Bob Foster: :... he dramatically opened doors that I didn’t even know existed"

By Tom Watson Part 4

Bob took us on class field trips to the Palace of the Legion of Honor Museum, and the DeYoung Museum in San Francisco, as well as the city zoo to sketch. The DeYoung Museum was having a major traveling show of Vincent Van Gogh paintings, so Bob planned a class trip to see the show. Van Gogh was not one of his favorite painters, as his technique was too crude and primitive for Bob’s more literal taste, but he knew the value of perhaps a once in a lifetime opportunity to see his original paintings and learn what we could from the opportunity.


Exposure to the masters was part of Bob’s belief system for ongoing self education. He was very aware of the influence that past masters had on the great illustrators, and encouraged us to study their work. He would tell us to first go to the museums if possible, or look and study their reproductions in books. Visiting museums became a life long experience for me, and continues to inspire my soul. He particularly liked the paintings of John Singer Sargent, Giovanni Boldini, Anders Zorn, Robert Henri and Edgar Degas. He felt that Sargent’s drawing and painting skills were extraordinary, and superior to most of the top painters of his day.


He loved Degas ballerina’s, and his unusual compositions and cropping of the figures. In that respect Bob was more than just another teacher for me, he dramatically opened doors that I didn’t even know existed. Bob’s enthusiasm was truly contagious. If you couldn’t get excited about being an illustrator in Bob’s classes, you were studying for the wrong profession.

After I left the Academy of Art in 1960, I lost contact with Bob until 1968. He had left the Academy soon after I did, and moved to the East Coast, where he taught for a while at the Famous Artists School Correspondence Course in Connecticut. That gave him time to finish building his portfolio and then break into the N.Y. illustration market. In 1968 I was working for a studio in Chicago and had to take a business trip to N.Y. I called Bob in Manhattan, where he was living, and we made plans to have lunch together. He was living in a comfortable brownstone apartment that functioned as a studio and darkroom but it looked more like a studio and dark room that also functioned as an apartment. His original intent was to break into the magazine illustration field, where the spotlight of modern illustration had been centered throughout the 1950s, but that market was starting to shrivel and gave less opportunity for the new guy in town. So he found a lucrative niche illustrating mostly pocket book covers for the major publishers and had built a substantial reputation, particularly in the science fiction market.


Fredrick Pohl was a well known sci-fi writer at the time and Bob did many illustrations for the covers of his books. One of his crowning achievements was a series of the first four covers for John Norman’s famous (sci-fi) ‘Gor’ series. He illustrated the covers for other well known writers of the day, such as Doris Lessing, Paul Callico (Poseidon Adventure) and Somerset Maugham, to name a few.

Bob would start a painting with a loose monotone transparent acrylic ground wash on illustration board, and then render the illustration in oil over the acrylic wash. His careful understanding of values and skill in knowing where to soften edges and where to show hard edges, created a sense of reality beyond photo realism.


Depending on the subject, his illustrations varied in their degree of realism, and some were rendered quite painterly. He was one of the very few successful sci-fi illustrators who used a unique surrealistic technique, ideal for that market. He used his anatomical knowledge to depict and render accurate human form, and blended innovative elements and backgrounds reminiscent of surrealism in a dramatic theatrical setting. Bob’s illustrations were carefully designed, positioning his figures and props to visually flow together, and to contrast and compliment each other. In several examples, he extracted shapes and forms from small watch parts, gears, wheels, etc., enlarging and altering them for unique background props.


One illustration example implies microscopic organisms as a bizarre, but convincing background.


In another example, he carefully designed and skillfully rendered wrinkled bed sheets, two pillows, and a single red rose on one. On one side of the bed, in a prone position, is a discreetly posed nude figure. The overhead view looking down from the ceiling, gives compelling visual drama. The entire illustration is bathed in soft amber tones.


In yet another example, he created a tightly knit composition, using his trademark dramatic theatrical staging. A man in knickers is casually posed next to a large antique standing mirror, depicting an elegant formal scene reflected in the mirror.


Against a white background, it gives visual clarity and high contrast. Again, the lighting is dramatic and strategically planned for a strong silhouetted design.

Bob also illustrated the cover for the first “Savage!” comic book series, based on a character resembling the actor Lee Marvin, which was rendered in a dramatic stylized, but literal technique.


He often chose his props as subtle “window dressing”, such as the example indicating a bottle of champagne, a wire cage and a red rose on a table top. All are complimenting textures and shapes. Only small parts of each prop shows, avoiding distraction from the two figures. I don’t recall for sure, but I think he also did some advertising illustration for agencies in N.Y. during the 1960s.

Continued tomorrow.

* Tom Watson is a retired West Coast illustrator, art director and educator. He has been a frequent contributor to Today's Inspiration and his storyboard work for film was a subject of a post on my other blog, Storyboard Central.

* Many thanks to Kyle Katz, gojira2012 and mystique123_2000 for allowing me to use the Bob Foster paperback cover scans above.

* Many thanks to Heritage Auctions for allowing me to use the original Bob Foster art scan seen above.

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Bob Foster: "When drawing... we need to tell the truth."

By Tom Watson Part 3

Bob would discuss various compositions, poses and gestures with the class, explaining the best approach for a given scene. He would discourage us from trying to draw figures or props out of our heads, insisting they needed to look believable. He did not allow tracing or projecting the photo or paper and tracing it. He wanted us to learn first to draw correct proportions, so we could intelligently interpret the model.


The photos were all in black and white, and he would provide large prints, 11”x14”, and occasionally larger, for a nominal fee. He wanted us to develop our own color and not be influenced by color from a color print, which wasn’t all that good back then, and much more expensive. Bob would really get excited about the possibilities of each scene he set up and directed. He would move the light around until it was exactly the way he wanted, discussing and explaining how the lighting set the mood and helped define the plains in the face and body. Sometimes he would look for interesting shadow patterns that clearly defined the form in the head.


He would explain that every shape had to flow and tie together as one big unit. For some scenes, the lighting was purposely flat with no shadows, etc., for a more decorative technique, such as a combination of line and color washes. Then he would show us examples, pulling out perhaps an editorial illustration by Robert Fawcett or Joe DeMers, or an ad illustration by Bob Peak or maybe Jack Potter. He discussed correcting the lens distortion when drawing from photos. He would say, ‘What we see in a photo is often a lie, and when drawing the human form, we need to tell the truth.’

It was a big thrill for us, when Bob brought in examples of his work. The first examples I saw, were in gouache. I remember one in particular that was a head and torso painting of Grace Kelley, who he considered one of the most beautiful women in the world, along with a very popular and famous 50’s N.Y. model, Susie Parker. His paintings were accurately drawn and skillfully rendered, working semi transparent gouache wet into wet. He used a combination of soft and hard edges, applying thicker applications of paint for the highlights. Bob always used the finest flat and round red sable brushes, and treated them like a $50,000 mink coat. He would stress buying the best tools and equipment we could afford, and to always take special care of them. He believed that an illustration depended as much on the quality and condition of our brushes, as our knowledge and skill in doing an illustration.


He mixed his colors on a white porcelain butcher’s tray, and had us do the same. He would discourage us from using gimmicks or special tools to create special effects, until we were experienced in traditional painting methods first. When he wanted to soften an edge in gouache, he used his brush and painted wet into wet, or feathered dry paint using clear water, and when using oil paint, he used his finger or thumb to blend the edges, or soften an edge. He recommended Whatman Illustration board (a top quality cold press board used by most of the top illustrators) because it had a high quality surface that could take abuse, like flooding passages and wiping out unwanted paint, etc.


Struggling to achieve a higher skill level than our lack of experience would allow, we would often over work a head, then wash it out and redo it. However, Bob would tell us it was better to start over and redo the whole illustration, than to waste time trying to save it. He would explain that as students, we had the time and the responsibility to ourselves to make the added effort, while learning. I admit, I proved him right on more than one occasion. It was rare that I could get away with taking out a whole head, after completing half or more of the illustration, and try to redo do it so that it was as fresh looking as the rest of the painting. It was one of my most frustrating challenges as a student.

Bob taught another class called, ‘Painting From The Clothed Model’. We painted from a live model in oils on canvas, which I particularly enjoyed. One time we had an elegant stylish woman wearing a fashionable print dress in a graceful pose, using a stool as a prop. Bob would comment, ‘Give her that long leggy look.’ The next time it would be a beautiful ballerina sitting in her dance costume, with a palm plant and a dress form as props. For another interesting pose, I recall an elderly gentleman, who was an actor and professional model. He had a stylish white mustache, a bowler hat, a cane and was wearing a dark three piece suite, sitting in a large high back chair.


Bob would usually light the scenes in a theatrical manor, as if it were stage lighting. Recently, I found out from his niece and younger brother, that his mother was a Ziegfield Follies dancer when she was young, and his father was a professional photographer. That really wasn’t a surprise to me, because I could tell it was in his blood.

Continued tomorrow.

* Tom Watson is a retired West Coast illustrator, art director and educator. He has been a frequent contributor to Today's Inspiration and his storyboard work for film was a subject of a post on my other blog, Storyboard Central.

* Many thanks to Kyle Katz for allowing me to use the Bob Foster paperback cover scans above. The original art scan is courtesy of Heritage Auctions.

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