Venice Beach, plein-air oil, 9x 12 inches.
I had fun with this one putting most of the detail way up in the upper right, and letting the rest be open spaces.
Venice Beach
Source: gurneyjourney.blogspot.com
Cats Juggling Balls
Cats Juggling Balls by Utagawa Kuniyoshi (1797-1861)
"Since then, he worked energetically on all kinds of genres of ukiyo-e including “musha-e (warrior pictures)” of heroes, “giga (caricatures)”, landscapes, “bijin-ga (pictures of beautiful women)”, “yakusha-e (portraits of kabuki actors)”, and pictures for children."
Source: gurneyjourney.blogspot.com
Botanical Art or Plein-Air Painting?
Is there a difference between botanical art and plein-air painting?
While both may result in attractive images of plants, the botanical artist is more concerned with portraying individual specimens with a scientist’s perspective, removing a plant from its context to understand the structure and exploring the beauty in that way.
The plein-air artist pays attention to the whole living ensemble as influenced by light, air, atmosphere, spatial depth. It’s possible to combine the two visual approaches—and the thought process behind them—to see both the forest and the trees.
Source: gurneyjourney.blogspot.com
Manu Forti
Thirteen years old is the age when I started to figure out who the heck I was. I discovered it was possible to make a living with my hands in graphic arts, calligraphy, animation, or illustration.
All my heroes—Howard Pyle, N.C. Wyeth, Norman Rockwell, Preston Blair—had their heyday between 1900 and 1940. They were long gone before I got started. But that didn't matter to me. They were all people in books, anyway. I just saw the glimmer of a path out of the thicket of teenager-hood into the possibility of an adult life.
Source: gurneyjourney.blogspot.com
Black Umbrellas
Susan asks: "Do you recommend black umbrellas for plein-air artists?"
No, I really don't. Here's why I don't think a black or silver umbrella is useful. The goal of any sun-modifying system should be to transform direct sunlight into soft (indirect) light. The amount of light on the artwork—and the color of that light—should be as similar as possible to the amount and color of the light on the subject.
The problem with blocking the light entirely with black or silver material is that the level of illumination will be too low on the work, making the eye have to adjust from one to another. Worse yet, the only light shining on the work is whatever bounces up from the ground. This light is often highly colored, especially if it’s grass, bricks or dirt, making accurate color judgments almost impossible.
All that doesn't even take into account another issue that all umbrellas face: wind! They're wind traps, and lead to blowdowns.
Instead I recommend you make your own white diffuser system. They give good soft diffused light, they're easy to use, and they don't lead to blowdowns. I've made several variations and I demonstrate them on YouTube and my Gumroad video about sketch easels.
Source: gurneyjourney.blogspot.com
Alice in Larvaeland
No, it's not AI art—not digital either. I painted it for fun in acrylic during lunch break while I was a 22-year-old working as a background painter on the animated movie "Fire and Ice."
I suppose I was tapping into some weird corners of my subconscious mind, trying to figure out how to adapt H.R. Giger's biomorphism to landscape painting, and tossing some story possibilities out there for Ralph Bakshi's team to play with.
Source: gurneyjourney.blogspot.com
Shadow Letters
Sign painters and show-card artists in the golden age of penmanship had a variety of styles of applying shadows to make letters stand out.
"On letters A, Y, V, W, M, the shade is narrower in width on the diagonal "letter strokes" that are affected by the shade at a forty-five degree angle.
"On ordinary work and Card Writing, the relief shade is most commonly used, as it permits of quick execution, and in most cases is rendered in single stroke, using a brush that will accommodate itself to the width of the shade desired.
"Where extremities of letters are close together, the stroke can be left disconnected, which liberty is legitimate and permissible, especially on card work.
"On the relief shade leave "relief space" quite wide—i. e., the space between the edge of letter and inner edge of shade; it gives the letter better emphasis and is more professional."
"Where extremities of letters are close together, the stroke can be left disconnected, which liberty is legitimate and permissible, especially on card work.
"On the relief shade leave "relief space" quite wide—i. e., the space between the edge of letter and inner edge of shade; it gives the letter better emphasis and is more professional."
From A Show at Sho'-Cards by Atkinson
Source: gurneyjourney.blogspot.com
Developing Neural Pathways
Learning to paint requires developing two different sets of neural pathways. One is the cognitive / perceptual skill of strategic observation, where you learn to see what you need to see at each stage of the process, no more, no less.
The other is a cognitive / perceptual / motor pathway that allows you to plan a move of the hand to pick a brush, lift the right amount of paint of the right color and consistency, and apply it in a way that gets you closer to the interpretation you visualized.
Much of this neural architecture takes place outside the cranial vault and requires that you develop new skills of hand/eye coordination, head movement, and even breathing.
Neuroscience News: The Link Between Drawing and Seeing in the Brain
Science Direct: Digest of Motor Learning Articles
Source: gurneyjourney.blogspot.com
The Rhinecliff Hotel
The Rhinecliff Hotel overlooks the Hudson River alongside the railroad tracks. For many years it was the scene of lively Irish music sessions.
There was a hole in the tin ceiling where the resident squirrel (or was it a rat?) stuck his head through when the music really got going. Sometimes a train would thunder by right in the middle of a melancholy slow air.
Other times the "phantom pay phone" would ring. There had once been a payphone, but someone removed the phone, leaving the ringer intact behind the wall. When it would go off, you'd just have to wait for it to quit ringing, because no one could answer it.
Someone bought the hotel and rebuilt it at great expense, but the business fell through, and it sits vacant now.
Source: gurneyjourney.blogspot.com
The Death King Louis II of Hungary
Louis II was a king of Hungary whose life was framed with drama. At his premature birth he was kept alive by court doctors who killed animals to wrap the baby in the warmth of their carcasses as a primitive incubator.
He died at age 20 during a battle against the Ottoman Turks.
His story was immortalized by Hungarian painter Bertalan Székely. According to Wikipedia, "Nearly the entire Hungarian Royal army was destroyed in nearly two hours on the battlefield. During the retreat, the twenty-year-old king died when he fell backwards off his horse while trying to ride up a steep ravine of the Csele stream. He fell into the stream and, due to the weight of his armor, he was unable to stand up and drowned."
The Discovery of the Corpse of King Louis II by Bertalan Székely, 1860
Székely based the reconstruction on a letter by Ferenc Sárffy, who experienced the battle. The composition and arrangement of figures and lighting evoked feelings of national pride and independence.
Source: gurneyjourney.blogspot.com
