Hampton Roads Sesquicentennial

150 years ago today, a strange looking vessel steamed out of the harbor at Norfolk, Virginia. It was the CSS Virginia, an ironclad with sloping sides, built over the burnt hull of the Merrimack (or Merrimac).

Thus began a famous naval battle of the Civil War, highlighted by the sinking of the USS Cumberland. The Cumberland went down bow-first after being rammed by the Virginia's 1500 pound ram.

On the second day of the battle, the two famous ironclads, USS Monitor and CSS Virginia, clashed with each other. They shot at each other at close range in the waterway near Newport News called Hampton Roads.

My original paintings of the ironclad cutaways above and the sinking of the Cumberland are all currently on view at the Mariner’s Museum in Newport News. The museum is hosting sesquicentennial events tomorrow from 10:00 to 4:00.

You can read on this blog about the making of the Cumberland painting:

Sinking of the Cumberland, Part 1A: The Backstory

Sinking of the Cumberland, Part 1B: The Research

Sinking of the Cumberland, Part 2: Choosing the Scene

Sinking of the Cumberland, Part 3: Acting it Out

Sinking of the Cumberland, Part 4: Final Art

Wikipedia on Hampton Roads 

Interview with naval historian Craig Symonds

Daily Press interactive diagram of the USS Monitor

Daily Press interactive diagram of the CSS Virginia

A large size map, with my painting of the Cumberland on the back, is available here.

The images also appear in Imaginative Realism

Favorite Series on GurneyJourney

This week the GurneyJourney blog passes 2,000 posts. For nearly the last five years, I've been doing a new blog post every day.

To commemorate the occasion, I’d like to present you with some of the most popular series of posts. These are big topics that I couldn't cover in a single day. Even if you're a regular visitor, maybe some of these will be new to you. 

Water Reflections Series

Water Reflections, Part 1

Water Reflections, Part 2

Water Reflections, Part 3

Color Wheel Series

Part 1: Wrapping the Spectrum
Part 2: Primaries and Secondaries
Part 3: Complements, Afterimages, and Chroma
Part 4: Problems with the Traditional Wheel
Part 5: The Munsell System
Part 6: Cyan, Magenta, and Yellow
Part 7: The Yurmby Wheel

Fire and Ice Series
Part 1: Fire and Ice: Rekindled
Part 2: Fire and Ice: Frazetta
Part 3: Fire and Ice -- Tom Kinkade
Part 4: Fire and Ice -- Ralph Bakshi
Part 5: Fire and Ice -- Living inside paintings



Utopiales Painting Series

Part 1: Initial Sketches

Part 2: Researching Insect Flight
Part 3: Maquette
Part 4: Lighting
Part 5: Pencil Drawing
Part 6: Washin

Animal Characters Series
Part 1: Antropomorphic Absurdities
Part 2: Humanization
Part 3: Near Relations
Part 4: Animalmorphism




Lines and the Brain Series
Lines and the Brain, Part 1
Lines and the Brain, Part 2
Lines and the Brain, Part 3
Lines and the Brain, Part 4



Artists' Lay Figures
Part 1: Artists' Lay Figures
Part 2: Artists' Lay Figures
Part 3: Artists' Lay Figures
Part 4: Artists' Lay Figures



Eyetracking and Composition
Eyetracking and Composition, part 1
Eyetracking and Composition, part 2
Eyetracking and Composition part 3


Borrowing
Borrowing, part 1
Borrowing, part 2





Dinotopian Fire Engine

Fire Engine, Part 1
Fire Engine, Part 2
Fire Engine, Part 3
Fire Engine, Part 4
Fire Engine, Part 5


Paint Texture

Paint Texture, Part 1
Paint Texture, Part 2
Paint Texture, Part 3





Origins of Dinotopia Series
Part 1: Childhood Dreams
Part 2: College Obsessions 
Part 3: Lost Empires
Part 4:  Dinosaurs
Part 5: Treetown
Part 6: The Illustrated Book
Part 7: Utopias 
Part 8: Building a World 
Part 9: Words and Pictures 
Part 10: Canyon Worlds 
Part 11: Putting it Together
Part 12: Book Launch


Gamut Masking Method Series

Gamut Masking, Part 1
Gamut Masking, Part 2

Gamut Masking, Part 3

Studio Lighting Series
Studio Lighting, Part 1: Equipment
Studio Lighting, Part 2: Key and Fill
Studio Lighting, Part 3: Edge Lighting
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I'd to express my thanks to you for giving me such interesting feedback and support all the way along. Your comments have made this more of a learning experience than a teaching experience.
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Get a lot of this information in book form in Color and Light and Imaginative Realism

War Jitters

I sketched a man sitting alone in the diner yesterday.

He noticed me drawing him and I invited him to join us at our booth. As he watched me draw, he started telling his story. 

The son of a minister, he joined the military at the end of World War 2. He saw the concentration camps, ruined cities in Germany, and starving, angry people. 

Sometimes a little thing -- a noise, or a TV show -- will snap him back into those memories. Once he woke up in the middle of the night with a bad dream. In his sleep he threw his arms out wide and hit his wife, so bad that she had to go to the hospital. He was very sorry, and she understood, but still he thinks about it all the time, and now he takes medication to calm himself.

Those guys in Washington talk about war like it’s easy, he said. They send young people over to do terrible things. And if the young soldiers live, they often come back missing a leg or an arm. And then they’ve got the horrors of war in their heads all the rest of their lives, he said.

The waitress came and refilled our coffee. “Here I am, ruining this beautiful day,” the man said. 

"Not at all, it’s OK," I said. 

The sun streamed in through the windows. A little bit of snow clung beneath the shadows of the bushes outside. 

Howard Pyle's Criticism

Today is the birthday of Howard Pyle, and it just so happens that the magazine ImagineFX has honored Mr. Pyle with a special issue devoted to his lasting legacy.

The cover of the magazine shows a pirate lady by Aly (Alastair) Fell. The issue also has a workshop by Dan Dos Santos. I sketched them both at Illustration Master Class.   

I contributed an article to the issue on Pyle’s working methods and his teaching philosophy.

One of the reasons Pyle was so admired as a teacher was his unique way of critiquing student work in his composition class. Student’s preliminary charcoal drawings were presented for Pyle’s comments one evening each week. The master would choose just a few pieces to talk about.

He didn’t just talk in abstract terms or how to apply brushstrokes. Instead he entered deeply into the students’ inspiration, and put into words what they were groping to achieve. 

They returned to their studios enchanted, transformed by what he said and they knew just what changes to make as they went to the finished picture.

For example, speaking about a painting, now lost to us, called “Wisdom giving the light of knowledge to Youth” by a Mr. Edwards, Pyle said:


"The art student learns rules for doing things but all the rules in the world never made a picture. A great picture can only be made through inspiration and truth, and rules are of use only for correcting.


But why put the sun behind those turrets, and that weak light burning in the sage’s hand—the light of the sun would have obliterated the flickering lamp-light.


That mediaeval life was dark and peopled with men of iron—fierce and bloodthirsty. Light to them was precious.


I can imagine how the painters of that day would have treated this.  Albrecht Dürer would not have made a flimsy doorway and this thin woodwork.  This ancient structure would have been massive, dark and mysterious, and this figure of age would have been the very incarnation of all the handed-down wisdom of the years and not the ordinary old man that you have made.


The youth would have been fresh and full of ardor—eager to go on his journey.


To youth the world is boundless but as one grows older one looks about and says, 'why, my possibilities are growing smaller. I cannot do this and must keep within these bounds.' And as age advances and one knows more of oneself and the world about one the more do the limitations increase.


As I grow older I feel that my life is narrowing down to a house built of my environment and  around me are all the circumstances and habits of my life and of my forefathers.”

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MORE INFO:

ImagineFX magazine is on the stands in the USA now.

Illustration Master Class is now fully registered, but there is a wait list.

Howard Pyle blog, the go-to place for Pyle trivia.

The Pyle exhibit will continue this June at the Norman Rockwell Museum

Howard Pyle book with my essay on his methods

Alastair Fell

Dan Dos Santos

New Leaf-Nose Bat

National Geographic reports that scientists in Vietnam have discovered a new type of bat.

With his beady eyes and strange nose, this guy struck me at first as weird or scary or monstrous. But the more I learn about him, the more beautiful he becomes. According to scientists, the “leaf-nosed” facial protuberances serve as both transmitter and antenna, apparently playing a role in echolocation.

Strange New Leaf-Nosed Bat

Three-Legged Soccer

Here’s a painting that didn’t make it into Dinotopia: Journey to Chandara.

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. 

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MORE

Get a copy of Dinotopia: Journey to Chandara signed

Previously on GurneyJourney

Tuggle and Plank Walking

Dinotopia at the Children's House

Residency at the Woodson Art Museum

Video Link. I'm at the Woodson Art Museum in Wisconsin doing a residency.

Teachers, I'll be doing a presentation on Dinotopia in the classroom tomorrow, Saturday. The Dinotopia exhibition will be on view here until April 7.

Zugel Dog Drawing

Even if you let a sleeping dog lie, you’re lucky if you get 15 minutes on one pose before it shifts to another.

That makes Heinrich von Zugel’s pencil study is especially impressive. Note the planar breakdown of form in the shoulder, which almost looks like a cube. His form analysis is based on a deep knowledge of anatomy, as he was a professor of animal painting at the academy in Munich.

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Teachers: You might still be able to sign up for the educator's workshop that I'll be giving this Saturday at the Woodson Art Museum in Wausau, Wisconsin from 10-11:30 AM. The event is part of the Dinotopia exhibition, which will be going on through April 7. 

Drawing Cartoon Hands

When drawing or painting any object, it helps to figure out the big shapes first before defining the details.

That’s especially important in drawing hands. Disney animator Preston Blair wrote one of the classic books on animation drawing. He advised conceiving the hand as a mitten first before drawing the fingers. The little finger can be unevenly placed for variety.

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There are lots more tips and examples on John K’s Animation Lessons

Thanks, Michael Stancato

Month-long field study

John Henry Hill (1839-1922) painted this oil study near Nyack, New York during July of 1863. It occupied him “nearly every afternoon in the month while our civil war was going on.” 

Painting an extended field study like this means working in light conditions that change drastically by the hour. This is especially true in a woodland setting, where the light and shadow projected down through the trees sweeps rapidly across the scene. 

The detail shows a section of the work about six inches square. Such extensive studies were common among the so-called "American Pre-Raphaelites." These painters followed the landscape theorist John Ruskin, who advocated: “Go to Nature in all singleness of heart, and walk with her laboriously and trustingly, having no other thought but how best to penetrate her meaning, rejecting nothing, selecting nothing, and scorning nothing." 

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More about John Henry Hill
Book: The New Path: Ruskin and the American Pre-Raphaelites

Thanks to the Metropolitan Museum in New York, which offers a high resolution file of the painting on its website, and has the painting on view in its new American wing.