Charley Harper Research Paper

Charley Harper: A Simple Way to Illustrate Wildlife

Here is a description from Charley Harper’s official website that Charley Harper was a Cincinnati-based American commercial illustrator who is famous for illustrating wildlife in the 1950s. Charley Harper published notable book “The Golden Book of Biology” and his art works always appear in Ford Time magazine, Cincinnati Zoo, Cincinnati Nature Canter, national Park Service, and various posters for nature-oriented organization. (“Learn About Charley Harper”) In a sharp contrast with realistic wildlife painters, Charley Harper keeps his art in a graphic form and makes the public who see his art easy to understand through his whole career pathway. Because Charley Harper does not draw his wildlife

In a contrast with John James Audubon, an American bird-study naturalist paints highly-realistic rendered bird illustrations. (Johnson "Audubon, John James (1785 1851)") “Harper rejected hyper-realistic renderings of wildlife that dominated Audubon volumes and the like. Instead, he chose to create line drawings with bright colors and eye-catching patterns.” (Petrovic 14) There are two illustrations are about owl that one is Charley Harper’s “Owl on the Prowl” (Fig. 1) and another one is John James Audubon’s “Snowy Owl.” (Fig. 2) In the art “Owl on the Prowl,” Harper puts the two bright eyes of the owl in the center of the illustration and its claws are placed just below the two eyes which is a front view of the owl. Harper does not draw its body, but draw an escaping rat that is placed between two claws instead. He only uses four solid colours that are white, golden yellow, light brown and it has purely black background. All the lines and shapes are very geometric and there are no excessive lines, dots, and shapes in the illustration. Harper mainly shows the characteristics that are two bright eyes and the action of capturing rat which is totally different from Audubon. Audubon tries to focus on the organic shape and texture of the snowy owl that the entire feathers from their wings are detailed. There are various colours are used to produce realistic snowy owl. The poses are static that the snowy owls are standing on the withered tree branch which is different from rat jumping pose that Harper draw in the art “Owl on the Prowl”. Audubon’s illustration is highly realistic rendered that is highly contrast with Harper’s simple vector art. Therefore, Charley Harper keeps visual elements in vector forms with solid colours is one of the way to achieve a way to simple wildlife