Animals of the Past as Painted by Matthew Kalmenoff

Tags

animals, charles mcvicker, dinosaur, dinosaur books, golden books, Matthew Kalmenoff, painting, Prehistoric Animals, prehistoric birds, prehistoric fish, prehistoric mammals, stamp book, trading cards

Today’s images come to us courtesy of reader Edward Dietrich, who recently discovered a 2012 post with my scans of a 1960s booklet, Sinclair and the Exciting World of Dinosaurs. Another reader had informed me that the artist was Matthew Kalmenoff, and Ed added that Kalmenoff did the full-color paintings on the stamps in a book I loved when I was a kid: The Golden Stamp Book of Animals of the Past.

The cover, featured above, has art by Charles McVicker. Ed sent the following scans of Matthew Kalmenoff’s paintings for us all to enjoy. He included notes about different versions of this book, of which there were many!

Though the blog Love in the Time of Chasmosaurs has scans of some pages from a 1950s version of this book, the art was apparently recycled into many editions. Ed says he’s owned a third printing from 1968 (priced at 59¢), plus an eleventh printing from 1975 and an eighteenth printing from 1980 (both priced at 89¢).

Most of Ed’s scans are not from the stamp book edition, but a 1961 version called Dinosaurs and Other Prehistoric Animals Trading Cards, and branded “Golden Funtime Trading Cards”. Instead of printing the artwork on sheets of lickable stamps to affix to the pages, this version presented the images on heavy cardstock and had oversized pages. This version only had 45 paintings, compared to the 48 in the stamp books, so Ed thoughtfully scanned the remaining stamps from the other editions.

Some updates to the captions happened between the 1950s stamp book version and this 1960s trading card version. For example, the Protoceratops is clearly labeled as such in Ed’s scans, but was labeled “horn-faced dinosaur” in the 1950s version. Also, the Ichthyosaur is named in this edition, where it was labeled “fish-like reptile” in the 1950s book. “Winged reptile” got updated to Rhamphoryncus. Other captions changed, too, but why should I ruin all the fun of letting you find them?

If you’re like me, you now want wall-sized prints of several of these gorgeous (if somewhat scientifically outdated) paintings. If you’re willing to settle for something smaller, I’ve seen some of them on Amazon repackaged into a 1988 book called Ready to Frame Dinosaur Paintings. I hope Kalmenoff got paid well for this artwork, considering how many times it was repurposed into different publications over the years.

If you’re digging these paintings and want to see more of Matthew Kalmenoff’s vintage artwork, cruise back to the original post that started all this madness, because I updated it with more images and links. I was excited to learn about this connection to one of my childhood treasures via total strangers’ commenting on a post about a book I randomly found on eBay. Talk about going full circle!

A big “thank you” goes out to Ed for taking the time to scan and share these images! This blog would be nothing without the people who have dropped by over the years to share my enthusiasm about dinosaurs, prehistoric animals, comic books, poetry, and mutant brains from outer space. Happy New Year to you, and may your dreams be filled with prehistoric mammals!

The next three images are the ones from the stamp books that did not appear in the 1961 trading cards version.

If I ever get around to recording another album of guitar instrumentals, it’s going to be called “Skull of the Uinta Beast”. Hell yeah!

Here are two images of the cover from the 1961 trading cards version!

 

Advertisements

sketchbook sundays

Tags

animals, art, drawing, fine point pens, frog, frogs, leaf, nature, pen and ink, sketchbook sundays

Oak Toad on a Leaf
Micron 05 and 01 fine point pen

And that’s it for my drawing pad of 6×8 paper! Though I have a couple other blank sketchbooks waiting, I might get another 6×8 pad to have around. I like working in this size for several reasons. One, it takes less time to go from concept to completion than it does with a 9×12 drawing. Two, the dimensions make it easier to crop to a 5×7 aspect ratio for custom-printed greeting cards. Three, I can find mats and frames for a much more reasonable price at this size, compared to the relatively exorbitant cost of matting a 9×12 to an 11×14 frame. And four, since I draw all my mid-tone lines by hand without a ruler, it is less challenging to cover large areas of the drawing than it is in a 9×12. Just try drawing hundreds of straight lines across a 9×12 sheet of paper sometime, and you’ll see what I mean!

Like last week’s damselfly, this toad had as its photo reference one of my mother’s recent nature photographs. She’s taken some especially crisp and detailed photos of small animals lately, and it’s been fun using them as inspiration for opportunities to practice inking with fine point pens.

Mantis and Cactus Flowers

Tags

animals, cactus, flower, Mantis, nature, wildlife

 
Today is the first day we’ve seen the cactus in the front yard burst into bloom overnight. Perhaps it liked the rain we got yesterday. To make the event more rare, we have never seen a preying mantis here in the urban desert either. But this morning, when we stopped to admire the flowers, one tiny mantis had already staked a claim to them.

 

 
We suppose if the flowers attract ants, bees, and other pollinators, then this is the mantis version of a hunting shanty or hidden fishing hole. Maybe the mantis will chop the heads off little bugs and stick them on the cactus spikes like trophies. How awesome would that be? We’ll check in on mantis later and see how the hunt goes.

 

 
Oops, we disturbed the mantis. See how it moves down into the spikes? Smart thinking, mantis. Now sit still!

 

puma

Tags

animals, art, cougar, drawing, ink, mountain lion, pen, puma, sharpie, sharpie marker

 

Puma
Micron 08 fine-point pen and Sharpie marker

Buy it as a framed print or card.

sketchbook sundays

Tags

animals, bee, drawing, ink, pen and ink, sharpie, sharpie marker, sketchbook sundays

 
Bee
Micron 08 fine-point pen and Sharpie marker

Buy it as a framed print or greeting card.

While looking for a poem in our archives this week, we recalled a scan of a bee that we never got around to using as a photo reference. The poem received an edit and the bee enjoyed an evening in the spotlight after all this time.

sketchbook saturdays

Tags

animals, art, drawing, ellie, fine point, pen and ink, Prehistoric Animals, prehistoric birds, prehistoric fish, prehistoric mammals, Rod Ruth, sharpie, sketch, sketchbook sundays

Ellie the Studio Cat advised us that it was entirely too nice a day to be drawing inside, so the two of us chilled at the little picnic table outside sketching prehistoric animals. We’re doing some very rough studies to get a feel for rendering these ancient critters with a combination of Sharpie and fine-point pens.

And yes, Ellie does look like she’s scowling in this photo, but she is just relaxing, contentedly hanging out for sunshine and sketching.

Anyway! Trilobites seemed like they would be simple, but their unique anatomy presents some conceptual challenges. Since this sketch we found some more photo references from the Burgess Shale that depict a few different types of trilobites with anatomical variations. We will master the trilobite yet!

Rod Ruth has a pencil drawing in Album of Prehistoric Animals that makes a great reference for Diatryma feathers and anatomy. This was the easiest one of the bunch to pin down where we would want fine lines versus bold chisel-tip inking.

Smilodon smiles on, with Rod Ruth’s cover of the same book giving a perfect snarly pose to work from.

The skull of Dunkleosteus appears in one of our favorite books, Extinction. The interesting plate structure of this placoderm’s head easily lent itself to bold black lines.

An Archaeocyathid from the same book was rendered in ink by one of the contributing artists, so we studied the way light and shadow define the curves.

Here is our first rough pencil study of a panel by Bob Powell with a whacky sci-fi wasp from another planet who comes to earth in a globe of pure force. The sketch isn’t so great, but this is how we get to know our subjects.

Our previous posting of Somewhere Between Mars and Earth got some encouraging response. We returned to it and filled in the lower right corner with more mega-doodle madness. Framed, it looks pretty darn trippy.

Our first Sharpie study of And One of Them Was Destroyed felt good enough that we want to do a more finished version on some high-quality artist paper. While we get materials together for that endeavor, our two-page sketch can enjoy this 12×18 frame!

Last but not least, we framed our little frog from our book of watercolor paper postcards. It will list on eBay soon, and we will be picking up another book of those blank postcards. In the next round, though, we will take care to leave a border around the edges. Frog looks great, but another one of our cards really needs to be matted to a 5×7 frame to preserve the details at the edges. Live and learn! UPDATE: Diving Frog sold on eBay to an overseas buyer. Rock on!

Puma Blues: Wildlife Art by Michael Zulli!

Tags

animals, art, drawing, Indie Comics, Michael Zulli, nature, Puma Blues, wildlife

 
Aardvark’s The Puma Blues from 1986 features the artwork of Michael Zulli. Zulli drew some of our favorite Ninja Turtles pages in the story Soul’s Winter, taking those silly cartoon characters and imbuing them with a totally different, darker spirit. Here, however, Zulli portrays wilderness and the animals that live there, and the borders where they contact the human world.

Collector’s Guide:
– from The Puma Blues; Aardvark-Vanaheim, 1986
– Reprinted in The Puma Blues Book One and Book Two; Mirage Studios, 1988.

cougar

Tags

album of north american animals, animals, Cat, clark bronson, cougar, mountain lion, puma, rand mcnally, vera dugdale

 
MOUNTAIN LIONS FOREVER!

Collector’s Guide:
– from Album of North American Animals; Rand McNally, 1966.
Text by Vera Dugdale, illustrations by Clark Bronson.

 

bobcat

Tags

album of north american animals, animals, bobcat, clark bronson, rand mcnally, vera dugdale

 
This week we’ll take a look at three of our favorite animals from The Album of North American Animals: the wolverine, the bobcat, and the cougar! This wonderfully illustrated book came in many editions, some of which fetch high prices on Amazon. We have the sixth printing, from the mid 80s, which cost much less. Many of the 26 animals featured within have become exceedingly rare due to loss of habitat caused by the expansion of our cities and industry. Liberate the mountain lions!

Collector’s Guide:
– from Album of North American Animals; Rand McNally, 1966.
Text by Vera Dugdale, illustrations by Clark Bronson.

 

wolverine

Tags

album of north american animals, animals, clark bronson, nature, rand mcnally, vera dugdale, Wolverine

 
This week we’ll take a look at three of our favorite animals from The Album of North American Animals: the wolverine, the bobcat, and the cougar! This wonderfully illustrated book came in many editions, some of which fetch high prices on Amazon. We have the sixth printing, from the mid 80s, which cost much less. Many of the 26 animals featured within have become exceedingly rare due to loss of habitat caused by the expansion of our cities and industry. Liberate the mountain lions!

Collector’s Guide:
– from Album of North American Animals; Rand McNally, 1966.
Text by Vera Dugdale, illustrations by Clark Bronson.

brett’s bird

Tags

animals, art, bird, Brett Alan Elliott, drawing, postcards

 
Brett Alan Elliott. We can’t find out much from researching the web, but we really dig this card. It reminded us of a youthful dream of being wildlife illustrators. We spent the better part of several years sick in bed reading every animal book in the public library, developing a real fondness for the illustrations.

Brett’s raven or crow has a lot in common with the local grackles here on Mars. He inspired our series of charcoal and pastel birds, and we began by imitating his bird’s pose to the best of our abilities. While we don’t ever expect to have his mastery of anatomy, structure, lighting, and detail – let alone inking technique – we found it incredibly instructional to study this image and learn from it.

We hope he doesn’t mind our posting it here, and if you know of his website or anything leave a comment for us please!

charcoal bird

Tags

animals, art, bird, charcoal, drawing

 
Bird 1
Pastel and charcoal on toned tan paper.

Buy it as a print or greeting card.