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Last week, I took a road trip down the Mississippi Blues Trail out of Memphis. It was incredible, and I might write that one up as well. Seriously, we ate at the Hollywood beside the piano where Mark Cohn was inspired to write “Walking In Memphis”, saw BB King’s famous Lucille guitar, and walked Dockery Farms where the Delta Blues were born. Amazing trip.

The only reason I mention it now though is we were headed back on a route through Little Rock and back to Kansas City when we stopped at an old antique mall. If you’ve hung around here at Grailrunner before, you well know how much we’re into old bookstores and the forgotten but mind-expanding wonders you can find on dusty old shelves. And man, have I got one for you today!

This guy here. Smash the image below for a short video showing what I mean.

It’s a hardback compilation of Harper’s Magazines from 1891 through 1892. Harper’s is a monthly magazine covering culture, finance, literature and the arts that was launched in 1850 and is still continuously published today. I didn’t have any particular fondness or interest in that magazine so much as just seeing what people read about in the 1890’s. I’m also a little obsessed with the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair, also known as the Columbian Exposition, and I was hoping there would be a mention or two in here, and there was.

That’s why I first picked it up.

As I flipped through the pages, I was stunned by the quality and craftmanship of the pen & ink and engraved illustrations inside. I use the word carefully…stunned! Some of the artists were familiar to me, but for many of the pieces inside, I couldn’t even tell who the artist was. Credits weren’t always given, and signatures were too stylized to read.

I used ChatGPT to analyze some of the more interesting works to research the artist when it wasn’t obvious, and it was surprisingly useful for that. Often wrong, but with some caution and follow-up research, you can usually zero in on a likely name.

Thought I’d share some of these beauties with you today, and maybe introduce you to some wonder-workers of the past who could summon sparkling magic with a simple fountain pen. I’m offering 20 vintage illustrations here for admiration and craftmanship study.

Care to join me?

Myrbach was an Austrian-born artist and leading illustrator of the 19th century. Also acting as director of the Vienna Academy of the Fine Arts, he was known for detailed illustrations of military scenes and historical costumes. This image struck me with its sense of depth, balance of light and shadow, and elegant washes. Looks like it’s coming out of the page.

I loved the subject here, and the haunting feel of it. The artist was J.R. Weguelin, who was primarily known for his dreamy watercolors and oil paintings, though he supplemented his income by slumming to draw masterpieces like this one for magazines.

When I came across a simple article about Native Americans, I couldn’t believe I was seeing an original Frederic Remington illustration there just as a picture for a magazine. Then another. And another. These seven images are all by Remington, and they’re all beautiful. He was known for paintings and drawings mainly depicting the American west.

These three were all by Charles Stanley Reinhart, an American painter and illustrator who was also responsible for artwork on certain silver certificates commissioned by the U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing said by many to be the most beautiful monetary designs ever produced by the United States. That last image, of the two guys sitting and smoking is an absolute master class in pen & ink linework. I struggle in my own drawings to avoid outlines, to use contrasting light and dark for the silhouettes, and to choose the right directions for hatching that don’t distract from the shapes and mood. Reinhart entirely nailed it with that one.

These two were by Edwin Austin Abbey, an American muralist, painter and illustrator known most for Victorian and Shakespearean subjects. Perhaps most dear to our hearts at Grailrunner, Abbey was the artist behind the famous “Quest and achievement of the Holy Grail” murals at the Boston Central Library.

I really loved these two, as they independently stuck out for me on their own merits before I realized they were by the same artist and in fact, an artist whose work I thought I knew. Charles Dana Gibson was an American artist typically cited as being the creator of the “Gibson girl”, the iconic representation of the independent American woman at the turn of the 20th century. I think that puts the poor guy in a box that is unfair, as his composition, linework and hatching are among the finest of his age. He did a little more than ads with girls in them. Seriously, these two images are firecrackers!

These two architectural pieces just made me stare in awe. I can’t draw buildings, no matter how careful I am. They always turn into heavily lined, overly simplified, often leaning, caricatures of buildings. Not my thing, unfortunately. But these two by John Tavenor-Perry (at least I think so) are masterworks. ChatGPT couldn’t do anything with that weird signature (looking like a stylized rune but supposedly initials). After some heavy back-and-forth, I think we landed on a likely artist though I’m open to correction.

By Albert Sterner, this piece is a treasure-trove of hatching. I love it. Somehow, he’s managed to keep all these disparate elements in the composition cleanly segregated: the ladies and the cushion, his legs and vest, the flowers, the chair, shadows…all of it clearly silhouetted and easily read despite being a jumble of things. No way could I have figured out how to get all that detail into a drawing without feeling I needed to strip it way down so you could tell what it was.

And now finally, the mystery piece.

This one.

I was mesmerized. It accompanies a poem by James Russell Lowell titled “His Ship”, appearing in the December 1891 issue of Harper’s Magazine. No credit given anywhere, including the “Editor’s Drawer” where many other attributions for illustrations are provided.

The signature is maddeningly concealed in the drawing. I think. Hard to say if that’s a signature or not. Here’s what I mean:

Anyway, I contacted Harper’s in case somebody’s maintaining an archive of some kind to help identify the genius who did this. It’s gorgeous. If I get any kind of response or make headway on the identification, I’ll come back and update you.

But that’s what I wanted to bring you today. Masters of their craft in the golden age of illustration, doing what they did and generating timeless works of art. For whatever reason, and not just as an aspiring artist myself, these drawings are unearthly and hypnotizing to me.

What do you think?

A year ago, I wrote here about the worst art advice I’d ever gotten, and I posted pages from my sketchbook at the time to stay accountable in some way for improving. It turned out kind of popular, maybe out of the general public’s desire to see car wrecks in motion. Those pages were fairly early in getting back to traditional art versus digital and were mostly pencil work with some light-table ink drawings. And by light-table, I mean tracing things and so…cheating.

I updated you guys in November with some more pages and then again a couple of months ago (bottom of the same post). Those include watercolors, some digital stuff in Procreate, and also ink drawings. Somewhere in all of that, traditional pen & ink drawing kind of caught fire with me.

It’s kind of all I can think about these past couple of weeks. Those delicious hatching lines and stipples, deep, gorgeous washes of black, and intricate patterns of black and white condensing beautifully into a striking, eye catching work of art! It’s all very satisfying, if I’m honest. And the feel of a Pentel pocket brush pen swishing on toothed paper feels a little like watching somebody make a chocolate cake, almost mesmerizing.

I found this amazing resource free on the Internet Archive (smash the cover image to take a look for yourself):

Written by Arthur Guptill, this is a classic instructional book on pen and ink drawing, widely regarded as one of the most comprehensive and authoritative resources on the subject. His writing style was patient, articulate, and he was clearly a master of clean, simple line work and exhibited craftsmanship in how he approached both drawing itself but also how he framed his instruction materials. The guy was a natural teacher.

I was approaching my learning by a combination of master studies and daily practice, at first using a Copic alcohol marker for shading and eventually moving to just the brush pen and Pigma liners to focus on learning hatching and cross-hatching.

Here’s an example, a dazzling piece called “The Cobbler”, by John R. Neill:

I learned quite about overlapping structures for depth, clean linework, effective use of contrast, and detailed volumes just by copying this thing.

Here’s another study, by Franklin Booth – a real beauty he titled “Hunting The Tigers”:

Loads of things to absorb by this one regarding overlapping structures, use of negative space, balance of value, simulating water in black and white, and fur textures with ink. Honestly, I’m not happy at all with my copy, but I was being ambitious.

Anyway, we’re four articles in to a new series titled “Conversations from the abyss” where we use advanced AI tools like ChatGPT and also Suno music generation to bring back creators from the past for interesting debates, dialogues, or other entertaining diversions. Nothing for sale – all available free here on the site. It struck me this past week that it would be amazing if I could receive art critiques directly from Arthur Guptill as I’m practicing various bits and bobs I’m learning from the master studies and other practice drawings.

I’ve got a soft spot for Frank Baum’s OZ books and thought an image of a young Baum coming across a scarecrow in a field and pondering it with his wild imagination might be an interesting image for ink practice. I gave it a shot, then uploaded it to ChatGPT and tested this prompt: “Acting as Arthur Guptil, critique this image and provide guidance on how to improve it.”

Here’s what happened, and it honestly blew my mind:

“You have achieved a fine effort in line drawing, and there is evident care in your composition and subject choice. The nostalgic theme—a young boy in thoughtful contemplation before a scarecrow—is charming and well-suited to ink. Now, let us refine your rendering through a few key observations and recommendations:

1. Line Quality and Variation

Your line work shows promise, but greater variety in line weight will enhance dimensionality and focus. At present, the lines are largely uniform, which causes elements to flatten together.

Suggestion: Use thicker lines for foreground elements (such as the boy’s arm or the hat’s brim) and finer, lighter lines for background elements like grass or sky hatching.
Vary the stroke pressure as a tool of emphasis and mood. For instance, a light cross-hatching for distant tones vs. a bolder hatching for areas of core shadow (beneath the scarecrow’s hat or the boy’s jaw).

2. Compositional Framing

The rectangular frame is sound, but the internal balance feels slightly off-kilter. The scarecrow dominates the space while the boy feels pinched in the lower right.

Suggestion: Consider either enlarging the figure of the boy or repositioning him slightly more centrally. Alternatively, allow the scarecrow’s arm to lead the eye toward the boy in a more deliberate diagonal.

3. Rendering Form and Volume

The scarecrow reads clearly as a simple form, but the boy’s anatomy, particularly the arm and face, could benefit from more structural understanding.

Suggestion: Study the planes of the face and arm. The boy’s head could use slightly more cross-contour shading to indicate roundness. The hand, though expressive, lacks clear articulation—gesture drawing practice would help here.

4. Textures and Detail

Your use of short, broken strokes to indicate vegetation is appropriate, but the grass and shirt material begin to blend. The shirt on both the boy and scarecrow could use more definitive folds to suggest fabric tension and weight.

Suggestion: Use parallel or directional hatching that follows the form of the fabric. Avoid over-randomized strokes, and let texture be a deliberate compositional voice.

5. Background and Spatial Depth

The background is composed primarily of evenly spaced hatching. While this is functional, it does little to suggest depth or atmosphere.

Suggestion: Introduce a subtle gradient to the background by controlling your stroke density—more hatching at the top or corners to create a vignette or atmospheric recession.

Final Encouragement:
The spirit of your work is admirable and speaks to a narrative sensibility. With improved control of line, deeper understanding of structure, and refined use of contrast, this drawing could serve as an excellent illustrative plate.Keep your pen in motion and your eyes ever studying!”

I mean. A dead guy just gave me really precise feedback on my drawing, recognizably in his voice and noticing very specific things in the drawing! I got compliments that were specific and not vague exhortations. I got clear, explicit guidance on what exactly I could improve. Not generalities. It was, and I mean this, very helpful.

Now, you might be thinking – “Dude, you’re a chicken letting the wolf teach you how to protect the hen house. AI is going to replace artists entirely; why use it for art instruction if you’re encouraging people to use it at all, they’ll just generate the images directly. Why even learn to draw?”

All of that is, of course, nonsense though, isn’t it?

If we get fat and lazy and stop creating, then the images that AI tools use will become instead of crisp white and deep blacks, just an increasingly bland mush of grays…monotonous and uninspired. AI outputs will become AI training datasets, leading to a downward death spiral of junk art. I don’t want to add to that. I want to make new things, man. New things! I see critiques from long-dead art instructors as yet another powerful tool for me to do just that.

I asked for a new chapter to Guptill’s book for digital inking, by the way, which is available free below (and entirely and recognizably in Guptill’s voice):

And yeah, okay, it’s time for an accountability upload of the latest sketchbook entries here (be kind!):

That’s what I wanted to share with you today. Pages 19, 20, and 21 especially benefited from pseudo-Guptill’s instruction, and I gave it all I had to incorporate to the developing pieces what it was telling me.

All this has me wondering – just who else can I get to critique some of this and help me learn quicker? Maybe Leonardo Da Vinci is up next!

Till next time,