A Howard Pyle Mask: Two More Views

A Howard Pyle Mask © 1998 by Ian Schoenherr

A Howard Pyle Mask

A Howard Pyle Mask © 1998 by Ian Schoenherr

I've always been fascinated by life masks and death masks and I used to dream that I would discover a mask of Howard Pyle. But I never did.

So I made one. I gathered all the Pyle photographs that I knew of and constantly referred to them as I sculpted his face in dull green plastiline. And while I wanted to replicate Pyle's peculiar and elusive features, I also wanted to capture something of his spirit or his personality. It was meditative and yet obsessive work, and at one point it became known simply as The Head. "I'm going upstairs to work on The Head," I'd say. "How's The Head coming along?" people would ask.

Finally, The Head was "finished" - or at least it was time for me to stop tweaking it. Next, I created a latex mold and - crouched in the cellar with a bucket of water, a scoop, and a bag of plaster - I made a series of casts and distributed them to people and institutions that I thought might appreciate having Pyle's face beaming down at them.

Since "finishing" I've found many more photographs of Pyle, but I think my sculpture will do as a three-dimensional likeness - until a real Howard Pyle mask comes to light.

I should add that one of Pyle's New York friends, critic and essayist Laurence Hutton, accumulated an amazing number of masks and wrote a few articles about them for Harper's New Monthly Magazine - later published in book form as Portraits in Plaster (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1894). I'm convinced (but have no proof!) that Pyle saw this collection during one of his visits to the Hutton household - and now you, too, can see it here.

Happy Birthday, Sherlock Holmes!

Today is the 156th birthday of Sherlock Holmes, so they say. By "they" I mean crazed, obsessive fanatics who devote much of their lives reading, re-reading, discussing, dissecting, and deconstructing the adventures of The Master. I was one such fanatic in my childhood after age ten, all through my teens years, and a bit into my twenties (when, finally, my Howard Pylomania took over). Many of my sketches and first illustrations were Sherlockian in nature, but somewhere along the line I stopped drawing Sherlock Holmes. I think it was because I had such a vivid idea of how he should look, but I felt unable to capture that idea on paper. I might have to try again, though - especially since some Sherlockian details crept into this picture from Read It, Don't Eat It!

Happy New Year!

A Wedding Invitation in Map Form

I made this wedding invitation in the form of a map for my friends Rebecca and Stephen. It's ink on scratchboard and was designed to fit on 8.5 x 11" paper.

More on Fantasy Maps

Ellen Booraem has posted the full interview (so to speak) she did with me about maps and map making on her own blog. Take a look!

And here's a detail of the map of "Kugisko" I made for Tamora Pierce's novel Cold Fire from The Circle Opens series.

The Enchanted Inkpot: Mapping Fantasy

Over at The Enchanted Inkpot - a community for writers and readers of middle grade and young adult fantasy - Ellen Booraem, author of The Unnameables, has posted Topic of the Week: Mapping Fantasy. Many thanks to Ellen for asking me to talk about about maps and mapmaking for her article!

You can see some of the maps I made for T. A. Barron's The Lost Years of Merlin epic here. And a while back I posted a map-esque illustration I made for The New York Times Book Review as well as a bookplate that's basically a map of Delaware. Also, a cartographer friend of mine pointed out that this picture could be considered a map, so I'll take her word for it. And here's yet another odd one I made which was never published...

Fall for Pip and Squeak this Winter!

Lend Pip & Squeak a hand and whisk them away home for the holidays! Seriously, where else can you find such a mélange of mice and snow and scarves and carrots and coal nuggets and tophats and branches and Harold Lloyd and the most vertiginous, acrophobia-inducing scenes from Alfred Hitchcock's Saboteur and North By Northwest and, well, Vertigo - ALL in one picture? Seriously. I ask you.

For Small, Ornery Varmints

Hey! Put all that lasso practice to good use and capture a
Cat and Mouse for the small, ornery varmints in your life.

Why Not Build a Snowman?

Or go mountain climbing - depending on your size and stamina. Sure, these mice might look like they're taking winter in stride, but it's cold out there, so why not invite Pip and Squeak into your nice, warm house for the holidays? Don't forget the cheese!

Snow's Coming

A wintry scene from Little Raccoon's Big Question. Why not pick up a copy or two for the holidays?

Republic of Dreams

My illustration for Morris Dickstein's review of Ross Wetzsteon's Republic of Dreams: Greenwich Village: The American Bohemia,1910-1960 in the New York Times Book Review. Can you connect the names with the faces?

Emma Goldman
Big Bill Haywood
Willa Cather
Edna St. Vincent Millay
Theodore Dreiser
E. E. Cummings
Dylan Thomas
Lincoln Steffens
Mabel Dodge
John Reed
Max Eastman
Walter Lippmann
Eugene O'Neill
John Sloan
Crystal Eastman
Floyd Dell

Sing, Piggy, Sing

NYPL likes Read It, Don't Eat It!

Read It, Don't Eat It! has just appeared on the New York Public Library's "Recommended Reading" list of Children's Books 2009: 100 Titles for Reading and Sharing, following on the heels of Cat & Mouse (2008) and Pip & Squeak (2007)!

I like you, too, New York Public Library. More than you will ever know.

Moomento Mori

An ink on scratchboard illustration I made for Sam Sifton's review of Portrait of a Burger as a Young Calf by Peter Lovenheim in the New York Times Book Review. For an explanation of this post's sorry title, look here.

My Mark Twain

Today is Mark Twain's 174th birthday, so behold my painting of him - well, my painting of a part of him, which, in turn, was part of an experimental series where I tried to make recognizable pictures of certain notable people while only showing small portions of said people...if that makes any sense. As Twain himself said: "...language is a treacherous thing, a most unsure vehicle..." But maybe I'm just a bad driver.

Duke of Egypt

A deceptively whimsical ink on scratchboard illustration I made for Michael Pye's review of Duke of Egypt, A Novel by Margriet de Moor, printed in the New York Times Book Review. For want of any other leads, I threw into my picture as many of the details mentioned in the review as possible.

Failing Raccoon

A small painting I made for the Association of Booksellers for Children's Not-a-Dinner and (Mostly) Silent Auction in 2008. Poor kit, she tries so hard...

Another Bingham Pig

Another pig drawing generated from a painting by the great George Caleb Bingham.

Book Signing in Clinton, New Jersey, this Friday!

Wondering how to spend a few lazy hours the day after Thanksgiving? Why not come to Clinton, New Jersey, and stock up on some children's books for all the little ones in your life?

I'll be signing copies of Read It, Don't Eat It! and Cat & Mouse and Pip & Squeak at the fiercely independent, yet always friendly Clinton Book Shop at 33 Main Street on Friday, November 27th, from noon until 2 p.m.

And, as ever, while you're out there, grab some breakfast, brunch, or lunch around the corner at The Fine Diner - the tasty restaurant owned and operated by my sister and brother-in-law.

Come one! Come all!

Dental Health Break

Don't forget to brush! A public service message from Little Raccoon's Big Question.

LAPL likes Read It, Don't Eat It!

Read It, Don't Eat It! is on the Los Angeles Public Library's list of Great Books 2009 / Some 2009 Favorite Books for Children:

The Read to Me LA skills of print motivation and print awareness are perfectly illustrated in this simple text. For the very youngest listener this book explains in rhyme and bright colors what a book is and how to take care of it.

Going Frogue

Apropos of nothing, a detail from a scene in Sleepyhead Bear.

By the Toe!

A scene from Cat & Mouse.

Family Portrait

It's my grandmother's 113th birthday today, so how better to celebrate than by...turning her family into pigs? The source photograph was taken in 1906 or 1907 and shows most of the Braun brood of Rudna, Banat, a Donauschwaben village then in Hungary and now in Romania. My grandmother is in the middle row, far left. I made my painting some time ago and confess that I didn't quite catch my great-uncle Dominik's bewildered expression (middle row, far right), though the frown of my first cousin once removed (Gyula Bank, dead center) translated pretty well.

A Congressman is a Hog!

"You can't use tact with a Congressman! A Congressman is a hog! You must take a stick and hit him on the snout!" said a member of President Grant's cabinet to Henry Adams. In this case the hog, or, rather, the model for the hog was, again, the unwitting Senator Stephen A. Douglas (1813-1861), as photographed by Mathew Brady.

Like Monkeys

"The bears swarmed over the fence like monkeys" - a bloodthirsty yet cuddly scene from Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island as illustrated in 1911 by N. C. Wyeth and subsequently bastardized by me, Ian Schoenherr, in ink and acrylic on a plywood panel measuring 8 x 10 inches.

Yes, these critters are repeat offenders: Angus, with the red kerchief, appears solo here and with his compatriots Harold (on the left), Big Bear (in plaid with an eye patch), and Bailey (with the skull-and-bones on his hat) in a Teddy Bear Pow Wow. And, of course, Bailey also shows up in more respectable circumstances here.

A Bear and His Bear

Another example of a picture of a human which I morphed into an animal. The source was an 1840's daguerreotype I found on page 26 of American Album by Oliver Jensen, Joan Paterson Kerr, and Murray Belsky (American Heritage Publishing Co., Inc., 1968) - a terrific book, filled, as the subtitle states, with "Rare Photographs Collected by The Editors of American Heritage." I don't know the name of the gentleman bear, but the well-loved companion tucked under his arm is named Bailey, made circa 1930 by Bernhard Hermann in Sonneberg, Germany. My acrylic-on-paper painting measures 2 7/8 x 4 1/4 inches.

Young Pig Lincoln

In addition to re-imagining my favorite paintings (as seen in this and that post), I also enjoy adapting old photographs for my own purposes. Here, for instance, I turned Abraham Lincoln's son, William Wallace Lincoln (1850-1862), into a pig. Sorry, Willie! This one falls into the Tentative Ventures Into Anthropomorphism category, though, as I more or less just stuck an animal head (and some cloven feet) on a human figure, sort of the way ancient Egyptian artists often did. Since making this painting, however, I've found that I prefer my anthropomorphizing to be a "full-body experience," so I try to transform the whole person into an animal. I think the results are more convincing.

Furry Traders Descending the Missouri

Sometimes when I want to make a picture, but am void of ideas, I'll take a work by an artist I admire and "recast" it with pigs or mice or teddy bears. Here's an example, painted with acrylic and ink on a scrap of plywood measuring 10 x 8 inches. It's based on Fur Traders Descending the Missouri by George Caleb Bingham, which now hangs in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.