Animal Art | A WSJ Bestiary

Animal art touches us in a special way. People are always drawn to the animal kingdom. I know I always have been, and, this blog’s animal posts are always avidly viewed!So, in honor of our “other”-cousins, I offer this rather random compendium of ‘lesser’ beings…Having recently moved out of New Jersey, and after having resided in the NJ Pine Barrens for 26-odd years, I here present my interpretation of the famed “Jersey Devil”, an illustration I created for the Wall Street Journal, quite a few years ago…The scales were tricky. One key element: the forked tail!Another ‘jersey devil’ was our Jack Russell Terrier, Merlin. That dog was a lovable, violent, out of his mind, handsome example of the species. I did not really do him justice here in an illustration for a magazine piece, probably for Prevention:While at the Journal, I used to moonlight, quite a bit, for the Reader’s Digest. I created this illustration for one of their “First Day of Issue” subscriptions for stamp collectors. It’s of an arctic explorer, I believe, and his canine mate…A world away, Jane Goodall was working with her primate family. I was retained to produce an image for her cause:For a grammar school textbook's animal art, I gave the bears a hug…And, penultimately (Holly smokes!— big word!), I was happy to produce this logotype illustration. This animal art was for a company called Addison. The original was in b&w. The colorization was added later:Lastly, the rakish character at the head of this post is from a major ad campaign that I participated in for Bell Canada. The critter I portrayed in this animal art was one ‘funny bunny’ —I think I captured his likeness well. Do you agree?