JacketFlap connects you to the work of more than 200,000 authors, illustrators, publishers and other creators of books for Children and Young Adults. The site is updated daily with information about every book, author, illustrator, and publisher in the children's / young adult book industry. Members include published authors and illustrators, librarians, agents, editors, publicists, booksellers, publishers and fans. Join now (it's free).
Login or Register for free to create your own customized page of blog posts from your favorite blogs. You can also add blogs by clicking the "Add to MyJacketFlap" links next to the blog name in each post.
Blog Posts by Tag
In the past 7 days
Blog Posts by Date
Click days in this calendar to see posts by day or month
Viewing: Blog Posts Tagged with: Journey to Chandara, Most Recent at Top [Help]
Results 1 - 25 of 40
How to use this Page
You are viewing the most recent posts tagged with the words: Journey to Chandara in the JacketFlap blog reader. What is a tag? Think of a tag as a keyword or category label. Tags can both help you find posts on JacketFlap.com as well as provide an easy way for you to "remember" and classify posts for later recall. Try adding a tag yourself by clicking "Add a tag" below a post's header. Scroll down through the list of Recent Posts in the left column and click on a post title that sounds interesting. You can view all posts from a specific blog by clicking the Blog name in the right column, or you can click a 'More Posts from this Blog' link in any individual post.
It doesn't take very long to do a preliminary tonal study, but the time spent pays big dividends. Here's a small pencil sketch that I did in preparation for a painting in Dinotopia: Journey to Chandara.
For example, the tonal study helped me plan the dark area behind the light feathered dinosaur in the lower right, and it helped me work out the chiaroscuro of the bearded farmer.
Once I get into the details of the painting, I'm making decisions at a more micro level. Without that tonal study, it's hard to see the big picture.
The original pencil tonal study appears in The Art of James Gurney exhibit at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia through November 16.
Khasra by Moonlight by James Gurney, 12 x 18 inches, oil on board
To evoke the feeling of moonlight, I used the following six strategies, which I based on my own personal memories of observing moonlight, and my study of other artists whose nocturnes I really admire (especially Frederic Remington, Atkinson Grimshaw, John Stobart, and Frank Tenney Johnson):
1. Set up an overall temperature contrast between the orange torchlight and the cool blue-green moonlight.
2. Keep the chroma in the moonlight low--not too intense of a blue-green. Hint of blue in far distance.
3. Put a slight warm halo around the moon and edge-light the adjacent clouds.
4. Keep the key of the painting relatively high.
5. Suppress all detail in the shadows and put some texture and variety in the lights.
6. Introduce a gradual stepping back of value, lightening as it goes back to the far minaret.
Here's the quick (45 minute) maquette that I built for lighting reference. It didn't need to be beautiful at all, just any old blobs of modeling clay were all I needed.
I quickly discovered that I had to move the actual lighting position quite far to the left, much farther to the left than the position of the moon in the painting.
After taking a digital photo of the maquette, in Photoshop I shifted the key toward blue-green, and I desaturated it slightly. The photo shows a lot of reflected light in the shadows, which I largely ignored. I would have played up that reflected light had I wanted to evoke daylight effects, where I might want to amplify the relatively weak reflected light.
-----
Resources
"The Art of James Gurney" at the Richard Hess Museum at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia will be on view through November 16, and I will do a public presentation on October 29.
When I painted this Dinotopia image I wanted to do my own spin on the famous "infinite stairway" optical illusion invented by Lionel Penrose and M.C. Escher.
If you walk around the stairs clockwise, you proceed infinitely downstairs, and if you walk counterclockwise, you go upstairs forever without gaining in altitude.
"Scholar's Stairway," Oil on board, 12 x18 inches.
The way I painted it, the illusion is fairly subtle, and I wondered if other people even noticed the illusion, and if so, whether their eyes moved systematically around the stairs.
To find out, I asked vision scientist Greg Edwards, president of Eyetools, Inc., to run some eye tracking tests using this image as the subject.
Dr. Edwards had fifteen subjects look at my pictures on a computer screen for fifteen seconds each while a sensor tracked their eye movements in real time. Below is the eye track of one subject's experience. The colored line shows the pathway of the eyes, beginning randomly at the green circle. The numbers in the black squares show where they eye traveled at each second of the fifteen second session.
One can’t know for sure without a follow-up interview, but evidently this particular observer didn’t notice the optical illusion.
The second image shows the "heatmap," which aggregates data from all fifteen observers. The red and orange blobs are the areas of the image received nearly 100% of people's attention. The rider on the brachiosaur took attention away from the central illusion. The dark blue and black areas received almost no attention.
What can we conclude from the heatmap image? Viewers definitely looked at the figures, wherever I placed them. Beyond that, we can't say much because we didn't design a very thorough experiment. I would love to work with a larger sample size and to gather followup interview data, and ideally collect simultaneous fMRI data set to see if we could correlate cognitive behavior with eye movement. That way we could understand better what happens when people "get" the illusion. If there's any vision scientist who has the equipment and wants to try an experiment like this, please contact me.
"Market Square" and the archway maquette I built for lighting reference are both now on view at "The Art of James Gurney" exhibit at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia through November 16.
0 Comments on Market Square and Maquette as of 9/14/2015 10:01:00 AM
A new exhibition of my original art has just opened at the museum of the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. The Art of James Gurney includes more than 25 oil paintings from the Dinotopia books, as well as natural science science illustrations, preliminary sketches, and maquettes.
One of the featured images is "Waterfall City: Afternoon Light" from Dinotopia: Journey to Chandara. This is the only image that overlaps from the Delaware Art Museum exhibition a few years ago; the rest are all different.
The Art of James Gurney will be on view at the The Richard C. von Hess Gallery of Illustration is at 333 S Broad Street, Philadelphia, PA through November 16.
In connection with the exhibition, I'll be doing a public presentation on Thursday, October 29: 1 - 2:30 pm at Levitt Auditorium with a reception following.
0 Comments on Gurney Museum Exhibition in Philadelphia as of 1/1/1900
I've always had a fondness for exuberantly painted cars. Here's one in Ohio that features Will Denison from Dinotopia: Journey to Chandara painted on the hood.
In case you couldn't make it out, here's the painting it's based on.
I love the wiggly yellow line against the blue and black stripes and the gradation from red to orange. Nice job!
Dr. Jo Ann Leggett, director of the Children’s House preschool of Victoria, Texas recently completed a Dinotopia-themed project for the school’s summer program, and she sent some photos to share.
Dr. Jo says: "Children delighted in all the books," and they learned about geography from the Dinotopia map.
They tried "plank walking," a Dinotopia game that I introduced in "Journey to Chandara."
To succeed at plank walking, everyone has to pull the ropes and lift their feet together as a team.
"Dinotopia is our 'most-looked-forward-to' unit at the school. Thank you for your inspiration," says Dr. Jo.
Thank YOU, Dr. Jo! If you're a teacher of any age group and would like to spotlight Dinotopia at your school, please write me a letter. I’ll be happy to send you a list of suggested games, projects, and activities, and I'll include a signed card to help you get the ball rolling.
Here is an animated step-by-step sequence of a painting from Dinotopia: Journey to Chandara (2007). The painting shows a retired musical conductor named Cornelius Mazurka and his Therizinosaurus Henriette (left) surrounded by old musical instruments, with Arthur Denison and the Protoceratops Bix on the right.
(Direct link to animated gif) This way of painting involves doing a careful pencil drawing on illustration board, sealing it with acrylic matte medium, laying in transparent color, and then proceeding to the finished rendering, area by area, beginning with the center of interest.
EDIT: to answer Tom's suggestion, I've made the animation a lot slower. And Ben, I have added above the preliminary pencil thumbnail showing how I worked out the basic tonal design before getting models and shooting reference. In this case I didn't do a full charcoal preliminary, just this quick (but very helpful) tonal study. ------- The original painting "Old Conductor" is currently on exhibit at NHIA in Manchester, New Hampshire through March 13. Thanks to Stapleton Kearns and Lines and Colors for reviewing that exhibit. Journey to Chandarasigned from my web store and from Amazon
Don't bother on my behalf alone, James. Just wondering. But my pie-in-the-sky wish list (for what it's worth) would include someday for the viewer to be able to control the speed and to also see it in a larger and high-res version. What a great teaching that would be - not that it isn't great for what it is now.
@Tom - If you have Photoshop (Gimp or another software might work in the same way), save the picture as a .gif file and open it in that software. The separate frames should then load on individual layers, and you should be able to view it that way (:
Thanks for sharing this. I love to see the different processes that artists use.
I'm wondering a couple of things:
1. I'm guessing you created tonal and color studies prior to the final painting. Did you create a fully rendered tonal drawing (a la Norman Rockwell) before moving on to the final piece?
2. Would you mind sharing approximately how long you spent creating the painting?
Thanks as always for all that you share with the art community!
Tom and Catherine, I have reprogrammed and re-uploaded the animation to make it a lot slower. And
Ben, I have added above the preliminary pencil thumbnail where I worked out the basic tonal design. In this case I didn't do a full charcoal preliminary, just this quick (but very helpful) study. The painting took about a week, start to finish.
Thanks, Stuart for explaining. And Natascha, I'll try to do more of these in the future.
Hi James, I have a technical question I hope you could help me with. Im about to start on a canvas. I've penciled in the line drawing, sprayed with final fixative, sealed with matte medium, and put an ultramarine imprimatura (oil). Its been 3days and I can still wipe some ultramarine off. It seems dry but not adhering? Never had this happen. Any idea whats going on?
If the action return (after), I think it will be much wave. Ex. imagine 1, imagine 2, imagine 3, imagine 4, imagine 3, imagine 2 and reload algoritm. Like a wave; turn-return! Sorry, just a suggestion.
Cale, I'm not sure what's going wrong there. What medium are you using? For the washin or imprimatura, you can just use Gamsol to thin the paint to a light wash and then build up the thicker and slower drying paint with the later applications. There shouldn't be any adhesion problems in any case.
Scorchfield, can you please explain what you're talking about?
In GIF the imagines are going one after other, but to the end the refreshing is too hard, because the dinamic is broke. Why we not understand the moving of the wave with front and back of action?
After last imagine when all is full of colour, we put the imagine when all is empty (wrong, in my opinion). I think, much better is put penultimate imagine, and so all. (Go and come :) ) example http://scorchfield.blogspot.ro/2013/02/insula-carnivora.html
It's interesting to note some of the detail changes. I see that what appear to have originally been spoon shaped objects below the cello-like instrument on the far wall were replaced by a rack of recorders (?). Also, the pipe next to Dennison's elbow was replaced by a glass beaker.
Do you recall the reason for these changes? Art direction or your own decisions. Just curious...
I agree that slower would be helpful. It would be nice to be able to study each stage a little better rather than simply have a quick glance. Also, the slightly off position for registration might not be as noticeable.
Thank you for posting this! It is always a treat to see how master artists go about creating their work.
It gives a peek over your shoulder without distracting you from your beautiful work.
Tom, I'm glad you noticed the spoons changing into recorders. The nice thing about oil (or any opaque medium) is that such changes are possible. I did that because I wanted more musical instruments. I added the kerosene lamp instead of the clay pipe because I set up a still life and painted it from observation.
Diana, next time I do one of these, I'll make it just a bit slower.
Scorchfield, All the images are in order, and it starts over from the first step after the finish. I don't know how else to do it.
James, oh yeah, just some OMS for medium and not much of it. Hmm I guess I will wait a while longer. If it continues any harm in trying to wipe it off with oms? I remembered after I had put down the oil imprimatura that I could have just added a little ultramarine to the matte medium, doh!
Thanks for sharing James, this is a real delight! Where did your color choices come into this process? Did you do any smaller color studies, or just attack it during the final painting? Thanks again, this blog is a tremendous resource for the art community.
Wow. This is a really neat way to view your process. Always intriguing! I find this particular approach very interesting. I do detailed pencils like that for my watercolors but rarely oils. Very cool. Thanks for sharing! P.S. Another way to make these GIFs is using Photoshop's "Animation window." (At the top, you can select "Windows" then "Animation" and manage the layers as frames.)
John, it's heavyweight board, so it doesn't warp. But usually if you have a board that warps from a water medium on one side, just paint the back with water and it usually counteracts the effect.
(Video link) Here's a video that tells the behind-the-scenes story of the origins of Dinotopia, made for the 20th anniversary edition book reissue and the Lyman Allyn exhibition.
The exhibition called "Dinotopia: Art, Science, and Imagination" ends February 2 at the Lyman Allyn Art Museum in New London, Connecticut. The show has more than 100 objects: original oil paintings, preliminary sketches, maquettes, and dinosaur fossils.
I love watching the behind the scenes making of movies and for me this was a great behind the scenes look at how you make your art. You have put so much work into this, it definately shows. Thanks for all your efforts they are very much appreachiated.
Thanks, SuperV. Me and Mr. Kooks had fun making it. Don't think I'll be able to make it to SFAL because I already got asked to the portrait conference and plein air convention this spring.
Thanks, Emmanuel. Enjoyed meeting you in Albany. E won the video contest for I.R. That would be fun to do another contest. I'll give it some thought....
How marvelous to see some of the back story of your wonderful Dinotopia work.
It is good to get a feel for all the labor that you've expended for these projects (and your history of curiosity, as well).
The plein air sketching, posing friends in costume, building models, etc. would be enough work for several people but you've done all of it yourself. Amazing.
Your budgie pal on your shoulder made me think of Merlin's Archimedes. I hope your pretty friend does not leave droppings on your drawings.
Love the videos! They have a wonderful production value. Don't you do all these yourself with friends and family? Aren't you doing special camera moves with homemade lego dollies and cranes. Isn't the scripting and videoography all homespun garage tinkering that comes out great because you're having so much fun?
Michael, yes, I run the camera by myself, set up the lights and microphone and do the editing, too. My wife helped with the camera on location shots. It's all basic prosumer gear. Camera moves are powered by Lego motors unspooling thread to Lego carts running on dollar-store broomsticks. Smoke machine is my son's party gadget.
Diana, Mr. Kooks does leave droppings here and there and nibbles on sketches, but he's a good pal. He loves to hang around while I'm working, though he's mighty suspicious of the camera dollies.
I recognized Toronto's Royal Ontario Museum among your research spots. Will the Dinotopia exhibit be making any stops in Canada? The ROM would make a great venue (and one I could get to fairly easily!)
Though I am a mom, rather than a dad, (my son's dad was usually busy at his desk, illustrating) when my son was young, I learned about dinosaurs along with him, learning many of the names, etc.
I can't help but wonder whether "Dinotopia" was further inspired by a shared interest with your son/s.
I have your books on illustration and now I am wanting to read "Dinotopia" as well.
James, I was going to compliment you and the Museum for commissioning such a professional movie, complete with smoke effects. When I read in the comments that you made this little beauty yourself, I was doubly impressed. Is there no limit to your talents?
It’s a game of “Three Legged Soccer.” You tie one of your legs to the leg of an ornithomimid dinosaur. Getting off a kick means pretty close cooperation with your partner.
This one ended up on the cutting room floor for two reasons. First, there just wasn’t enough space. Also, unlike the other games that I show in the book, Trio Tag, Plank Walking, and Tuggle, I didn’t actually have a chance to try this game out with human models, so I wasn’t completely sure of the dynamics and the practicality. You can sense the lack of conviction in the weakness of the drawing.
I'd like to exchange links with you. I added your blog to my Favorites!
Pay me a visit and let me know with a comment on the blog what you think about it.
P.s.
There's something you may be interested in, on my blog started a free online photography course, that includes over 200 lessons at this link: Free online Digital Photography Course
I don't think the kids would have a chance with dinosaurs. Mr. Gurney - any chance for a tribute to Ralph McQuarrie who just passed away? He was one of my earliest art influences.
Hi, Sam, Yes, Ralph McQ was a big influence on my early career, and I'm sorry to learn of his passing. I've been away from the internet and busy with museum show events this weekend, so I haven't been able to gather myself for a post about his passing.
Sometimes it's fun to act out a scene, even if the photo reference that you get out of it isn't that useful directly.
The idea is to get into the spirit of the action, feel the wind in your face and hear the screech of the pterosaur.
I think that's more important than getting a photographically real piece of reference to copy. If you can identify with the weight and balance of things, and especially the emotion, you've got 90% of the problem solved.
That's very true. If you can get yourself into the spirit of a piece, it becomes much more engaging to work on and much of that emotion transfers itself to the finished project.
(On an unrelated note, I got my books yesterday! I'm going to wait until Christmas to open the package and surprise myself.)
Yes, by curving that back and lowering that head - the final pose is much more tensed than you're reference. But I think many artist can attest to it that it's darn difficult to let go of that nasty reflex to copy a photograph literally.
I have heard that before, but have not done it, at least not as you do here--mainly to get the feel, the weight, the emotional pull of the action. I'll try it. I agree with Erik--it's difficult to let go of the reflex of drawing things literally instead of artistically.
To make the used bookstore look magical and mysterious, I wanted it to be a rainy twilight. I shot location reference in Tivoli, New York.
Then it was just a matter of turning the pizza shop into a bookstore, widening the sidewalk, and generally putting the smell of coffee into it. -------- You can order Dinotopia: Journey to Chandara from me and I’ll sign it for you. Or you can pick it up from Amazon. Or maybe you can find it in a used bookstore on a rainy night...
13 Comments on A used bookshop on a rainy night..., last added: 9/11/2011
This is a really delightful painting, and a wonderful lesson in changing a reference to fit the needs of the final piece. The conversion of the scene from bright to rainy, the additions - including the nice overhang on the building a couple doors up from the bookshop, etc, etc.
I just happened across your post by serendipity this evening. This bookstore window image has always been one of my favorite pictures from the Dinotopia books because it evokes so many things that I find important in my own life. I had always thought of asking this, and now seems as good a time as any, is it possible to get a print of it someplace? I do have the book of course but a poster or a mug or a whatever something with the image on it would be nice also.
Thanks for all of the great artwork over the years, Bob.
Yes, I looked at that picture in your book many times and each time, it made dream and dream. The rain, the light and that bookshop with its magical books.
My favorite thing about that painting, is that it doesn't show any rain. By that I mean you create the atmosphere, and effects of a rainy day without having to try to paint in the actual rain, which some people I guess think is necessary in their art (and it usually ends up looking bad). All you really need is the right lighting and color, add the right effects (ex. the reflective, wet look on the sidewalk) and everyone can tell it's raining :)
James, what's the medium? I had assumed (thought I don't know why) that all the illustrations in Dinotopia were oil, but the "water" effects here, seem to cry out "watercolor" - though I realize that's not necessarily so.
I love looking returning to compare the reference to the painting. I just noticed how you borrowed the overhang on the right hand building from the building farther up on the left.
Tom, It might be an oil wash. You can get a pretty good watercolor effect with thinned down oil paints. You probably already knew that, but just thought I'd chime in, Ive actually lifted highlights out of an oil wash before, same as watercolors, just use turpentine instead of water.
R.K. Sorry, no prints of this at the moment, except in the book.
Terry, I've used coffee literally as a tonal wash in watercolor (it has to be espresso to get a good wash), but not on this one. I meant it more metaphorically.
An exhibition of children’s book illustration has opened at the University of New England’s gallery in Portland, Maine, curated by its director, Anne Zill, at left.
The show includes original works by Dr. Seuss, Maurice Sendak, Jules Feiffer, Jerry Pinkney, Eric Carle, Barry Moser, and Trina Schart Hyman.
I’m honored to have two Dinotopia paintings in the show, “Windmill Village” and “Gold Dome.” The exhibition is on view through Oct. 30 .
Many Dinotopia characters went through various stages until I was happy with them. The mountain farmer from Dinotopia: Journey to Chandara was one example. Normally I try to catch problems in the sketch stage, but this time I was nearly finished with the transparent oil rendering when I realized that this character looked too similar to other characters in the book. Also, the potato he was feeding to the dinosaur looked sort of like a rock.
So I took the pose again and repainted him as a bearded man of Russian descent, made his outfit red, and changed the potato to a Burmese turnip. His name Ilya Shinshik evokes my two favorite Russian painters: Ilya Repin and Ivan Shishkin.
When it comes to such corrections, oil is very forgiving. Naturally, I had to restate everything more opaquely and paint white over the parts I needed to cover. But the change only took a day, and the first character was never seen again--until now.
James, I notice that you refer to the original version as a transparent oil rendering. In your use of "transparency", are you referring here to the thickness of application, or to the transparent or opaque qualities of the individual colors? If the latter, does that mean you chose those colors specifically for that characteristic? This is making me think how rarely I consider a color's transparency (as in its inherent characterisic) when working with oils. (But maybe I work with colors that aren't at either extreme end of the transparency/opaque spectrum...)
Moish, As I recall, I took the pose again, shot photo reference with a self timer, and also looked through my photo file for the face type.
James, keeping the Self-Critique-O-Meter tuned is super important. You don't want to be too self critical, or it's paralyzing, but one can't ever be completely satisfied.
Wouter, yes, another great Russian painter. How about Isaac LeviShrep?
Tom, I usually start with a small palette of fairly transparent colors (say yellow ochre, permanent alizarin, burnt sienna, viridian and ultramarine) and then if I need to I build up opaques. Oil is nice that way because you can go anywhere from thin to thick in the same painting.
Many Dinotopia characters went through various stages until I was happy with them. The mountain farmer from Dinotopia: Journey to Chandara was one example.
Normally I try to catch problems in the sketch stage, but this time I was nearly finished with the transparent oil rendering when I realized that this character looked too similar to other characters in the book. Also, the potato he was feeding to the dinosaur looked sort of like a rock.
So I took the pose again and repainted him as a bearded man of Russian descent, made his outfit red, and changed the potato to a Burmese turnip. His name Ilya Shinshik evokes my two favorite Russian painters: Ilya Repin and Ivan Shishkin.
When it comes to such corrections, oil is very forgiving. Naturally, I had to restate everything more opaquely and paint white over the parts I needed to cover. But the change only took a day, and the first character was never seen again--until now.
I like how you did not just change the outfit & add a beard, but rather changed the person. The second fellow has Russian features. Did you use a different model or photo reference for such a fundamental change?
How does a painter develop and improve their ability to self-critique? How does someone learn to see their own drawings and paintings as if they weren't so "close" to them?
When the Norman Rockwell Museum in Massachusetts hosted a Dinotopia exhibition in 2006, a small group of Dinotopia fans from all over the world assembled at a mini-convention called “The Stockbridge Stomp.”
I joined them for the festivities and then invited them to my studio a short drive away, so that they could pose for a painting I was working on.
We had a big bowl of homemade soup together, and then they put on costumes, some of which they brought with them. They posed in small groups, imagining themselves standing beside a Styracosaurus and a Chasmosaurus. Many of the figures in the painting were based on that impromptu gathering.
The painting appeared on the title page of Dinotopia Journey to Chandara. The painting also appears in Color and Light, page 116.
Advanced pterosaur pilots, or “skybax riders” as they are called in Dinotopia, learn the sport of air jousting.
The armor is a lightweight version of horse jousting armor from the Middle Ages in Europe, where the rider can only see through a narrow slit in his sallet, or helmet. The protection for the eyes of the skybax makes him blind during the approach. A dismounted skybax rider must parachute to the ground.
The final oil painting was published in Dinotopia: Journey to Chandara (2007), but it was based on a quick marker sketch that I did much earlier.
David, there has been violence and chivalry at various stages of Dinotopia's history, and this is a holdover of those times, more of a sport of skill and courage than a form of violence.
Midland is a two hour drive from home. I'll definitely be making the pilgrimage to see the original paintings! There doesn't seem to be any kind of meet-the-artist opening reception, true?
This is really one of my favorite parts of JtC. I think it would be really cool illustrate how the "Desert Resistance overcame the Strutter Invasion more than 3,500 years ago". There's a whole book for you!
Stay warm in the snow - sounds like a foot of it is coming your way! -Will
Wow, I really thought there would be more comments here. I must say I love the air jousting and the strutters as a hint to past struggles. It always reminded me of star trek the next generation.
The new October/ November issue of International Artist magazine has a four-page feature on the making of the painting “Old Conductor” for Dinotopia: Journey to Chandara.
The reproduction of the various steps are shown larger and in more detail than what appears in Imaginative Realism, and I included some of the reference photos.
This issue has other step-by-step demos, including an alla prima oil portrait by Tony Pro. “The Art of the Portrait,” a regular feature of the magazine by Gordon Whetmore, shares news about artists such as Jeremy Lipking, Michael Shane Neal, and Everett Raymond Kinstler. ------ International Artist magazine Previously on GJ: the Washin Stage
0 Comments on Step-by-Step in International Artist as of 1/1/1900
The second of three original Dinotopia paintings for sale in the upcoming auction shows the Imperial Palace of the city of Chandara.
The view looks east across the Zhengtao River. The emperor’s palace occupies a high and remote prominence in the center of the city. Morning sunlight illuminates the top of the gold dome and the flying buttresses, while thunderclouds assemble over Silver Bay.
My approach was inspired by several artists of the past who specialized in otherworldly moods in landscape: Frederic Church, Isaac Levitan, Andreas Achenbach, Hans Gude, and Jean Ferdinand Monchablon.
The emperor's palace looks very much like the Sainte Chapelle in Paris, but with a green roof like the cathedral at Chartres (and of course, the splendid dome). You get to be the architect as well as the painter! How did you design the building? Did you build a model of it?
I don't know if I love Dinotopia more because of the dinosaur premise or because of this kind of wonderful landscapes. These pictures are what give Dinotopia a sense of attraction and belonging exceeding most works of fiction. It's beautiful!
Since we're in the topic... what do you think of the Tolkien illustrators: Allan Lee, John Howe and Ted Nasmith? They quite succeed in works reminiscent to this one. Perhaps you can talk about them -or of fantasy illustration in general- sometime? Thanks, sir!
Sorry I deleted my previous post, redaction was terrible.
Vicki, I love being architect, and fortunately I don't have to worry about the practicalities of actually building it. In this case, I planned it by drawing a building plan so that I knew the layout of the tower and the vaulted nave.
Andrés: I greatly admire Lee, Howe, and Nasmith, as well as the universe Tolkien created. The writing suggests worlds within worlds. Thanks for the suggestion. I'll give some thought to how I might address the topic of visual worldbuilding, for want of a better term.
Here’s the preliminary line drawing for a Dinotopia painting called “Flight Past the Falls.” I did it on a separate piece of paper, photocopied it, and transferred it to the canvas with an Artograph projector to the canvas.
The rider on the pterosaur was drawn on a separate layer of paper and moved around until I got the position I wanted.
What I want you to notice is the “draw through,” which means the lines carried across to invisible parts of the form. For example: 1. Circular curve of the bottom half of the globe. 2. Chest of pterosaur hidden by wing. 3. Eye level or horizon hidden behind falls. 4. Curvature of Moorish arch hidden by the flanking buttresses.
Note also the centerline markings on the globe, and the winged sculpture. Also note the perspective grid on the side of the drawing.
Draw-through helps you keep track of what the form is doing when it slips behind something else. If you work out the draw-through on a separate piece of paper from the finished work you don’t have to worry about erasing the lines or covering them up.
You can apply the draw-through principle to figure drawing or any drawing, especially in the early stages. It will make your final drawing or painting more solid and convincing. When an architect draws a building elevation, she knows where the windows and doors are located on the back side of the building. --------- Earlier GJ post about the skybax model and the finished image.
Long ago with your first DINOTOPIA book you created "Waterfall City." Now everyone who designs a "fantasy city" feel obliged to put waterfalls in it. I wonder if these fantasy cities are hydro-powered.
The painting on the cover of Dinotopia: Journey to Chandara shows a convoy of dinosaurs and people crossing the desert, passing huge statues from one of Dinotopia’s ancient civilization.
As I painted the fallen stone face on the right side of the picture, I was thinking of Percy B. Shelley’s 1818 sonnet “Ozymandias,” which describes a traveler’s encounter with a colossal ancient statue in the desert: “Near them, on the sand, half sunk, a shattered visage lies.”
The inscription on the stone at the lower left echoes Shelley’s theme of the mute arrogance of a vanished civilization. The phrase says “EVERLASTING DOMINION” in Dinotopian footprint alphabet, ancient Greek, and Aramaic (written with Hebrew letters).
The features on the fallen face in the painting are based not on Egyptian forms, but on casts of Michelangelo's David. ----------
Have bought you're book after linking and regularly checking your blog, it is a great resource and inspirational. I am an artist UK based, and regularly check in on your work....superb All the best
Thanks for the kind words. Glad you enjoy the book!
Conor, I believe it is written right to left. I asked a scholar at Bard College, Dr. Bruce Chilton, to help me with the translations, and I just copied verbatim what he gave me.
I'm sure we'll get an expert commenting on this, but as I understand it, Aramaic was mostly a spoken language and didn't have a written script, so it's rendered in Hebrew letters.
I still get POed reading about Vassar and other college art departments destroying their cast collections. No doubt the casts were a painful reminder of their own ineptitude.
Hebrew and Aramaic does indeed read right to left. The Strong's Lexicon numbers for the inscription are 4438, 3605, and (variant)5769.
I just found some amazing stones @ the beach and I was reminded of Hebrew letters along w/, possibly a musical note...but, certain that there is a hidden message in there for me (just posted)...love the painting..:)
Etc: Thanks for that reference to the Strong's Lexicon, and I agree with you about the tragedy of the art schools in the '60s and '70s destroying the classical casts. You just can't make those things again.
Amy: How magical! I have a whole box of mysterious rocks like that.
Wendy: The painting is 14x28, I believe. Not too big.
You know there was a second Ozymandias poem written by someone else who worked with Shelley on the original? I'll post it here to save a google if anyone's interested, but before I do-
Is there a large version of the Chandara cover available anywhere for say, a desktop background image? I just realised that although I can see the front cover of the book from where I'm sitting, the back cover is quite a nice extension as well... Roger Dean has a set of his up and they're absolutely glorious. This isn't one of them but OH THE WIT. http://musicalboxed.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/02-roger-dean-avatar.jpg
ANYWAY
de powemm:
In Egypt's sandy silence, all alone, Stands a gigantic Leg, which far off throws The only shadow that the Desert knows: "I am great OZYMANDIAS," saith the stone, "The King of Kings; this mighty City shows "The wonders of my hand." The City's gone, Nought but the Leg remaining to disclose The site of this forgotten Babylon. We wonder, and some Hunter may express Wonder like ours, when thro' the wilderness Where London stood, holding the Wolf in chace, He meets some fragments huge, and stops to guess What powerful but unrecorded race Once dwelt in that annihilated place. —Horace Smith. (wikipedia)
The staff of the Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach, Florida is putting the final touches on the Dinotopia exhibit, which will open this weekend.
“Dinotopia: The Fantastical Art of James Gurney” contains over 50 original oil paintings, along with preliminary sketches, plein air studies, scale maquettes, and dinosaur fossils. This will be the first venue to show the sculpt of the Protoceratops Bix made by Jim Henson’s Creature Shop.
I’ll be attending, this weekend, with a colored pencil drawing workshop on Saturday, June 5 from 1:00-4:00 (there’s still space available), and I'll give a lecture on Sunday at 3:00, with a booksigning afterward. Come by and say hi and get a book or poster signed.
There will be a whole family day celebration on Sunday June 6 from 1:00 to 5:00 with live animals and activities. And there will be events going on all around town during the whole summer. The exhibition will be up through September 5. Call 561. 832.5196 for more information.
I'd love to see it travel to those places. If you have contacts with folks on the exhibition committees of a likely art museum or natural history museum, please put them in contact with me.
Congratulations! And yes, please bring this stuff to Holland. I've got connections with Naturalis (biggest collections in Europe) in Leiden, and the Nature museum Rotterdam.
I got hit with an internet award, Kreativ Blogger. It’s intended as a viral meme and I’m expected to spread it to seven other creatives I find worthy of such. I figure you’re easily in my top seven! Hell, you're probably in nearly everyone's top seven! http://burningmonster.blogspot.com/2010/06/kreativ-blogger-award.html
In addition to Ivo de Wispelaere's comment, I am wondering... ...are there any Dinotopia books taht have been published in other languages?
I think it would help a lot in setting a foot on the Belgian and Dutch market if the Dinotopia books were available in Dutch. Convincing a publisher to do a translation might be a serious job though, because the market may seem too small at first sight. My personal experience is that it seems to be a very lively market though.
@ Johan: it would be easer to publish the books on the European "smaller language" (like Dutch, Sloveninan, etc...) -markets if the publishers of these smaller markets would work together and have the books for their respective markets be printed together, adding afterwards the text for their own language in a 5th color swith (after the C M Y K color switches). That way it's economically interesting to publish such books for smaller markets. When I worked at Lannoo (famous Belgian publisher), they did that for several touristic guides thus sharing printing costs with other European publishers.
Ivo--good point. Yes, the original Dinotopia book from 1992 was published in about 18 languages, including Dutch, Danish, Norwegian, Japanes and a lot of other languages. But those are out of print.
It would be wonderful if the show could travel to Holland, since the Dutch artist Rien Poortvliet was such a great inspiration.
The newest book, Dinotopia: Journey to Chandara (2007) is out in French, Greek, Bulgarian, Hungarian, Romanian, and a several other languages.
Blog reader and academic painting student Stephen J. asked me the following question:
“I, and some of my classmates, have been dealing with the issue of how much drawing one should do on the surface of a canvas (board, panel, paper etc) before jumping into paint. This is outside of the studies that are done beforehand and assumes that a drawing is not being transferred. Basically we've bumped into the issue of doing relatively tight, refined lay-ins in pencil and then completely losing those delicate drawings once paint is applied. Some of the teachers and students believe in "finding" the drawing with paint rather than doing a tight charcoal/graphite underdrawing. This could be related to the fact that most of our teachers here seem to advocate the thicker paint application of a certain style of Alla Prima, but I'm not sure.” - Dear Stephen: I practice and recommend both extremes, depending on the picture. When I'm painting outdoors on location or doing a portrait from life, I completely find the subject with the brush (no pencil drawing at all), beginning with spots, big divisions, and measurements.
Here’s the loose lay-in demonstrated on a 9x12 inch plein-air study, shown with the finish on the right half and the first statement on the left.
With other pictures, however, it's a different story. In this painting from Dinotopia: Journey to Chandara, I did a careful pencil drawings directly on the final surface, and I sometimes work out the drawing on a separate piece of paper.
Sargent, the maestro of alla prima, sometimes did very careful pencil drawings before he tried to tackle some of his Venetian studies of architecture. Richard Ormond’s new book on his Venetian work includes a reproduction of a line drawing that he did to work out the perspective of the church of Santa Maria della Salute.
With an imaginary scene with a lot of figures, historical elements, mechanical forms, lettering, or anything of that kind, I recommend following something like Rockwell's method of the separate full size charcoal comprehensive,
8 Comments on Loose vs. Tight Underdrawings, last added: 5/17/2010
Interesting. Your book makes clear the importance of planning, and I can see how it pays off. I quite like to make up a painting as I go along and allow a few surprises for myself. I sometimes find I draw one area then paint it, then another area and so on, as I decide what goes where. It probably seems a disorderly way of going about things but it stops things feeling too mechanical.
Thanks. This is a question I've made myself some times.
By the way... You said to paint over the lines without fear and that one can find them later. How do you exactly find the lines again once covered (sometimes they get very covered or smeared by the paint)?
Kaos, I seal the drawing with acrylic matte medium, so if I really had to find the drawing again, I could use turps on a rag and rub off the oil, but I've almost never had to do that.
I prefer to "find it in the paint", but have also found that for complex compositions or picky things like elk antlers, it's easier and quicker sometimes to start with a fairly tight pencil drawing on the canvas.
I do a grid transfer from a smaller, finished drawing using a hard pencil and, re-state the drawing with a brush, correcting as I go and then I'm off and running.
ralph laurenDiesel men's shoes hold a place all their own,lacoste polo in style as well as components.ugg bootsThey are also geared to appeal to a younger demographic group than some other styles you may see.ugg boots In fashion and style, attention to detail is very important and hence, you should always have accessories and good shoes to
enhance the entire look. Belts are kind of an essential. ugg bootsWhen it comes to shoes, wedges are the trend this season.
These are some of the things that you can always wear with other clothing items and look great.
The internal noise-decreasing of the camera ugg boots effectively suppressed the obviousness of the noiseugg boots, but there is some loss of ugg bootsdetail. And when the sensitivity reached ISO800 and ed hardy outletISO1600, the camera appeared obvious sharpness downherve leger, and the layering also declined. This time the digital camera herve leger bandage dress Amigo T1258, make an aggressive improvement regarding to the picture ed hardy wholesale quality, fully meeting the imaging standard of cheap ed hardy wholesale mainstream digital camera.. Hardy signed a license agreement with the apparel discount ed hardy wholesalecompany Ku USA, Inc. in 2002 to use his designs to produce boots. After two years wholesale ed hardy his artwork had begun to catch the attention of many other major wholesale ed hardyboots companies as well. Since the 1980s Ed Hardy build up one of the most famous tattoo art businesses in the world in San Francisco and has published many books about tattoo art. Ed Hardy's involvement with clothing and fashion emerged in 2002 when a deal was signed wiht Ku USA to make a line of clothing based on Ed Hardy's tattoo art.o
Nature is full of patterns based on the Fibonacci sequence of numbers. The way you get the Fibonacci sequence is to add the last two numbers in the sequence: 1,2,3,5,8,13,21,34, etc.
Fibonacci numbers turn up in the Archimedes spiral, the chambered nautilus, and the pattern of overlapping spirals in a sunflower or a Queen Anne’s lace.
In Dinotopia: Journey to Chandara, I did a page of small oil studies showing Fibonacci patterns in pine cones, pineapples, and thistles.
If you count the rows of seeds going one way around, you get 5, 8, or 13, etc. And if you count the rows going the other way around, you get another one of those numbers.
The video "Nature by Numbers" is a beautiful demonstration of the principles. Even if you’re not inclined toward numbers, there’s an unmistakable visual logic behind it.
A few inspired math teachers make the time in their curriculum to teach Fibonacci theory, along with fractals, topology, and tessellation, the right-brain branches of math that most teachers unfortunately have to skip over.
And maybe a math expert can explain in the comments why those Fibonacci numbers turn up in nature so universally.
When I was teaching elementary school, we'd spend a few weeks on tessellations and Fibonacci. We had a couple bulletin boards covered with Escher prints, Moorish tiles, and photos of pine cones, sunflowers, etc. Even fourth graders could construct impressive tessellating shapes from paper squares and rectangles (regular polygons) by cutting out a piece and sliding it directly to the opposite side. That cut and taped paper was then used as a tracing template to create an interlocking (tessellating) pattern. The kids applied some of this learning to designing quilt squares that parents/grandparents helped them sew into quilts that we raffled off, earning money to donate to charity and to fund a big overnight trip we took at the end of the year. Kids have a natural love of cool number patterns and making geometric art.
I'm also not a math expert, but my understanding is that the Fibonacci sequence represents a repetitive growth pattern. Beacuase life must, by nature, grow from it's origin size, a simple set of intructions like DNA can produce growth at a regulated rate which is then able to be repeated with out the complication of a new starting point. It is the same as when it started, just larger, and can grow larger yet.
When it comes to aesthetics, humans and other animals associate golden proportions with being properly formed and physically fit, a better mate. And evolution rolls on. Our concept of beauty evolves to match.
It makes perfect sense that this would happen, no creator necessary.
I'm fascinated by the repeating patterns at ever increasing scale that our reality is built out of. The recognizable patterns of swirling nebula's replicate themselves in eddying tide pools, or the way that sand dunes and mountain ranges share shapes with the sea floor from the constant forces of air and water undulated across them
there was a Greek philosopher (Plato? not sure) who theorized that there existed pure forms of beauty that we remember from our lives in another realm, and any beauty we see in this life is due to a resemblance to those true forms. Something about that view fits well with how nature patterns itself through numbers
Draigstudio, Corel Painter offers the same overlay feature too. I like your comment Rob. I had a teacher once that said that he thought that humans have a shared idea of beauty and that good designers have found a way to tap into that. Fun to think about.
And maybe a math expert can explain in the comments why those Fibonacci numbers turn up in nature so universally."
I'm not a math expert, but maybe Fibonacci numbers turn up in nature so universally because there is a Creator creating everything.
i was going to make a joke about a it's the selfish gene but someone beat me to it: When it comes to aesthetics, humans and other animals associate golden proportions with being properly formed and physically fit, a better mate. And evolution rolls on. Our concept of beauty evolves to match.
It makes perfect sense that this would happen, no creator necessary
so how does 'evolution' explain our finding beauty in a golden spiral galaxy? because it represents a place where there are planets fit for human habitation? Come on. I believe natural selection and evolution can explain much, but not everything and i see people use it as a catch all theory to explain every aspect of human behavior and life, much like freudians did (and still do even though Freud has been proven to be a complete fraud)
and by the way, I am more interested in the universe from the standpoint of a physicist , so why do my sub-atomic particles want to do that in the first place?
Seriously, it seems a lot of people who focus on current biological science become remarkably 'reductionist' and in many ways are still thinking of the universe as a 'clockwork' - that idea has been outdated in physics for over century, time for Richard Dawkins to catch up.
dragstudio: I wouldn't rely on it. I read a book about the golden ratio a few years ago (i wish i could recall it's name) but its application to art is highly questionable to say the least - for example it was often claimed the parthenon conformed to the golden ratio - and it turns out it does - as does just about any building, as long as you decide where to measure it from.
and what about pictures that are beautiful that don't conform? Are you going to change them so they fit a certain ratio...
Ah yes, the age old conundrum! Good discussion. The beauty and order that inherently exists in nature - such intricate order - did it come from a Creator or did the orderliness come from chaos? I know which one makes more sense to me.
My Pen Name: I'm sorry, I did not intend my statement to be a catch all, but only a general principal. There are too many permutations of golden proportions evidenced in nature for me to intelligently address all of them with a single statement. However, my statement does still apply to humans finding beauty in the spiral of a galaxy or anything else because we have evolved to find that shape beautiful and pleasing, regardless of where we see it. About the sub-atomic particles, I am not a physicist, but I would keep in mind that energy also grows and reduces. By that I mean, if you are talking about particle smashing experiments, the velocity of object can diminish at a constant rate while rotational energy remains constant causing a viewer to see a smooth spiral curve. I don't know this to be a factual example, like I said I'm not a physicist, but the key idea behind Fibonacci is growth or it's inverse, and can apply to many different aspects of the world around us.
I can't prove it by science, but I'm inclined to agree with the Psalmist, "The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handiwork."
I think the simplest explanation of why they occur in nature is:
1+1 = 2 1+2 = 3 2+3 = 5....
Fibonacci (an accountant) got the sequence by measuring the breeding success of rabbits over generations. Most of nature starts with 1+1...Hence fibonacci sequences.
The golden proportion is expressed in the recursion formula for fibonacci numbers Fn = Fn-1 + Fn-2... (i.e. 5 = 3+2). A very clever mathematician named Binet turned this into a non-recursive formula..
And the root of that recursion turns out to be phi (1 +/- sqrt(5))/2 which is the golden ratio....
Right on about Fibonacci and high school math. I had a math teacher - Lloyd Walker - who turned out some of the best mathematicians in this nation. I wasn't one of them - but his intro to the Fibonacci Society at St Mary's here in the SF Bay Area, and my playing with the math led to a very productive career in computer graphics...
It took one teacher, and one student, and the rest grew from there :-)
Beautiful video! Thanx for dharing. In my opinion...We recognize the aesthetics of beauty, and the dissonance of ugly, because we are creatures out-of/embedded-in the Great Mystery. While evolution, mathematics, and the scientific study of the natural world can reveal much about the structures and principals of our unfolding… I find it even more wondrous how much of the dance is dependant on chaos, mutations, random variations, coincidence, accidents, and the like. If you look at a spiral shell, a pine cone, a snow flake, a human face… while they may all follow patterns of growth, and laws of proportion, and archetypical forms, it is their flaws and deviations away from the norm that makes each aspect/expression of creation unique and real. The Great Mystery indeed. -RQ
However, my statement does still apply to humans finding beauty in the spiral of a galaxy or anything else because we have evolved to find that shape beautiful and pleasing, regardless of where we see it. well this is no more provable than saying God made us that way - its an unprovable way of framing the universe. Not an unworthy way,.. but can you say why I find it beautiful? and what if i disagree as to your explanation would you say your theory trumped my conscious? what if i say if find it beautiful because it reflects God's creation -would you say to me, "no you are wrong, you like it because of how you have evolved", it ...and what if I don't find it beautiful?
About the sub-atomic particles, I am not a physicist, I meant, ok, you're taking the biological perspective and saying 'evolution made us find it beautiful and 'that's that' Well, i am taking physicist perspective- why do my sub-atomic particles which make up your cells want to do that?
The reason has to do with irrationality. When choosing angles at which to produce leaves, the plant does best when they don't overlap and shade each other; if the angle is near any rational proportion of the circle, then the leaves will overlap. The "least rational" number, according to this measure, is the golden ratio.
A similar reason explains the occurrence of the golden ratio in astronomy; if two bodies have orbital periods that are nearly rational, then angular momentum is strongly transferred from one to the other and it either gets kicked out of the orbit or pushed towards a more rational period. So we expect to see either orbits in a golden ratio (least rational) or graviationally locked orbits like the moon and mercury (most rational).
Zeke: Yes it was Plato, I loved studying the early classical philosophers in university. Some of their ideas were way out there but still interesting. And others werent far off the mark. Plato believed that all knowledge/ideas were already learnt therefore when we see the beauty in something we are just remembering what we already knew before...hmm I've a funny feeling old Plato was eatin some of those Fibonacci mushrooms that were so popular back then...
.jpg?picon=1009)
. 
, 1999
What a great way to study the progress of a painting!
Is there any way that the viewer can slow down the sequence, or is it pre-determined by the softwared?
I'd love to see more posts like this, if possible.
Thanks!!
It's predetermined, but I could control it and create another. Would people like to see it slower?
Don't bother on my behalf alone, James. Just wondering. But my pie-in-the-sky wish list (for what it's worth) would include someday for the viewer to be able to control the speed and to also see it in a larger and high-res version. What a great teaching that would be - not that it isn't great for what it is now.
Yes please! I'd like to see it slower, or as separate frames.
This is amazing! I would love to see you break down more of your paintings like this, it's always cool to see how an artist approaches their work.
@Tom - If you have Photoshop (Gimp or another software might work in the same way), save the picture as a .gif file and open it in that software. The separate frames should then load on individual layers, and you should be able to view it that way (:
James-
Thanks for sharing this. I love to see the different processes that artists use.
I'm wondering a couple of things:
1. I'm guessing you created tonal and color studies prior to the final painting. Did you create a fully rendered tonal drawing (a la Norman Rockwell) before moving on to the final piece?
2. Would you mind sharing approximately how long you spent creating the painting?
Thanks as always for all that you share with the art community!
I love it, and would also like to see another. Slower would be helpful, I think, to really get a good look at each stage. But what a great idea!
Tom and Catherine, I have reprogrammed and re-uploaded the animation to make it a lot slower. And
Ben, I have added above the preliminary pencil thumbnail where I worked out the basic tonal design. In this case I didn't do a full charcoal preliminary, just this quick (but very helpful) study. The painting took about a week, start to finish.
Thanks, Stuart for explaining. And Natascha, I'll try to do more of these in the future.
This comment has been removed by the author.
Hi James,
I have a technical question I hope you could help me with. Im about to start on a canvas. I've penciled in the line drawing, sprayed with final fixative, sealed with matte medium, and put an ultramarine imprimatura (oil). Its been 3days and I can still wipe some ultramarine off. It seems dry but not adhering? Never had this happen. Any idea whats going on?
If the action return (after), I think it will be much wave.
Ex. imagine 1, imagine 2, imagine 3, imagine 4, imagine 3, imagine 2 and reload algoritm. Like a wave; turn-return!
Sorry, just a suggestion.
Cale, I'm not sure what's going wrong there. What medium are you using? For the washin or imprimatura, you can just use Gamsol to thin the paint to a light wash and then build up the thicker and slower drying paint with the later applications. There shouldn't be any adhesion problems in any case.
Scorchfield, can you please explain what you're talking about?
In GIF the imagines are going one after other, but to the end the refreshing is too hard, because the dinamic is broke.
Why we not understand the moving of the wave with front and back of action?
After last imagine when all is full of colour, we put the imagine when all is empty (wrong, in my opinion).
I think, much better is put penultimate imagine, and so all. (Go and come :) )
example
http://scorchfield.blogspot.ro/2013/02/insula-carnivora.html
Just love the composition of this painting! Great to see the process gif
It's interesting to note some of the detail changes. I see that what appear to have originally been spoon shaped objects below the cello-like instrument on the far wall were replaced by a rack of recorders (?). Also, the pipe next to Dennison's elbow was replaced by a glass beaker.
Do you recall the reason for these changes? Art direction or your own decisions. Just curious...
I agree that slower would be helpful. It would be nice to be able to study each stage a little better rather than simply have a quick glance. Also, the slightly off position for registration might not be as noticeable.
Thank you for posting this! It is always a treat to see how master artists go about creating their work.
It gives a peek over your shoulder without distracting you from your beautiful work.
Tom, I'm glad you noticed the spoons changing into recorders. The nice thing about oil (or any opaque medium) is that such changes are possible. I did that because I wanted more musical instruments. I added the kerosene lamp instead of the clay pipe because I set up a still life and painted it from observation.
Diana, next time I do one of these, I'll make it just a bit slower.
Scorchfield, All the images are in order, and it starts over from the first step after the finish. I don't know how else to do it.
James,
oh yeah, just some OMS for medium and not much of it. Hmm I guess I will wait a while longer. If it continues any harm in trying to wipe it off with oms?
I remembered after I had put down the oil imprimatura that I could have just added a little ultramarine to the matte medium, doh!
Cale, you can do an imprimatura and color block-in with acrylic for a faster dry time. Oil over acrylic is always OK, but not vice-versa.
Thanks for sharing James, this is a real delight! Where did your color choices come into this process? Did you do any smaller color studies, or just attack it during the final painting? Thanks again, this blog is a tremendous resource for the art community.
Wow. This is a really neat way to view your process. Always intriguing! I find this particular approach very interesting. I do detailed pencils like that for my watercolors but rarely oils. Very cool. Thanks for sharing! P.S. Another way to make these GIFs is using Photoshop's "Animation window." (At the top, you can select "Windows" then "Animation" and manage the layers as frames.)
How did you keep the illustration board from warping?
John, it's heavyweight board, so it doesn't warp. But usually if you have a board that warps from a water medium on one side, just paint the back with water and it usually counteracts the effect.