A while back I stumbled across Harry Borgman's Art Blog while surfing the internet. Mr. Borgman was a freelance artist who was hired by Lincoln Mercury to illustrate the 1962 Mercury Comet Sales Catalog. I was so impressed by his work and his story, I contacted him and ask for his permission to share his artwork and story on the Cometeer. We all enjoy looking at the artist concepts and images of our cars when they where new. I felt it was important to share Mr. Borgman’s story of how he helped make the 1962 catalog a reality. What a beautiful car..
HARRY BORGMAN ART BLOG
The pressure of automotive catalogs
More on the 1962 Mercury Comet catalog art.
When doing art for automotive catalogs you are confronted with a enormous amount of work which must be done under the pressure of a tight deadline. Not a good situation for even an experienced illustrator. You are usually working with another artist on the same illustration which can also be problematic. On the above illustration, I came to the studio very early and was pretty much underway with this background. When Jack Mills, the automotive illustrator, arrived he changed his mind about the scene's lighting situation and decided that he wanted to light the car from another direction, so I had to repaint the background. After that I presented him with small color sketches before starting to paint. Under tight deadlines you have no time to waste.
Charlie Shridde, a great illustrator in our freelance group, had some reference photos that he had taken during a polo match. He offered let me use some of them for reference material on this particular illustration which helped me a great deal.
For the figures I used my son Kurt and Charlie's wife, Jutta, she was one of Detroit's top models.
The models on this illustration were Terry Seaholm, a car penciler, for the foreground figure, and our rep Bob Witmer was photographed for the other two figures. For the gal inside the car I used Jutta and turned her into a blond. For the background reference, photos were taken in a local lumberyard.
Automotive catalog illustration was a very demanding and specialized field, not only from the aspect of the technical accuracy of the automobile, you also had to satisfy the art director and others at the ad agency as well as the manufacturer's advertising managers, all under extreme deadline pressures.
The car catalog season was an extremely busy time for artists in Detroit. Our freelance group was hard at work on Chevrolet art when another catalog assignment popped up. Jack Mills and I were asked to do all of the illustrations for the 1962 Mercury Comet catalog, the ad agency was Kenyon & Eckhardt and I believe that the art director was Lowell Jackson. We were doing art for two catalogs which wasn't unusual, as many artists would often work for competing clients or ad agencies at the same time.
On this illustration I hired a model to photograph the foreground gal and used my kids and Bob Witmer, our rep, for the other figures.
I had to search for reference on this scene, fortunately I lived near a couple of marinas. After composing the scene and doing a small color sketch I would do a pencil drawing and then block in the background with paint to establish color values and lighting, then Jack would render the car. When he was pretty much finished, I would continue working on the background, adding details and modifying color, until I was done, then he would add the final touches to the car.
A close up of the illustration to show you the details. Another hired model was used for this illustration.
Not all the illustrations required a full background. I rounded up some neighborhood girls to pose for me on this one. Like many illustrators, I used a Poloroid camera for most of the figure shots because you got an instant photo, no need for film development or a darkroom, a real time saver. Also you could immediately see if the pose was right or if you needed to take more shots. All these illustrations were rendered on Whatman cold-pressed illustration board with Windsor and Newton Designer's Colors. When we finished the illustration, our rep would take it over to the agency for the art director's and the automotive engineer's approval. More Comet illustrations on the next post.
