Watercolor Warriors

(Direct link to video) Painting outdoors with watercolor is a tough challenge, even for highly trained professionals. In this episode Jeanette and I square off against dangerous wasps, rain, and wind in an attempt to paint an abandoned farm tractor.

Tools: Schmincke Watercolor Pocket Set , Caran D'Ache watercolor pencils, Moleskine Watercolor Notebook, and a 1/4 inch flat watercolor travel brush, Matthews Century Stand , Artist Umbrella and a fridge super magnet (thanks, Steve), shot on a Canon VIXIA.

Check out my other videos or subscribe to the GurneyJourney YouTube channel so you can see new videos before anyone else.

Generating Random Faces

These face-like patterns are what you get if you combine a random polygon generator with A.I. facial recognition software.

Instead of using face recognition software, it would be even more interesting to channel the multiple generation feedback loop in real time through the face-recognition areas of an individual human's brain. Depending on how you set things up, it could be a hallucinatory experience, leading either to kittens, monsters, familiar faces, or maybe Alfred E. Neuman.

Code by Phil McCarthy, Prosthetic Knowledge
via BoingBoing
Previously on GJ: Pareidolia and Apophenia
Abstraction Generator

Portraying Character

Russian portraitist Valentin Serov (1865-1911) once said: “Any human face is so complex and so unique that you can always find in it various traits that are worth portraying, be they good or bad.” 

 

“For my part,” he continued, “each time I appraise a person’s face, I am inspired—you might even say carried away—not by his or her outer aspect, which is often trivial, but by the characterization it can be given on canvas.

"That is why I am accused sometimes of having my portraits look like caricatures.” 

Valentin Serov, Portrait of Princess Olga Orlova, 1911. 

Quote is from a new book on Valentin Serov 

Kim Jung Gi

(Video link) This 75-minute time lapse video shows Kim Jung Gi drawing an uber-complex street scene out of his head with no lay-in.

The stream-of-consciousness marker drawing covers two walls. Judging from his change of shirts, it took about three days. It includes flying elephants, motorcycles, and an assortment of farm animals, all drawn from interesting angles.

I got hooked and watched the whole thing, listening to Radiolab and Sidebar podcasts, since the video has no soundtrack. It might be better to watch it on the YouTube page to see the video full size.
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Review of Kim Jung Gi's sketchbooks for sale
Muddy Colors post on Kim Jung Gi's books

View from Chick-fil-A

I’ve only eaten at a Chick-fil-A once, and that was before they became tied to the issue of same-sex marriage. 

I don’t think the subject of marriage, or even sex, entered my mind when I ventured into a Chick-fil-A near Youngstown, Ohio. It was last May, in the middle of the evening after a long day’s drive from New York.

My mind turned first to sketching. I was trying to figure out how to paint the view of the sunset over the BP filling station across the street. Seeing the gas station made me think about the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. I wondered whether people would forget about that disaster or whether the image of oily seabirds would be forever associated with the BP brand.

Eventually my thoughts turned toward food. I went to the counter and asked for a Chargrilled Chicken Sandwich. A young woman informed me that they didn’t have one.

I asked if they could make me one, and she said they had put away the ingredients. She was a nice girl, and seemed to be uncomfortable delivering the unwelcome news.

But wait, she said, there might be a Chicken Caesar Cool Wrap in the cold case in the back. She disappeared for a while and came back with a small packet wrapped in paper inside a clear plastic clamshell container.

Back at my table near the window, I peeled the wrapper and took a few bites between watercolor washes. I was as distracted as an iPhone junkie. Watercolor has a way of blotting all other thoughts from my mind. I stopped painting only to shake off the cheese shreds that had dropped onto my sketchbook.

The sunlight was dimming and the lights in the gas station were brightening, bouncing off the puddles left from a passing shower. I hurried to capture the fleeting light effect before the sun disappeared entirely.

Seeing color in terms of sound

(Video link) Artist Neil Harbisson was born without color vision. But thanks to a special device that turns colors into sounds, he can perceive colors in terms of tones and chords.

In this video, he describes what it's like to feel your brain remap itself and to become a cyborg.
Thanks, Yeevon

Special Delivery

Here's something that never happened before, and may never happen again. 

A customer named Sarah from Burlington, Ontario ordered a copy of the 20th Anniversary Edition of Dinotopia from our little online store. I had the book all wrapped up and was ready to put it in the mail when Google told me that I would be driving near her workplace on my trip back from Toronto. I realized the book would get to her faster if I just dropped it off myself.

On Tuesday morning I arrived at Sarah's office building. I asked the receptionist if Sarah might be free at the moment. I explained that Sarah had ordered a book, that I'm the author of the book, and that I've driven 500 miles away from home and would like to give it to her personally.

Sarah arrived. I handed her the package and returned the money she had paid for the extra shipping costs. She was a little surprised to find out that the delivery guy was also the author. She said she had all my other books, she enjoyed them since she was a kid, and this was the last one that completed her collection.

As an author, I'm always interested to meet my readers. I know I wouldn't be in this business without lots of people like Sarah. So thanks, Sarah, and thanks to each of my other readers. I wish I could hand deliver all my orders!

You can order books and prints from my website stores at JamesGurney.com or Dinotopia.com. No guarantee I'll bring them to you personally, but I would be happy to sign them for you.

Demo Portrait of Fernando Freitas

On Monday I shared a lecture and demo to a full house at the Academy of Realist Art in Toronto. 

(Video link) The model for the demo was Mr. Fernando Freitas, co-founder of the Academy. Since I only had 25 minutes to do the drawing, I used the same technique that I like to use for sketching people "in the wild"— in restaurants, subways, or concert halls.


Materials: Caran D'Ache watercolor pencils and a Niji Waterbrush on a smooth Fabriano Watercolor Pads.
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Check out my other videos or subscribe to the GurneyJourney YouTube channel so you can see new videos before anyone else.

I'd like to thank Fernando, and everyone who came to the talk at the Academy of Realist Art in Toronto, especially the folks who came all the way from Ottawa. And thanks to Lenny Dass, for shooting the video.

Previously on GurneyJourney: First visit to ARA in April 2009

Olympic Medals for Art

Between 1912 and 1952, the Olympic committee gave out medals for art as well as sporting events.


The tradition dates back to the founder of the modern games, Baron Pierre de Coubertin, "who saw art competitions as integral to his vision of the Olympics."

Read more on Wikipedia: "Art competitions at the Olympic Games"

Smithsonian: "When the Olympics Gave Out Medals for Art"

Thanks, J.Z. Torre

Femto Photography

New techniques in ultra high speed photography can slow down movement a trillion times. That's a million faster than the bullet-through-the-apple photos of Harold "Doc" Edgerton and it's enough to see light moving through space.



(Video link) You can watch the ripples of light as they travel through space and interact with materials. "It's like throwing a stone in a pond of water," says MIT researcher Ramesh Raskar, who presented the video at a TED Global talk, and who will offer the techniques in an open source mode.

Thanks, Dan and BestofYouTube