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Nice sketch; great story,

xoxo

I draw on Metro North all the time. Many people love it!

Oh I should be more bold. Just draw in public. Great story.

What a pleasant ending of sketching-strangers on the run : )

Great job!

I love doing that on the city bus when people catch me staring at them as I'm drawing them. Pretty awkward to say the least.

So cool! I hope you get to go visit his farm =D

This made me laugh:

"He showed the amazing tattoos on his arms...I showed him some of my farm sketches."

Be careful around the emus--they're badass!

Great way to meet new people i have found

I always love your blog but today's story is my absolute favorite blog entry!

You just never know, do you, what someone truly represents. Fun story! Now get over there and draw us some emus, llamas and other fun Dr. Seuss animals.

Heh. Great story. I once did a pencil sketch of a nun on an airplane. She never noticed how much I was looking at here while I worked, but she liked it when I showed her the sketch. "Sister Frances" as I recall.

Jim, I love it! I was sketching all the flight attendants on a cross country flight as they did their tasks. Word spread fast among the staff and everyone came by to see the pictures. One attendant decided that my sketch book needed a sketch of me sketching them. So I handed him the book and a pen and he sketched me. He was thrilled. It was a hoot!

You may solve the staring problem by using a mirror inconspicuously.

You are so inspiring! My daughter has been following your work since she was 4 .. she is now 22. We love the Color and Light book... well we love them all ♥ actually!

Thank you for sharing your wonderful talents!

What a great story! You are so friendly.

This looks wonderful. Thanks for the supply list, too!

As versatile as these supplies are, I'm still impressed by how your plein air work makes them seem all the more portable. For something like attending a concert, where your space is going to be extremely limited, how do you lug them around? And how do you manage them while you work when you're already using one hand to draw?

Beautiful picture. I love your sketch!

Thanks, Adele and Cecilio. I wish I had used the blue-black in the background behind the bow, instead of the solid black there, which would have made the black of her dress more striking.

Mike, Yeah, they're very portable. I carry them in a little belt pouch. Before the concert starts, I pull out a couple pencils and two or three brush pens and hold them in my left hand. I try to make as few tool switches as possible, and keep the hand movements and head bobbing to a minimum so as not to distract anyone around me. I only really reach into the bag between pieces. Brush pens have the advantage of being totally silent. Some pencils make a scratchy noise, which doesn't cut it in a concert.

In case you're in a theater with very dim house lights, sitting near the stage gives enough light spill to see what you're doing.

Thanks for showing the sketch. Really nice. Looking forward to seeing you at Spectrum this summer in Kansas City. Are you still planning to be there?

Larry, I'll be there. Look forward to seeing you. It's next week!

I'll be giving a new presentation on Worldbuilding on Saturday May 19 at 4:00. More at spectrumfantasticart.com

This is very exciting! I never thought of putting ink into my water brush!

James, do you do anything special to keep the ink from leaking out of the pen? I tried your idea and was having a lot of fun, but I panicked after the ink started bubbling out the side. Maybe this was from bringing the pen into a warm room. Do you only keep ink in it when you know you'll be using it?

PS - Been lurking on the site for a while and bought Color and Light. Loving it all!

Hi, Ben, Thanks for your comment. Make sure you're using a Niji (Kuretake) brand water brush and make sure it's really tightened. The other brands have problems with leaking and the caps coming off.

The only problem I've had is with pressure changes on jet flights, when they might leak a drop or two.

sweet tip on the waterbrushes - those have gone on my Blick wishlist :)

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What in the . . . !?! Yikes, I had no idea . . .


Lol, that's an awesome concept/painting (if not totally eerie)!

These are really good safety tips for plein-air artists! The Muggle reporters won't tell you this stuff!

So creepy! (And reminds me of Spiderwick.)

Good that I am far away!

Just throw some turp/solvent in their eyes; works everytime.

Thank you for mentioning Tony D., creator of Spiderwick. He is the maestro, and a good friend. I could not help but think of his work, and also our mutual hero, Arthur Rackham, who is the king of seeing faces in gnarled trees.

Etc. Good idea!

You would love it out here, James. The carcasses of cottonwood trees lurk in the landscape, daring me to reanimate them!

I believe what you've drawn there is a boggle. Related to the bogle and boggart and bogeyman, but they live specifically in wetland marshes. We have very few of them left, since the fenland was mostly drained for farming, but there are still a few in the east of England.

"Along the shores of the Hudson River, the railroad line isolates muddy coves. That's where the bog people live."

James, that is a *brilliant* opening line. You have a definite flair for writing as well as a mastery of art. I suppose the excellent writing in the Dinotopia books shows that, eh?

Thank you, sir.

Janet, yes! Cottonwoods are truly possessed by weird spirits, and they like to put their roots into river mud.

Samizdat. I've heard that "bogeyman" is related to "bog, and it makes sense. When they drain those bogs, especially the peat bogs, they find all sorts of strange things, including mummified corpses.

Michael, thanks for the compliment. I enjoy the challenge of trying to frame a picture with words.

Wonderful sketch James.

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Moving drawings
Thank you for posting them

Choked up. I haven't drawn either of my brothers since high school; maybe I should do so before I miss my chance to record the men they've become.
Thank you.

Where do you find such wonderful things to teach us about. I look forward to your post each day because I know there's going to be something fantastic to think about for the rest of the day. This was the most wonderful story, with the last line being an absolute mind blower. Thank you.

One of my best! I just love the way he draws! Thanks for sharing!

Also incredibly sad that nobody was able to appreciate all that wonderful artwork during Adolph's life.

Richard's work received a gold medal posthumuosly for his pioneering achievements in photographical reproduction of artwork, a field Adolph was very interested in, on the world exhibition in Paris in 1866, where Adolph went together with his sister in law and the befriended painter Paul Meyerheim.

When Richard showed a beginning interest in the new medium "photography" Adolph encouraged him a lot and later Richard was running a successful studio for photographical reprints.

Thanks for that very touching post, Jim!
Adolph Menzel didn't write a lot about his personal feelings, it's all in the drawings.

what a great idea! LOVE IT!

Mimi Torchia Boothby Watercolors

Hehe, nice sketch and quite funny phrases. :)

'French toast' mad me laugh...

Simple but effective rendering technique. Great for field sketching. Which came first: Ink wash or pencil?

William Burroughs, the author of Naked Lunch, and Brion Gysin played with a concept they called Cut-ups. It was a way, they felt, to make writing as modern as the painting of their time -- the 1950s and 60s. They began with cutting up published works on paper and rearranging phrases randomly. From there, they moved to tape recorders, recording group conversations and then splicing tapes to make new, fragmented conversations. As portable tape recorders became available, Burroughs took to walking down city streets, recording random fragments of passing conversations. Listening to some of the sequences can be oddly compelling. He said that at times, "the future seemed to be leaking out."

Since reading about this years ago, I sometimes do my own version of this while walking in Ann Arbor; not recording the conversations but just listening closely as people go quickly by, letting the words merge in my mind into an unscripted narrative.

In the past couple years, another element as entered the process, listening to see how often some version of the "f-bomb" is used as someone in their twenties passes by. Even though I may only be within range of their voice for 2 seconds it seems to be about 50% of the time -- today's zeitgeist.

From your jottings, sounds like the Zeitgeist is more negative than positive.

Nice to meet you, Mr.Gurney!
I'm a Japanese artist.
I love your paintings and I bought your book "Light and color" in Japan. This is really helpful for knowing about how to use color and light!
Your book helps my paintings so much :)
Thank you for writing this!
(And I introduced your book on my page. I hope it help to know by many people!)

You left out, "Why is that man over there staring at us and writing in that little book?" =:o)

In addition to the zeitgeist, it's interesting to examine what your brain chose to hear too.

(Don't think I've posted here before, but I'm a long-time reader of your blog. It's one of my favorites. Always interesting! I thought I'd say hi.)

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I agree that it can be a curse. The internet is very good at supplying frissons, but then due to the ease of finding a piece of information I don't delve into an area of study further than I could.
It's why I treat the internet more as a tool to track down real, physical books which I know I can spend more time pouring through.

I immediately recognized Ratcliff's "Sargent" monograph!

There is still a lot of great art and many great artists that are yet obscure to the internet (and even to book publishers). And, it seems to be a trend in technology that what is initially free eventually becomes pay-per-view (see ARC website), so I'm not throwing out my embarrassingly large collection of artist monographs just yet.

It all depends on what you're looking for. Last year I wrestled with myself before finally dropping $400 on a collection of Kawase Hasui's prints... absolutely worth every penny and more, but still painful to shell out. I wish they had been available cheaper.

I still like combing through bookstores for surprises especially from the ones who are hold outs on the internet:-) tho they are few here. Artists and writers I'd never have have heard from other countries of I know of thanks to the internet so its nice there work has travelled farther then they imagined and more will continue to be unearthed.

I discovered you through the internet, so I' thankful for THAT.

Woops! Meant 'poring'.

Finding images online isn't a problem. Finding HIGH QUALITY images is a real struggle though when you're looking for a specific artist or piece. This is why books still have great value.

Finding images online isn't a problem. Finding HIGH QUALITY images is a real struggle though when you're looking for a specific artist or piece. This is why books still have great value.

At the same time the internet is vague on great obscure art masters, it lets us discover great NEW masters; people delving into this new electronic medium with fantastic enthusiasm. One wonders what some of the great old timers would do with an electronic pad or an iPhone...

I think if you grew up that way the magic will never fade. I've been working as a video game artist for about twelve years now and have quickly become one of the only guys with stacks of sticky note riddled books all over his desk and shelves. The problem I've seen with generic internet results is you get generic art. The younger guys I refer to as "google artists" because they just take the first page of search results and make their interpretation. When you search only for what you are trying to make you don't accidentally discover much. They'll see what happens when the web goes down, they'll all see! muahahahah :)

I spend a lot of my free time trawling through Internet links trying to self educate and be inspired. Living in the UK the art is very different, so access to the wonderful art around the World is liberating and exciting. I love your blog, a little piece of inspiration every day. I still spend a fortune on books but now I can access a Worldwide bookstore 24/7.

I think we could benefit by studying the images and paintings we have access to with greater care, rather continually downloading literally hundred of images one can get with a just a few searches.

Same goes for drawing books -how many of us always buy the 'hot' new drawing book, but still haven't read all the ones we have??

I have a bit of a passion for collecting educational art books, (I think I have mentioned at some point before about my copies of "Figure Drawing for all it's Worth, and "Creative Illustration" by Andrew Loomis). I love the "Dynamic" Series by Burne Hogarth, he is an especially popular study by many top tier comic artists (Jim Lee, Todd McFarlane, and even John Byrne to name a few). Oh yea, and there is a pretty decent book called Color and light out there too, can't for the life of me remember the artist. ;)

About reading a great art book. And in the 40's the color was so bad, one had to count on a good black and white print and guess at the color. If you were lucky you saw the original in an exhibit or a museum -----O and then remember the color all the way home. Well it was good for you, and the best thing was that you really thought that this was 'state of the art,' who would know that what we have today was not a dream. It can only get better.

Hi, this is an old lurker speaking! I have been reading this blog for ages, and I love it, just as I love your books.
This post made me comment, because I still remember the excitement I used to get from the art books I found in my grandmother's bedroom. I think it is there where my love for art was born. There was something deeply mystical and monumental about those faded prints of Tizian and Rubens and Monet, even though half of them were black and white. Now that I can spend hours browsing high resolution pictures on the internet, my excitement has turned into rapture. Still, there is nothing like seeing the real painting in a gallery. One of my big wishes is to go and visit all galleries that have Vermeer - that would likely push me over the edge for good.
By the way, I have recently started a blog that is all about sharing love for art. If any of you who are reading this ever feels like contributing, you are very welcome, just let me know! It's here: artgush.tumblr.com. Ah, now it sounds like I am only self-promoting here.
Anyway, thanks for writing this blog, Mr. Gurney, please keep going!
Your faithful reader
Pontenigra

Great suggestion! What where you using for the washes there?

Excellent question! Since the crackdown on "illicit fluids" or whatever Homeland Security refers to them as these days, I was wondering what you used, as well. Do you have a "travel set" for airports and such?

It could be the Starbucks dark roast.

I have used dark coffee for a sketch wash, but this time I used a water brush and a watercolor pencil.

I've often thought about doing this, but my inner 'fraidy cat worries that the TSA would see this as some kind of 'intelligence gathering activity'...

Michael, You might be right -- there may be some rule on the books about not photographing or drawing around the checkpoint -- I don't know. (Though the thought of terrorists using sketchbooks is pretty hilarious.) In my case I was sitting a ways off in a cafe, so none of the officials or passengers even looked over at me.

Great sketches!

You have been awarded the Versatile Blogger Award! Come over and claim your honors!

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great idea!! I will try this next time. :-)



Mimi Torchia Boothby Watercolors

airports are definitely one of my favorite places for undercover sketching.

Interesting - it would be the guy with a fez and a beard that gets patted down. Wonder if he gets that every time.

Nice idea. I allways have trouble finding somehere good to sit when I think of sketching people in public... Either people are too far away or move away too fast.

which is good .... I always wanted to perfect my technique of shading with the pencil ... never paint my pictures .. Always leave a graphite well to make them look more natural ... truth is not paint and I like when they have more color ...
very good post ..
regards

I completely dig the graphite shading on the dog. Zügel = master with pencil, master with brush.

Haha, that's pretty grim! I notice a lot of couples I perceive this way in cafes and such.

Love the observation of her hand gesture. That's the first time I've seen someone capture that weird thing people do in a drawing.

Thanks, Nick.
By the way, at a blog reader's suggestion, I'm experimenting with eliminating the Captcha step (apparently Blogger's spam detection is better now) and also allowing comments from users who are not registered with Blogger to comment.

As regulars know, I like to keep the forum very open, and welcome off-topic comments, relevant links, and divergent opinions. On the rare controversial topic, I just hope people will refrain from any ad hominem remarks to keep the discussion productive. As a rule, I only delete obvious spam.

If you leave a comment or a question, and I don't respond, forgive me! I'm often in a rush, but I read and appreciate all of your comments.

These narrative type sketches would be fun for readers to caption. This one makes me think of Woody Allen movies in which the couples are on completely different wavelengths.

I do this a lot - sketch people in restaurants, but yours is so alive - such personality and life to this drawing! The hands do it, I think. Love it, and once again you give me more to aspire to. Toulouse-Lautrec would be proud of this, I think.

So... Do you think they're married?

Thanks for making it easier to post, James! I've given up attempting to comment on several occasions due to the wonky captcha system...

Kind of sad really. It looks like she is trying to get his attention by waving her hand in his face, but he is 'tuning her out'...I have never got the nerve up to do sketches in public...yet. I do plein air on the beach, where people walk by, make a comment or two then go away. I guess I just have to 'tune people out' and not be so self concience.

Sketching at a restaurant so often means either you are alone quite a bit or who ever you are with, is alone quite a bit. Your sketches tell us more about the artist than those in the sketch - as is true with all art.

Thanks for the inspiration James. These story-packed, simple sketches have changed my outlook on sketchbooking.