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John Rutherford, Illustrator

Posted on April 20, 2023April 20, 2023 By Hey You

“A halftone is a millionth of a tone” Dad said. Huh? How do you paint a millionth of a tone?”

It would take me years to under­stand this advice, coming from a man who spent 30+ years as a Commer­cial Illus­trator in San Fran­cisco during what some would say was the Golden Age of Illus­tra­tion. My father, John Ruther­ford, was a major influ­ence in my artistic career, and the careers of count­less artists who crossed paths with him.

My Dad grad­u­ated from the ArtCenter College of Design in 1955 and spent most of his illus­tra­tion career at Land­phere Asso­ciates in San Fran­cisco. When I was young he brought me into the studio to meet his work friends. I was taken in warmly by fellow artists such as Don Church­field, Sam Daijogo, Jim Blakeley, and others. I visited each artist’s work area and watched them draw, design, and paint. I remember watching Don Church­field draw beau­tiful callig­raphy and typog­raphy by hand, and I watched my Dad draw and paint illus­tra­tions for adver­tise­ments, books, and maga­zines. There was always a photo shoot in progress, and people running around setting up food and lighting. The team let me raid the refrig­er­ator for snacks, but on this partic­ular day it was packed with 100s of cans of Dole Pineapple getting ready for the camera (I’m guessing the pineapple was cooled in the refrig­er­ator so that it wouldn’t wilt under the hot lights).

Line Art
Line Art 
John Rutherford, Illustrator
John Ruther­ford, Illustrator 
John Rutherford, Illustrator 1983
John Ruther­ford, Illus­trator 1983 
John Rutherford, Illustrator, Wayne, Bogart
John Ruther­ford, Illus­trator, Wayne, Bogart 

Dad described his illus­tra­tion style as ​“line and tone”. Other illus­tra­tors of the same time period used a similar tech­nique which was driven, in part, by the tech­nical limi­ta­tions of photog­raphy and printing of that era. Local news­pa­pers were limited to black, and maybe 1 – 2 other colors if they were lucky, so the line portion of the drawing had to be sepa­rated from the color (tone) portion. As a result, all of the illus­tra­tors at the time had to be excel­lent draftsmen with a pen, my Dad included. Dad used a gold-tipped Monte Blanc pen – an expen­sive art supply at the time, one pen could cost upwards of $250 in 1970. Having drawn with one myself, I under­stand why this was consid­ered the best tool to achieve a beau­tiful, expres­sive line drawing, espe­cially on a rough surface like illus­tra­tion board. Dad worked that Monte Blanc like a violinist works a Stradi­varius, even as he devel­oped shaky hands toward the later phase of his career. I used to joke with him that his shaky hands lent ​“char­acter” to his drawings.

Baseball
Baseball 
Football
Football 
Asparagus
Asparagus 
Brocoli
Brocoli 

Dad was an active member of the San Fran­cisco Society of Illus­tra­tors. He attended meet­ings and helped promote illus­tra­tion and encourage fair prac­tices. In the early 1960s, along with many other members, Dad was invited to partic­i­pate in the U.S. Air Force Art Program whose central purpose was to docu­ment the ​“Air Force story”. There are nearly 9,000 works in the Air
Force Art Program currently housed at the Smith­sonian and other Federal Govern­ment locations.

John Rutherford, Air Force

Around 1976, Dad started free­lancing out of our Mill Valley home. His studio was next to my bedroom and I woke up to the smell of his pipe which he smoked while working on his illus­tra­tions. I spent many hours hanging out in Dad’s studio watching him create illus­tra­tions. He started each illus­tra­tion project by researching images from maga­zines mostly. He had filing cabi­nets full of maga­zine pages orga­nized by topic: men, women, chil­dren, sports, activ­i­ties, and loca­tions. He started by making small sketches of the scene he was creating, or used a sketch he received from an Art Director. He drew each section of the illus­tra­tion on tracing paper, refining it layer by layer. When he was satis­fied with the final drawing he trans­ferred it to illus­tra­tion board using a blue-line process where the drawing was printed on the board in blue so a camera couldn’t see it. Then he had the line drawing trans­ferred to clear plastic film by a local printer. He did his painting on the illus­tra­tion board, usually with water­color. The plastic film laid on top of the painting and the two would be photographed together as one piece of art. Dad loved using line and tone. He loved how the line provided struc­ture to the image, and the tone was an enhance­ment. One of the advan­tages to this tech­nique is it can be printed in a news­paper in black and white (by omit­ting the painting), or in a glossy Corpo­rate Report, and still look great. Drawing was a skill Dad was very proud of and he made sure I appre­ci­ated the impor­tance of it as I progressed in my art career.

J. Rutherford
J. Rutherford 
ABMI pg 2
ABMI pg 2 
ABMI pgs 4-5
ABMI pgs 4 – 5 
ABMI pgs 6-7
ABMI pgs 6 – 7 
ABMI pg 8
ABMI pg 8 

Dad was also an avid Plein Air painter, and the two of us would paint together on various sites around the Bay Area including Sausalito, China Camp – anywhere there were signs of decay, aban­doned build­ings, or the results of rust and harsh weather. Dad had a French wooden easel he brought to the loca­tions where we painted together. Inside the easel he kept sepia pencils, brushes, and water­colors. Like his commer­cial illus­tra­tions, he started with a line drawing, then painted in color to add shadows and depth, except his plein air paint­ings came alive and were more vibrant than his commer­cial work which was neces­sarily clean and some­what sterile. ​“Dad, why do we always paint rusty broken stuff?” I asked. ​“Ugli­ness rendered with compas­sion is beauty”, he replied. I’m not certain, but I believe he was quoting W. Joe Innis, author of ​“How to Become a Famous Artist and Still Paint Pictures”.

As I approached my late teens and showed interest in illus­tra­tion, Dad took me to visit his customer’s when he deliv­ered his work, or to talk about the require­ments for new illus­tra­tion projects. I soaked up the illus­tra­tion and adver­tising ​“lingo” quickly and learned how to talk to Art Direc­tors, espe­cially when there were prob­lems or fixes were needed. Commer­cial Illus­tra­tion began sinking into my bones, thanks to my Dad.

For one of his illus­tra­tion projects, an ad for Apple Computer, he said he would do the drawing and I would add the color. I was still a kid and could not believe Dad trusted me with one of his profes­sional projects. This was Dad’s way of testing me, I thought. I was very nervous thinking my work will be presented to the Art Director. My hands shook as I painted water­color on the illus­tra­tion board after Dad had made such a beau­tiful drawing. What I didn’t know at the time was Dad completed the same painting himself as a backup. I don’t think he ever intended on using my painting, but that expe­ri­ence taught me how to take risks and work under pressure.

Over time, he gave me small, simple mechan­ical line drawing assign­ments he picked up from Clients. These were assign­ments beneath his capa­bility, but perfect for an appren­tice like me. He knew that if I screwed one up, he could easily complete it himself in a few hours. I’m so thankful Dad took a risk and gave me an oppor­tu­nity to learn his craft on the job.

When I turned 19 in 1981, Dad and I went into busi­ness together as ​“Ruther­ford & Ruther­ford Illus­tra­tion”. He continued with his groovy, 1970’s line-and-tone style, and I handled the mechan­ical drawing work that came in. We bought a GMC Sierra pickup truck for deliv­ering artwork to ad agen­cies and design firms in San Fran­cisco. We commis­sioned Don Church­field to design our logo which we applied to the truck doors. I was so proud of that truck and our busi­ness together.

Dad was teaching at the Academy of Art College at the time, and I enrolled there as an Illus­tra­tion student in 1982. This is where I met other great illus­tra­tors at the time, such as Norm Nicholson, Chris Kenyon, and of course the vener­able Barbara Bradley. During critiques of student illus­tra­tions, if Barbara liked a piece she would say, ​“You could eat that color with a spoon”. Dad and I ate lunch together at the Hofbrau or maybe grabbed some dim sum in China­town. Some­times we might drag other instruc­tors along with us such as Bill Sanchez or Brooke Shields, one of my fine art teachers.

I felt proud, and a little awkward attending Dad’s illus­tra­tion classes at the Academy. The students laughed one day when I acci­den­tally called him ​“Dad” out loud. He didn’t treat me any differ­ently than he did the other students. Every 2 weeks, he gave us an illus­tra­tion assign­ment based on a real assign­ment he had completed recently. We had one week to create one or more small sketches, and one week to complete the final illus­tra­tion. Dad critiqued each phase of the work, giving us feed­back on things to fix, remove, or change.

After I grad­u­ated from the Academy of Art in 1985, I worked for a small studio for a year, then decided to pursue my Illus­tra­tion career in New York City. When I told Dad I was leaving, I could tell he was disap­pointed and a bit sad, but he gath­ered the strength to wish me luck and sent me on my way with paints and brushes, and a port­folio of my work from the Academy, all tightly packed into a U‑Haul truck.

A few years passed and Dad’s free­lance busi­ness was tapering off, so he and Mom moved north to Fern­dale, CA so they could start a new life. Dad started painting on his own, with no dead­lines, and no more line draw­ings (unless he wanted to). He focused his artistic energy on beau­tiful land­scapes of Northern Cali­fornia and devel­oped a more painterly style. It was great to see his creativity soar once he distanced himself from the deadline-intensive adver­tising business.

Mendocino
Mendocino 
doctor
doctor 
figure
figure 

My parents even­tu­ally settled in Mendo­cino, and my wife, two daugh­ters, and I visited them every year. My Dad and I painted the Mendo­cino head­lands together, and on Wednes­days we attended a local model drawing session orga­nized by a retired dentist turned artist. During one session, the model didn’t show up, so Dad modeled for all of us. I made a sketch of him which makes him look sort of intense, but he was a man with a fire burning within, so I think the drawing captures that.

sketch of John
sketch of John 
John
John 

One night, sitting with Dad on their Mendo­cino patio enjoying a scotch and a cigar I said, ​“Dad, I never got a chance to ask you, what’s a millionth of a tone?”. He said, ​“Steve, it just means go easy on the shadows, OK?”. Yep Dad. Got it. Thanks for that…

Steve Ruther­ford
2023


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