In-Flight Portrait

During the long flight from London to Cleveland yesterday, I drew a pencil portrait of a gentleman across the aisle.

He wasn’t aware I was sketching him. I observed him with occasional and sidelong glances. I didn’t want him to be self-conscious because his face would change. When I was finished, I showed it to him and he signed it. I did most of the sketch in HB and 4B graphite pencils, with the aid of a stomp and a kneaded eraser. (Click on the image below for a big enlargement)


My drawing shows him tapping the video screen to select a movie. He watched a film about young love. As I was drawing, I was thinking about identity and aging.

In the foundation of our hearts, none of us sees ourselves as old. Mentally we are all teenagers—teenagers who happen to be trapped in increasingly unreliable bodies.
-------
This picture appears in my book: Color and Light: A Guide for the Realist Painter

Centre for Life

We had a memorable visit to the Centre for Life in Newcastle, UK, where the “Return to Dinotopia” exhibition will be held through this summer.

This superb hands-on science discovery museum has an upstairs room where over 50 Dinotopia paintings are on display, along with a large format digital slide show taking viewers behind the scenes into the making of Dinotopia. I gave three slide presentations to a variety of groups in the egg-shaped auditorium.

One of the highlights was meeting a longtime Dinotopia Message Board administrator Nathalie, who came all the way from Holland.

Another highlight was listening to Noel Jackson, one of the directors of the science center, as he performed a piece that he composed called “Dancing with Dinosaurs.” Behind him on his right was the painting of the dinosaur playing a concertina in Dinotopia: Journey to Chandara.

Behind the scenes in the museum, I had a chance to hold a giant African land snail and a Madagascar hissing cockroach (above) in my hand. These are both surprisingly good creatures for interacting with the public, the museum's educators told me. They don't run around or bite or get stressed out too much from being handled. And young children, if they haven't been taught to fear them, kind of fall in love with snails and cockroaches.

Stillness and Action, Part 2

Yesterday we talked about portraying a place of stillness in a larger story, and we heard Howard Pyle’s argument for avoiding high action.

The development of high speed photography and the perfection of animation opened up an awareness in artists and public alike in the keyframe pose, a momentary phase of action that suggests the larger movement.

As Smurfswacker deftly pointed out in yesterday’s comments, a lot of mid-20th Century illustrators chose peak action to grab reader’s attention. I was always fascinated by Al Dorne’s over-the-top magazine illustration of a barbershop brawl, which was one of the demonstration drawings from the Famous Artists Course.

Action brings in the fourth dimension of time, but effective action paintings don't ignore two-dimensional design considerations. This painting by N.C. Wyeth shows Long John Silver pulling Jim Hawkins along on Treasure Island. The scene is activated by diagonal movement and opposing forces. It beautifully expresses the powerful forward energy and determination of the pirate, contrasted with Jim’s frail reluctance.

The key to successfully portraying a single moment of action is to find that instant that invites speculation about previous and subsequent events.

Photographer Cartier-Bresson (above) called it the “The Decisive Moment.” He said, “To me, photography is the simultaneous recognition, in a fraction of a second, of the significance of an event as well as of a precise organization of forms which give that event its proper expression.”

French philosopher E. Giard called this instant the point mort (dead point), a pregnant pause in the continous action of a figure or animal.

In the scene above from World War 1, Fortunino Matania has cast the soldier’s fate into doubt as he is frozen in a moment of great risk.

Tom Lovell shows Alexander first setting foot in Asia Minor to begin his historic conquest. Far from being gratuitous action, this moment points forward to epic events that lie ahead.

Whether you choose to paint a scene with stillness or action, try to give your image the greatest emotional resonance and narrative reach.
------
Decisive Moment definition.
More images by Matania from Palace Press.
Download a big file of the Dorne brawl scene from Leif Peng's Flickr sets.
This is one of the topics I cover (with different examples) in my upcoming book, Imaginative Realism.

Stillness and Action, Part 1

A painting presents itself to the viewer in its entirety, with everything visible at once. Without multiple panels or animation, you can show only a single moment.

The viewer scans the composition for clues about what has just happened and what might come next. If you want to show action, consider which part of the narrative has the most suspense, what Howard Pyle called the “Supreme Moment.”



To an extent, a painting can avoid showing action and can downplay the passage of time. Most of Vermeer’s paintings seem to exist in a kind of eternal present. Edward Hopper’s paintings (Nighthawks, above) often depict people waiting in an enigmatic suspense.


In this book jacket by Frank Frazetta, the Conan character is standing ready for action, leaving the threat for the reader to imagine. The design is stable, with the figure rising above the clutter of corpses below, his sword held in vertical stillness.

Pyle advised his students that “to put figures in violent action is theatrical and not dramatic.” He said that “in deep emotion there is a certain dignity and restraint of action which is more expressive.” The terror before the murder or the remorse afterward is more interesting than the act itself.

Most dramatic sequences build suspense toward a climax. Here in a pivotal moment of Treasure Island, Jim Hawkins and Israel Hands face each other in a life-or-death exchange. The outcome of the next moment is uncertain.

Often the Supreme Moment happens during a fateful meeting or departure. It could be the meeting of hero and villain, prisoner and captor, or lover and betrothed. Above, Ilya Repin shows the heartwrenching departure of a young recruit leaving the family farm.

N. C. Wyeth often chose a still moment that spoke for a larger story. Here a young worker pauses while sipping the cool water that the girl has brought him.

Tomorrow we'll look at the appeal of peak action.

Bewick’s Tailpieces

One of Newcastle's best known artists is Thomas Bewick (1753-1828). He was a wood engraver and an early pioneer and innovator of book illustration.

One of Bewick's specialties was the tailpiece, a small spot illustration filling the empty space at the end of a chapter. The Laing Art Gallery has an exhibit of these works, which they call "tale-pieces" because many of them tell a witty story or teach a moral lesson.

This one, which is reality only about two inches across, shows an old woman chasing geese. This kind of ornamental design frequently was surrounded by leaves and foliage. For that reason they came to be known as a vignettes, from the French word "vigne" meaning "vine."
----
The Laing Art Gallery exhibit will be shown through 18 October 2009.

Wikipedia on Thomas Bewick.

Scale Tip

Here’s a tip for making something look gigantic: exaggerate the contrast between large, soft forms and tiny, sharp details.

For example, in this pencil sketch of a B777-200 yesterday, I peppered the big sausage shape of the fuselage with lots of tiny accents, all the way down to the rivets around the cockpit windows. (Click to enlarge.)

For a drawing like this, you’re not necessarily aiming for an obsessive level of finish. Instead you’re emphasizing extreme contrasts of scale and ignoring the middle-size shapes, such as the service vehicles.

I used a cardboard stomp to soften the big shadow shapes on the ground and on the underside of the aircraft. And I kept the HB pencil honed to a needle-sharp point.

It looks like I'm sketching Jeanette's portrait here, but actually I'm looking past her out the window.
----
Photo by Little Nandi.com. Travel note: We're in Newcastle, U.K. now, a lovely city of honey-colored Victorian buildings left over from its industrial heyday. The architecture should make good watercolor sketching on Friday if the weather permits. Friday night the city transforms with its legendary "stag and hen" revelry.

Utopiales Poster, Part 7: The Painting

During the last week, I've been posting a blow-by-blow account of the progress on a single painting, the poster for the Utopiales Festival, which will take place later this year in Nantes, France.


Here's a video showing how the painting developed from the line drawing to the final image. I put the last strokes on the painting today.



The painting took twelve days in all: two days for thumbnails, two days for the maquette, two more days for the line drawing, and six days for the final oil painting. In cast you missed the previous stages of the artwork, check out the earlier posts in the series, listed in the blogroll at left.

Here's the full composition, called Décollage nocturne (Nighttime Liftoff) showing the Lepidopter taking off during moonlight from the Place Royale.

On the cockpit of the Lepidopter, I added the coat of arms of the city of Nantes. The passenger cabin says "Nantes - Dinotopia Express."

Was there a transport between Nantes and Dinotopia? Did Jules Verne have something to do with this? Was he more than just a witness to the liftoff of the Lepidopter? The gentlemen behind him are interviewing a farmer about strange sightings of giant reptiles on a farm in Clisson. Perhaps one day the mystery will be solved....
------
More information about the Utopiales International Festival of Science Fiction on its official website.

More about the music of the Hay Brigade and Dan Gurney's current travel adventures in France.

Tomorrow Jeanette and I head for Newcastle for the Dinotopia exhibit there.


Part 1: Initial Sketches
Part 2: Researching Insect Flight
Part 3: Maquette

Part 4: Lighting

Part 5: Pencil Drawing

Part 6: Washin

Part 7: The Painting

Comics in the Classroom

For any teacher considering using comics in the classroom, Teaching Degree.org has assembled a huge number of helpful resources, including benefits, resources, reading lists, lesson plans, manga & anime, and where to get free stuff.

(Above, Andy Wales of Lynch-Bustin Elementary School in Athens, PA, a pioneer promoter of comics to schoolkids). His blog is "Panel Discussion".

100 tips and tools for comics in the classroom, link.

Utopiales Poster, Part 6: Washin

This is Part 6 in the ongoing progress report on the Utopiales poster. The first steps of an oil painting are really important, because they set up opportunities for later stages of the rendering.

When I paint an imaginary scene in oil, I usually try for three strategies in the first statement:
1.Establish the overall color temperature for each region of the picture.
2. Suggest the large tonal statement of light and dark.
3. Keep everything a little lighter than the final rendering will be.

Following strategy #3 leaves you the option to achieve your final color rendering either transparently or opaquely. If you go too dark too soon, you can only correct it with opaques. Comparing the first step with the final below of Old Conductor from Journey to Chandara, the washin should look like the intended finish with a piece of tracing paper laid over it.

The reason for #2 is that every judgment needs to be seen in context. If you paint each area starting from white, like paint-by-numbers, it’s harder to make accurate choices. It can be done, but to me it makes more sense for observational work.

The first strategy could be called a color imprimatura. A moonlight scene might be washed all over with a light blue-green. If the scene has different colored lights, each light region should be bathed in the color of each source. If there are multi-colored light sources, a white object will take on the relative color of each source.
------
Thanks to Online University Reviews for naming Gurney Journey one of the "100 Best Scholarly Art Blogs" (#65, right next to my buddy Tony DiTerlizzi.) Kudos to my assistant professor, my budgie!
------
Earlier post on "Area-by-Area" painting, link.

Part 1: Initial Sketches
Part 2: Researching Insect Flight

Part 3: Maquette

Part 4: Lighting

Part 5: Pencil Drawing

Part 6: Washin

Part 7: The Painting

Line Drawing

We’re continuing a daily progress report on the poster for the Utopiales Festival in Nantes, France.

During the preliminary drawing stage, the studio fills with clutter.
Near the maquette of the flying machine are model horses, photos of Nantes, books about insects, coffee cups, and audio cassettes with recordings I’ve made of steam engines and street noises.

I love this photo of the square called Place Royale in Nantes. This is the period I’m trying to evoke. My dream is that a little over a hundred years ago, Nantes had strange visitors who arrived and departed by moonlight in this incredible flying machine. It flew very gently and majestically like a sailing ship, creaking and hissing steam.

Here’s the line drawing. This jpeg is a pretty large file, so if you click on it, you can see most of the details. Even though it’s just a line drawing, I’m thinking ahead to tone and color, which is coming up next.

Here’s a 40-second video showing a little about perspective and how to seal the drawing before painting.
----
More about the Utopiales Festival
Previous posts on Perspective Grid, Sealing the Surface

Part 1: Initial Sketches
Part 2: Researching Insect Flight
Part 3: Maquette

Part 4: Lighting

Part 5: Pencil Drawing

Part 6: Washin

Part 7: The Painting