Almost immediately after that post, TI list member Greg Newbold sent me a note:
"I saw some work by Don Weller pop up yesterday and couldn't help commenting. Don is a friend of mine since I took a class from him about 20 years ago. I then worked for him off and on doing illustrations for Park City magazine until he gave it up last year. I could contact Don and set something up."
And that's exactly what Greg did - with spectacular results!
Over on Greg's blog you'll find a fabulous two-part article he put together after interviewing his old friend. Part 1 focuses on Don Weller's early career, with many beautiful examples of the Weller's illustration art.
Part 2 focuses on Weller's recent years as a fine art western painter and cutting horse rider.
Spend a few minutes today enjoying both of Greg's posts - and many thanks, Greg, for the time and effort you put into this terrific two-part article on Don Weller!
Greg Newbold on Don Weller, Part 1
Greg Newbold on Don Weller, Part 2
I was in Don's Adv. Illustration class back in 1979 at Art Center. Learned a lot from him.
ReplyDeleteIn the late 70's, Don co-taught
ReplyDeletea class with Mike Gaines, an art director at the NFL. Both men were everything a student could want from instructors, they were smart, inspiring, intimidating, kind, and very, very funny. Don was a big source of encouragement to me, in class and right after graduation. He was the probably the busiest illustrator in LA in those days, it's good to see his work again, and the cowboy watercolors are simply Weller at his best.
Don's studio had one of the great names of all time:
ReplyDelete"Institute for the Cure of design".
I loved seeing that return address on stuff at the Society of Illustrators
terry brown
Wow, this is really great to run into. Don is my father, and it's really nice to see you paying respect to his work this way. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteI was (still am) a huge fan of Don Weller's work ever since I noticed his Weller & Juett stuff in some trade magazine, while studying Advertising Design back in the early 70s.
ReplyDeleteIn the early 80s, a colleague of mine convinced me to contact Don and see if we could buy him lunch. Basically, we just wanted to see if we could meet one of our heroes and sure enough he accepted our invitation.
We had burgers and lemonade at Hampton's in Sunset Bl., while he talked about the trade and sort of gave us some guidance. He was very sincere, generous and funny. Afterwards he invited us to his home up in the hills. I still remember the huge, rusty Coca Cola button sign right in the center of his living room. It had bullet holes in it. He said he'd found it in the desert.
That's definitely one of the highlights of my crazy career in graphic design.