art and Architecture” introduce me to his father a stepping stone into a world I didn’t know enough of. His son who pursued being another Frank Lloyd Wright someday was my go everywhere friend at the time from late night movie theater goings to early morning tennis to battles of who could study the latest without sleep and just drink mountain dew to keep us up as energy drinks like red bull didn’t exist or 5 hr energy shots. The 1st meeting with his father was his place for a Saturday dinner away from campus. I didn’t know then but his father was further influencing my appreciation for art. His father was a leading director at the “Curtis Center Museum of Norman Rockwell Art”. I got to visit this now defunct museum two times in its last full year of existence and I often wish I could had visited it more. But Philly offer more art museums in one city than I was accustom to and eventually I found myself using my free time to visit others like “Philadelphia Museum of Art” in Northern Philly and my favorite “Rosenbach Museum and Library” located roughly in the center of the city. Yeah it definitely had some fine relics in it from 18th century American furniture to rare books but it was the drawn illustrations of Maurice Sendak I came to see. I never knew Sendak personally but I felt like he was a carbon male copy of my grandmother in that he seem brutally honest in all his tv interviews. It was also with fitting irony that both him and my grandmother were not only born a few years a part but died a few months apart in the same year 2012. Sendak’s artworks of any subject are not common so the opportunity to see them in person as a late teen could not be passed up. I probably would rate Sendak my second favorite children’s book artist if not for the fact I was introduced to George Cruikshank’s work in Grimm’s Fairy Tales initially. Sendak in many of his early drawings carbon copy the crosshatching style found in drawings of Cruikshank especially from one of my childhood favorite stories Jack & the Beanstalk. For those who are not familiar to this style of drawing. It basically is a “artistic technique used to add shadow and dimension to drawn objects. It involves filling a space with at least two sets of lines, with the second set crossing over the first to create a darker effect. In order to master cross hatching, you’ll need to start with hatching, use a sharp pencil or fine-tipped pen, make a value scale, and notice how the light falls on an object to create shadow. “

I think I admired Sendak a lot like Schulz because neither was discouraged from doing what they loved. They both look at their works as always needing a great balancing act to succeed and for the most part were not fearful about the possible faults that lie in finding it. I also think both had a attraction to the world of Walt Disney though Schulz was more with the man Walt himself, Sendak was a avid collector of Walt’s most popular character Mickey Mouse. As much as both artists were portrayed "outsiders" in the beginning, both in particular Schulz more so, revamped their drawing style over time so that it was more in line with what was being published at the time as modern. Both were obviously influence by older forms of drawing like any other artist but both also knew the importance of being not only entertainment to a restricted audience. In other words they needed to be more marketable. And I think both did become less conventional with their styles of drawing and but also more refine with their characters over time.