Alphabet Soup Nr.2

Celestino Piatti's Animal ABC, 1965

What better way to learn the alphabet than looking at pictures of animals?

Enjoy this new hodgepodge of different styles and techniques.

And for the previous collection, click here. 

John Burningham's ABC, 1980

Andrew Zuckerman, Creature ABC

Sébastien G. Orsini, Dans le mystère des animaux sauvages

 

Mary Angel, An animated alphabet

Yusuke Yonezu

Jurg Klabes, ABC mit Tieren, 1958, via Curio Books

C.B. Falls, The Book of ABCs, 1923

Brian Wildsmith's ABC, 1962

Erica Harris

Gwenola Carrère, ABC des petites annonces

Françoise Seignobosc, The gay ABC, 1930, via Curio Books

Anushka Ravishankar and Christiane Pieper, Alphabets are Amazing Animals

Jean de la Fontinelle, Alphabet, 1940s, thanks to Words and Eggs

 Julie Flett, Owls see clearly at night, a Michif alphabet

 Lois Lenski, My own ABC book, thanks to Q is for Quilter

Bittersugar Print, letterpress alphabet

Brian Wildsmith, From A to Z Teaching Cards, 1974, thanks to Jill Casey

 Seymour Chwast, Still Another Alphabet Book, 1969

Alice and Martin Provensen, A Peaceable Kingdom: The Shaker Abecedarius, 1978

Anne Rockwell, Albert B. Cub and Zebra, 1977

Walter Crane, The Noah's Ark Alphabet, 1871-72

Fritz Eichenberg, Ape in a cape, 1953, thanks to The Art of Children's Picture Books

David Frampton, My Beastie Book of ABC, 2002, thanks to Black and White

Eileen Mayo, Nature's ABC, 1944

Jean de Brunhoff, ABC of Babar, 1936

Lisa Congdon

Lisa Congdon is a talented fine artist and illustrator based in San Francisco. 

I have posted a few of her artworks before, and have been wanting to feature 

some more. These chilly January days seem like a great time to do so,

since her pictures warm me up like a good cup of hot cocoa.

While her work explores a variety of media and styles, 

it always expresses a great love of nature. 

You can find Lisa Congdon's art on her website, flickr, etsy shop and blog,

while her love of collecting found a creative outlet in the immensely popular blog

 A Collection a Day, which is now also a book published by Uppercase.

If you want to learn more about Lisa you should listen to this podcast interview

by Meighan O'Toole, curator of the great art blog my love for you, 

which also featured a lovely series of photos of her studio last year.

The recent show Boreas was inspired by Congdon's love of barren landscapes and 

by her viewing of Heima, a beautiful documentary about the Icelandic band Sigur Rós.

I really enjoy this exploration of wildlife, arctic whiteness and colorful folkloric motifs!

White Whale

Marco Cazzato

To produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme. 

No great and enduring volume can ever be written on the flea, 

though many there be who have tried it.

Vladimir Zimakov, thanks to Caustic Cover Critic

Barry Moser, thanks to the art of memory

(visit the link for more Moby Dick-related artworks)

Aside from those more obvious considerations touching Moby Dick, which could not 

but occasionally awaken in any man's soul some alarm, there was another thought, 

or rather vague, nameless horror concerning him, which at times by its intensity 

completely overpowered all the rest; and yet so mystical and well nigh ineffable was it, 

that I almost despair of putting it in a comprehensible form. It was the whiteness 

of the whale that above all things appalled me. 

Tristan Lowe, Mocha Dick

Robert McCauley, Moby Dick Chapter 42, The Whiteness of the Whale

But not yet have we solved the incantation of this whiteness, and learned why

it appeals with such power to the soul; and more strange and far more portentous- 

why, as we have seen, it is at once the most meaning symbol of spiritual things, nay, 

the very veil of the Christian's Deity; and yet should be as it is, the intensifying agent 

in things the most appalling to mankind.

Kathleen Piercefield

John Jay Cabuay

All that most maddens and torments; all that stirs up the lees of things; 

all truth with malice in it; all that cracks the sinews and cakes the brain; 

all the subtle demonisms of life and thought; all evil, to crazy Ahab, 

were visibly personified, and made practically assailable in Moby-Dick.

Lisel Jane Ashlock

Mark Weaver

Julian de Narvaez

There she blows!—there she blows! A hump like a snow-hill! It is Moby Dick!

Mark Summers, thanks to Stevereads

Rockwell Kent, thanks again to the art of memory

Lou Beach

An old, old sight, and yet somehow so young; aye, and not changed a wink 

since I first saw it, a boy, from the sand-hills of Nantucket!

The same — the same! — the same to Noah as to me.

George Klauba

Towards thee I roll, thou all-destroying but unconquering whale; to the last I grapple with thee; 

from hell’s heart I stab at thee; for hate’s sake I spit my last breath at thee. 

Sink all coffins and all hearses to one common pool! and since neither can be mine, 

let me then tow to pieces, while still chasing thee, though tied to thee, 

thou damned whale! Thus, I give up the spear!

Tom Neely, And I only am escaped alone to tell thee,

thanks to But Does it Float

Bill Sienkiewicz

Now small fowls flew screaming over the yet yawning gulf; 

a sullen white surf beat against its steep sides; then all collapsed, 

and the great shroud of the sea rolled on as it rolled five thousand years ago.

All quotes by Herman Melville