PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS

HAPPY HOLIDAYS 2016!

Instead of a regular-type card, this year we are sending you a book Jerry designed & illustrated for L. W. Frohlich. L.W. Frohlich had a very large and successful pharmaceutical advertising agency in New York, and hired and/or commissioned very gifted illustrators and/or graphic designers. Every winter L. W. Frohlich was printing a little booklet in the series called “Christmas Books” in a small limited edition (about 300 in each series) Mr. Frohlich sent to friends and clients. The one attached to this email is one of these L. W. Frohlich “Christmas Books” that was entirely designed and illustrated by Jerry W. McDaniel called “The Secret of Happiness” Christmas MCMLX (the Roman numeral for year 1960). The drawings in this book show one facet of Jerry's work as an illustrator at the beginning of his career. 

All the illustrations in the book (in fact a small 3” x 5” collectible booklet) is in sepia in a style known later by illustrators of that era as "sleet storm style”. If you are like me (Ileana Costea) and your mother language is not English may be you do not know what a “sleet storm is”. It is a storm that is rain full of ice. It is not hail. For If that is the case look at this youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4829C0k2N40

Youtube uploaded on Apr 5, 2009

Sleet storm in Lake Villa, Illinois on 4/5/2009.

Exasperated that I, Ileana do not know what a sleet storm is, Jerry said: Everybody knows what a “sleet storm” is. This happens often in the East and Midwest. It is full of ice. It is not hail, which is icy rain which falls into ice cubes… Sleet is very thin; it is rain that turns into ice when it falls, and it becomes water when it hits the ground. A sleet storm style drawing is imitating that sleet. The artist is slashing lines, especially vertically, up, down, and in all directions.

A good example of sleet storm drawing is the illustration by Ted Coconis (first left below) to a story in Parents magazine, where McDaniel also published his work. But Coconis’s drawing does not have much dynamism. If you consider a little sketch of a face by Jerry you can notice how he uses sleet lines in various directions, and different intensity, to create dark and light values on a face, filling areas with lines, and using lines to emphasize portions of the picture to create an expression (second left below).

The whole L. W. Frohlich book “The Secret of Happiness” is done in the “sleet storm” style… McDaniel said: “I think I was the first illustrator who used this style before anyone else was using it. I did not really care for “sleet” but it was a quick way of creating pictures. I think somebody must have seen the booklet with my drawings and liked it, for short after than this style really caught up. All illustrators were using it. I was asked to do this book in a very short time, just before my first trip to Paris. This style allowed me to do expressive drawings very fast.”

Something interesting to note is that the man on page 3 of the L. W. Frohlich booklet (2nd drawing, next to the poem “A divine decree” by Alexis de Tocqueville) is really a sketch of Jerry, the artist himself, seated. Often McDaniel, lacking a model, would pose for his drawings/illustrations.

I hope you will agree with us that the text in the booklet is still so current! Enjoy!

Jerry and Ileana

http://www.jerrywmcdanielstudios.com/

http://www.ic-art-gallery.com/(NEW: After you ENTER and AGREE you will find a link, on the second line of the horizontal menu, where you can by Jerry's art)