Saturday, December 1, 2007

Hubert Buel



Hubert Buel
Watercolorist and Illustrator
1915-1985


Hubert Buel was a California artist of renown who founded the West Coast Watercolor Society. He also did some book illustrations. These are from The Shy Stegosaurus of Cricket Creek by Evelyn Sibley Lampman, published in 1955. Details in Buel's brush, pen and ink drawings are kept to a minimum, yet his figures show weight and mass by use of thick and thin lines in his inking.

Click on pictures for full-size images.












1 comment:

Mark Tague said...

Just wonderfull to see these illustrations and be reminded of this special book. I read it only once when I was in third grade, nearly a half century ago, and it has always stuck in my heart. As a young reader, the emotional ending of this tale was very powerfull, hitting me like the end of Charlottes's Web.(Though I have no idea how my adult eyes would see it in comparison. I have reread E. B, White's classic dozens of times since my first experience of it.

My third grade teacher, Mrs. Dowd, is the lady to whom I owe a lifelong love of reading. Though very strict , some would even say severe, she would transform into a kindly magical Godmother during the last half hour of each schoolday, reading aloud to my class. She read first Walter Farley's The Black Stallion and then Charlotte's Web. Her reading was skillfull and so warm that a spell was cast over the room. As a group we were with Alec, riding bareback on a nearly wild horse though a tropical island surf and on the farm with Wilbur, the smell of the hay pungent and real. The day she finished reading Charlotte's Web, the room was so silent, except for stifled sobs. I hold this lady so dear; she was a beautiful woman.

The last illustration posted here immediately brought the same lump-in-throat moment that the book's ending brought all those tears ago , and I thank you for giving methe chance to see them all again through this blog.