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By: James Gurney,
on 6/28/2012
By: James Gurney,
on 5/26/2012
By: James Gurney,
on 3/11/2012
(Video link) The BBC has produced this excellent documentary on the life and art of Jean Giraud (Moebius), who died yesterday. The production continues in Part 2, Part 3.
Thanks, BBC and Anonymous.
By: James Gurney,
on 10/20/2011
This month, comic artist and landscape painter Brad Teare started publishing an online comic called "Subterranean Chronicles."
By: James Gurney,
on 9/3/2011
(Video link) Here's a short video clip from a never-released documentary called "A Boy Named Charlie Brown." As cartoonist Charles Shulz draws Charlie sitting at a piano, he talks about the inspiration for the character.
By: James Gurney,
on 8/24/2011
Yesterday I visited the Dutchess County Fair in Rhinebeck, New York. It was early in the morning on opening day.
A caricaturist named Mark, the “Cartoon Guy,” was set up under his white tent, waiting for customers.
I did a blog post about Mark a three years ago. He had a new sign out that said “Please don’t text while you’re posing.” 
I hung out with him until he got his first customer of the day, a girl who had never been drawn before. During a lull Mark and I drew each others’ portrait.
Previously: "The Cartoon Guy"
By: James Gurney,
on 8/19/2011
Classic comic artist Roy Crane (1901-1977) reminds us of the compositional importance of black. 
“Get all you can,” he said in his famous scrapbook. “But use it mainly to bring out the color of white.”
Applies to painting, too. (Rembrandt, Descent from the Cross)
Wikipedia on Roy Crane
More pages from the scrapbook at the blog "Hairy Green Eyeball."
Books: Captain Easy, Soldier of Fortune: The Complete Sunday Newspaper Strips 1933-1935 (Vol. 1) (Roy Crane's Captain Easy)
By: James Gurney,
on 8/18/2011
The New Yorker official blog has just shared the results of our "Unfinished Cover Contest," along with an article that tells the story of how it came to be. Thanks, everyone, for participating.
By: James Gurney,
on 8/1/2011
Animators love to caricature each other. Working next to each other day in and day out, they know each others’ foibles and mannerisms.
Bulletin boards at almost every animation studio are decorated with them. Cubicles at DreamWorks are adorned with caricatures drawn by colleagues. When I worked in animation, it was a mark of pride to have your caricature done, and we would trade sketches of each other. Above is a batch of caricatures from Blue Sky Studios currently on show at the Norman Rockwell Museum.
I did a few doodles of my own while I was listening to a panel discussion by Blue Sky’s animation group called the “Lost Boys.” They’re a group that gets together during breaks for rounds of Mario Kart and trips out to Dunkin Donuts for coffee. They include Nick Bruno, Scott Carroll, Jeff Gabor, and Peter Paquette. Pete just finished up at Blue Sky and they threw him a great goodbye party.
Pete struck me as a good-natured sad sack, kind of like Eeyore—if Eeyore were a frog instead of a donkey. And he’s a genius animator--just check out this blog post, where he talks about how Muppet performances can be seen in terms of a CG character with limited rigging points.
Pete Paquette's blog (with other caricatures of him).
More about the Lost Boys
Book: The Art of Robots
By: James Gurney,
on 7/31/2011
A lot of great entries arrived in the “New Yorker Unfinished Cover” contest. There wasn't room to show them all. It was very difficult to choose, but I’ve picked three finalists, and I’d like to ask you to vote for your favorite in the poll at left. 
Kalliopi Monoyios
Larry Roibal “The Debt Ceiling”
Matt Soar
The winner will receive a signed and specially remarqued poster for Color and Light: A Guide for the Realist Painter. 
By: James Gurney,
on 7/21/2011
Last week, I invited you to improve that half-finished New Yorker cover. Well, good news! The New Yorker editors are impressed with what they’ve seen so far, and they’re going to put a slide show of the results on the official New Yorker blog.
It’s not too late for you to send one in (but you'd better hurry). You might get your solution included on their official blog, too. Cartoonists and animators: this could get you noticed! It’s free to submit. Just grab a print copy of the July 4 issue—the one where the artist forgot to include a joke and left half of the cover blank. Fill the blank space with your best gag, and send it in to:
Emily Kan
Assistant to cover editor Françoise Mouly
The New Yorker
4 Times Square
New York, NY 10036
and Imaginative Realism
. The deadline is the end of this month.
By: James Gurney,
on 7/11/2011
The New Yorker’s most popular feature is its “Cartoon Caption Contest,” where readers provide captions for unfinished cartoons.
By: James Gurney,
on 7/10/2011
Veteran schoolteacher Andy Wales uses comics in the classroom, and he also he teaches young teachers how to use them. The Sunday funnies was the textbook for his most recent workshop at Alfred University. 
Among the teaching techniques he recommends:
1. Comic Book Readers Theater. Reading a comic together as a dramatic exercise.MORE AT THESE LINKS
2. Comic Book Book Reports. Using comics to help students summarize what they have read.
3. Using comics to teach onomatopoeia, alliteration and hyperbole.
Cartoons and Comics in the Classroom: A Reference Guide for Teachers and LibrariesCartoons and Comics in the Classroom: A Reference Guide for Teachers and Libraries
By: James Gurney,
on 5/14/2011
By: James Gurney,
on 4/22/2011
What would Bert from Sesame Street look like if you kept his cartoon proportions but made him otherwise real?
He’s still got those caterpillar eyebrows, bug eyes, top tuft, bulbous nose and wide grin. But when we see all his details and textures, he has an altogether different charm—or creepiness.
“Untooning” has been a hot internet meme over the last few years, and it raises all sorts of questions about verisimilitude.
A face that has been abstracted can be just as real to us emotionally, maybe more so. Think of African masks. Character designers at CGI animation studios are also very conscious of dialing down the realism on human characters. Too much realism can drop us into the uncanny valley.
I think the same thing is true of storytelling paintings, such as this illustration by N.C. Wyeth from Kidnapped. It’s more of a mental image he was striving for. By not showing his eyes, Wyeth makes David Balfour seem more lost in the fog.
----------
Bert from BoingBoing
See Mario, Charlie Brown, and other Untooned characters at Huffington Post
By: James Gurney,
on 12/22/2010
By: James Gurney,
on 11/28/2010
“Stymied: A Cornish Sketching Tragedy” by Ernest H. Shepard in 1925.
Shepard, better known for his Winnie the Pooh illustrations, was also a frequent contributor to the British humor magazine Punch. 
There’s a lot of knowledge and experience behind those apparently scribbly lines.
-----------
Previous GJ Post about Shepard’s training in the Royal Academy.
From “Fun and Fantasy,” Drawings from Punch, Methuen & Co. London, 1927.
For a good illustrated bio, see The Work of E H Shepard, by Knox, 1980.
Thanks, Dave!
By: James Gurney,
on 11/20/2010
The new issue of Spectrum has touched down on store shelves and mailboxes. The oversize art book showcases 400 digital and traditional paintings by 300 artists in the field of contemporary fantastic art.
The categories include Advertising, Book, Comics, Concept Art, Dimensional, Editorial, Institutional, and Unpublished.
In an essay at the beginning of the book, co-founder Arnie Fenner gives a health assessment of each of those categories. Even though times are tough, the artists overall have managed to produce some of the most striking, memorable, and ambitious paintings ever, making it clear that we’re living right now in the Golden Age of fantastic art.
Spectrum 17 at Amazon
Spectrum News
Video Flip-Through
Spectrum 18 Call for Entries
By: James Gurney,
on 8/18/2010
A cartoon of John Singer Sargent from 1917.
From "Confessions of a Caricaturist," by Oliver Herford. Available for download from Google Books.
By: James Gurney,
on 6/29/2010
Toonseum is a new museum of cartoon art in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It is currently hosting an exhibition of art from the animated film Akira.
Akira, set in twenty-first-century post-World War III Japan, was directed by comic artist Katsuhiro Otomo. Released in the USA in 1990, Akira was one of the last feature films created with traditional hand-painted cel and painted background technique.
On display are stunning perspective layout drawings and renderings of science fiction cityscapes, as well as effects animation cels and character designs. All of the art comes from the collection of Joe Peacock.
Toonseum is one of only two museums in the USA dedicated exclusively to art from the comic strip, graphic novel, comic book, and animated film. Earlier museums in Rye, New York; Boca Raton, Florida; and Northampton, Massachusetts are sadly no longer in operation.
Toonseum is very small—the size of a gallery or shopfront, but it’s fun to visit because it’s run by artists. They encourage you to sit down and draw on an actual worktable from one of Disney’s early animators.
They even granted me the geek dream of holding an original drawing from “Gertie the Dinosaur” by Winsor McCay.
And they talked me into doodling on the hall-of-fame group sketch.
Toonseum is located at 945 Liberty Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA. It’s open from 9 to 3 on most days, Wednesday through Sunday. The Akira exhibit will be on view through July 18.
Toonseum.org
By: James Gurney,
on 4/7/2010
On May 16, at the Delaware Art Museum, I’ll be offering a workshop called “Attack of the Tool People.” We’ll be designing mischievous monsters that are part household tool and part human. Below: Henrich Kley 
This workshop is for all ages and ability levels. If you come, you can also see the Dinotopia exhibition and the fabulous collection of Howard Pyle and Pre-Raphaelites. Below: Boris Artzybasheff.
Here’s the backstory: Whenever your Do List gets more than 10 items long, a mysterious enchantment travels into the closets and drawers of your house, bringing a “Tool Person” to life. Tool people are impish superheroes that arise from common household objects. They want to help you with your Do List, but their way of fixing things is unorthodox at best and dangerous at worst. That’s why you want to keep your Do List short. (The Tool People are hammering and sawing in my house every night.)
Here's information for those attending:
Please bring:
1. A tool from the kitchen, art studio or workshop.
It should suggest a face or a head, but it doesn’t have to be symmetrical. It might be a wine cork puller, nutcracker, tea strainer, can opener, adjustable pliers, hammer, hole punch, pencil sharpener, drill, camera, or a few computer part. Bring a few other spare parts for components.
2. An action figure or doll.
It can be any size. It doesn’t have to match the size of the tool.
3. Your favorite drawing media.
Everybody should bring a couple of regular pencils and an eraser to get started with concept work.
If you like, you can also bring markers or watercolors, but please no oils because a lot of people are sensitive to the fumes. I recommend bringing a set of water-soluble colored pencils. Caran- d'Ache Supracolor, Derwent Inktense, Prismacolor, or other brands are OK. Twelve or eighteen colors should be more than enough. If you don't want to get a whole set, you can buy about six or seven individual pencils.
If you bring the water-soluble colored pencils, I also recommend bringing a water brush. This is a hollow-handled plastic brush with a nylon fiber tip, marketed under the name Niji or Kuretake and other brand names. Fill the handle with water from the tap.
4. Sketchbook paper or card stock.
The paper should be fairly heavy and smooth. You can use watercolor paper in a separate sheet or a Moleskine watercolor sketchbook, which is perfect.
Recommended for all ages and both beginner and advanced students. Those of you who came to the February workshop are most welcome to return, because we’ll be doing a different challenge this time.
Sunday, May 16 | 11:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.
$55 Members/$65 Non-Members
On Saturday, May 15 at 1:00, I'll be repeating the talk I gave in February: "Fact and Fantasy: The Making of Dinotopia," free wit
By: James Gurney,
on 3/31/2010
Last weekend I drew the t-shirt design for Anthrocon. This year’s theme is “Modern Stone-Age Furries.”
I'll be giving three digital slide lectures and a technique demo.
But the big event will be the fursuit parade. This is one of the largest events of its kind, with over 600 participants. All the costumers don their fursuits, which are handmade and often very elaborate. They’re mostly based on anthropomorphic cartoon animals.
According to an insider's description:
"Fursuits, similar to what athletic team mascots wear, are constructed of fabric, not fur or animal skins. While in a fursuit, a furry walks upright.
Some furries superimpose human clothing on the fursuit; for example, a snow leopard diva may wear a red cocktail dress and a big yellow dog may wear blue jeans.”
By: James Gurney,
on 2/10/2010
Here's a mouth drawn in the style of American cartoonist Milt Caniff. According to artist and comics historian Ron Harris, "Drawing the lips too round or too full can detract from the "man's man" look realistic artists usually strive for. Impressionists Noel Sickles and Milton Caniff circumvented this potential pitfall by drawing a thin upper lip in shadow, reduced almost to a line, while indicating the lower lip only by the shadow it casts on the chin."
Ron's blog post "Mouthing Off" has a lot more examples of ways the great comic artists simplified the mouth for maximum clarity and expression.
By: James Gurney,
on 2/3/2010
Here's a cool new way to deliver animation. You kind of have to blur your eyes to see the continuity.
By: James Gurney,
on 12/21/2009
This 1992 political cartoon by Ed Stein of Rocky Mountain News says: "Visit the island kingdom of Great Britain, where the monarchy, which miraculously escaped extinction, lives lavishly at the expense of the common folk."
Visit Ed Stein's Website.
![[Link]](http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y272/fuurin/mouthnose_various.jpg){kind=link}
Haha! So good! :)
Love it
Very funny story. That's what's great with drawing.
He already has a rippling dent there.
cute story in pictures :)
This reminds me of when I saw a lawncare guy with his weedwhip or trimmer thing walk buy his "buddy" mowing and trimmed the back of the guys legs.
It was an intentional gag like your story but unlike your story the victim didn't seem to enjoy it.
Hahaha! Love it!
Ha ha ha! Fantastic!
Hilarious.
You've got more interesting mow-blow-go guys than I do, that's for sure!!
Hilarious! Wouldn't it be funny if one of these guys followed your blog and saw this post?
fun story...always love your blog
ha..! I love your blog, thanks for doing it.
I love it!
I love it!
Classic! LOL
This reminds me of a certain Sponge Bob eps.