The Art of Gary Cieradkowski

I've brought up sports art a few times in the past. There is a lot of great stuff out there, and some (IMHO) not-so-great as well. One of my favorite sports artists is Gary Cieradkowski. I've referred to him before and one of his cards made my 30 Day Baseball Challenge on Twitter.

He is a card blogger (he draws his own of course) and has authored/illustrated a great book. He recently made available his latest project, the Spring 2017 edition of 21: Illustrated Journal of Outsider Baseball. I received my copy a week or two ago and am enjoying it very much. I scanned the cover....

...but I wasn't about to subject it to breaking the spine in my scanner so I took some photos of the inside pages to post here. Not as satisfying as a scan but they will give you an idea of how nice it really is. You can click to enlarge. Enjoy:

This Steve Bilko article is my favorite. Such a neat story. Great portrait as well.

I hope you get the idea from these pics.

And along with my copy came a card of a young, Baltimore Oriole-era Babe Ruth. That's it up top. The reverse is scan worthy.

Outside of commenting on major brand card releases as we all do I don't often write a post 'promoting' anything. But I've enjoyed Cieradowski's work so much I felt the need to put this up for everyone's enjoyment.

Great stuff!!

Billy Pierce Print card

This is the second Billy Pierce card done by Edward Vela that I've picked up. The first was an 'unlimited' print card with BP in a portrait pose. As I mentioned in that post I really like this guy's work.

I've always felt good 'sports art' is hard to come by and when I find someone whose work is enjoyable I'll pick up things I can afford. Vela does all sorts of stuff and releases all kinds of cards but his baseball work is what I like the most.

This one was numbered to 9 as are most of what he puts on eBay. It cost $8 with free postage which is 2 bucks more than I paid for my 'jumbo' Archives packs which yielded me nothing much to speak of.

Sports Art II Andy Jurinko

I try to base my posts on items in my collection, even if they lead me far afield. This isn't about anything I own. A blurb in the digital edition of the current Sports Illustrated led me to discover Andy Jurinko who passed away early last year. 

I have some vague awareness of his work. I'm sure I'd seen some of it someplace but I don't recall where or how. But I sure didn't recognize the name. And look what I've been missing. These are some wonderful portraits and paintings that capture both players and moments from the 'Glory Days' of baseball. Lots of excellent renderings of classic ballparks as well. 

A coffee-table sized book of his portraits has been published recently. That's it at the top of the post. Check out some of his work. Many more in the gallery on andyjurinko.com.  Well worth checking out. And his obit in the NY Times has a lot of background on Jurinko. 

This one of Frank Robinson in action is among my favorites. 

He's really captured Stan Musial's persona in this one, don't you think?

Hank Greenberg...

And Wrigley Field where my lucky dog son Brooks is today with his girlfriend watching the Cubs and Astros.

He had a previous book, 'Heart of the Game', published that featured the American League and it's vintage parks, action and players. The Times obit linked above says his 'Glory Boys' volume was to be a National League version. That might have changed with his passing.