Herve Morvan

Heres the book cover



This was a real treat for me to illustrate this kids bio of the Nova Scotia giantess,Anna Swan who P.T Barnum made famous in the 1800's.


I like circuses and carnivals and Pt Barnum and all that kind of stuff. For Christmas my wife bought
me the original poster of an old movie I like, Circus of Horrors. Circus and Horrors WOW. It hangs in our upstairs
hall now.
Anyway below is this cool circus pop up book I found at a garage sale a while back.Its Czech and from the sixties. What a beauty eh



I illustrated two kids books last year that are coming out this year and one of em { you guessed it] is somewhat circus related. Actually
its based on the life of giantess Anna Swan from the 1800's. It should be available soon [ tho I'm not sure where and exactly when so thats all I can say] and I'll probably post more
about it when it comes out ..so thats it for now.
But ..these are my earlest doodles/searches from the project. Nothing great but the first.













and here is a tiny piece of a finished illo,



and heck since I mentioned christmas heres the ginger bread house my wife and I made together during the holidays,
its so much bumble food now "sigh"

and my cat Igor and the bunny Monty

Well I saw Guy Francis feet piece than Denis
so i was inspired and drew this on my tablet with the closest paper I had around. Being some Canon matte printer paper.
Which was ok to ink on but didn't erase well. About half an hour or 45 minutes.
Feet.



and heres the cover of a small sketchbook I put out last year,
in case anyone's wondering where the ol blog logo is from

Kactiguy mentioned he liked the William Russell Flint post so i thought I would throw up some more.
In the same way N.C. Wyeth and Maxfield Parish got me into American Illustration when I was younger
Arthur Rackham and Aubrey Beardsley got me into some of my favourite turn of the century British Illustrators like Harry Clark, Frank Brangwyn
and William Russell Flint. Flint was an amazing watercolourist and was famous for his drawings of the ladies.
Rocketeer creator and pinup artist Dave Stevens has mentioned him as influence.

From the Canterbury Tales



Watercolour landscape




From his great book of drawings called Drawings


and from the Song of Songs

Another couple of Patterson illustrations from the book.
Lookit them amazing fingers!





and some cool William Russell Flint Pirates from
the Savoy Operas book

What you ask, was I flipping through with my coffee this morning?
Well I'm a Russell Patterson fan and probably my favourite period is the 20's /30's stuff. And one of my favourite
works [from what I've seen] is the drawings collected in Manhattans, Bronxes and Queens, a book of humorous poetry
from 1931. I love the illustrations in here. Part 20's glamour, part german expressionist and just beautiful lines and
black spotting.




And what was on the cd tray ..well
I'm a huge Kinks fan, truth be told I probably listen to the Kinks more than the Beatles or Stones [well the stones are probably tied] and one of many favourite records is the soundtrack for television drama [that was never done] in the late 60's
called Arthur. Amazing record lyrically and musically.
One of my favourite record titles "Everybody Hates You" is a compilation of 70's punk misanthropes the Pagans from
cleveland. Crypt realeased
this first before putting out the complete recordings on two other discs [yes they are awesome] Amazing record lyrically
and musically:-)
And always a favourite, 60's italian soundtrack music
and some good ol 50's rockabilly courtesy of Sun.




And lastly, my lovely wife Alison is a chef and recipe developer at Canadian Living Magazine and was picked as
one of the 6 Dove models for a new campaign. She's the first one standing on the left . One day I hope
we can collaborate on a cook book together like the old 50's ones before photography replaced illustrations in cookbooks,
course now that she's famous, she might not want to put up with listening to the Pagans at 12.00 oclock at night.
Anyway, I love this ad.
guess thats it

Weeell
long time no blog
and this isn't exactly a fantastic return but I thougt I would post this old sketch for
the If topic. it looks a little more like a shirt than a body tattoo but I never took it beyond
this.



And an editorial illustration for the Asian Wall Street Journal from last year.



and about few years back I was asked to do a painting for a show based around Sandy Mctire, the guy on the
Canadian Tire money who most Canadians will recogize. Pretty silly idea and the show actually ended up
not happening but for some reason this painting still makes me laugh and hangs in our basement. Go MctIre Go!