Minnesota's Bell Museum and the Jaques Dioramas

Stephen Quinn, author of the book Windows on Nature, has been instrumental in saving the priceless museum dioramas of the American Museum of Natural History.

Francis Lee Jaques was one of the artists who contributed to the New York museum, and he also helped to create the James Ford Bell Museum in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Now Mr. Quinn is calling attention to a plan to "modernize" the museum, which means changing or taking away the irreplaceable dioramas. 

Quinn says: "Sadly, I have learned last week that the Minnesota State Legislature has approved funds to build a new natural history museum on the University of Minnesota campus at Saint Paul and this new plan calls for gutting the interior of the Bell Museum in Minneapolis, an attempted removal of some of its unique collection of irreplaceable dioramas in order to “reinterpret” some in the new museum, and the possible storage or disposal of the rest."

The J.F. Bell Museum is the only museum in North America purpose-built as a theater for natural history museum displays. According to Quinn, the dioramas cannot be moved or stored. So if the planners went forward with this scheme, it would be a loss for the art and the science represented by these dioramas.
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Read Stephen Quinn's complete statement about the issue

Book: Windows on Nature: The Great Habitat Dioramas of the American Museum of Natural History
Wikipedia on Francis Lee Jaques

My Dad

I meant to post this yesterday, but here's a charcoal portrait I did of my father, Robert Gurney, back in 1978 when I was 20.

Robert Gurney (1923-2001) was a mechanical engineer who worked on early communication satellites and helped with research and development for Cal Tech, Stanford Linear Accelerator, and JPL. In his spare time he welded metal sculptures of wild birds, constructed radio controlled model airplanes, and did voice recordings for the blind. He was a devoted dad of five kids, and always encouraged me in my drawing and building projects.

Book Review: Art of DreamWorks Animation

The art book publisher Abrams recently released a big book called The Art of DreamWorks Animation. It's a lavish visual survey of the art that went into all of DWA's films, from Antz and Prince of Egypt to Dragon 2 and the not-yet-released Home (below), based on a book by Adam Rex.


Here's a diagram showing how the elemental shape language guided the design of characters and environments. DreamWorks Animation has tried to stay away from a general house style, and as a result, each film has a different look to suit the story.

The book includes samples of artwork by most of DreamWorks' deep bench of talent that have worked there over the years, including Christophe Lautrette (who art-directed the book), Nico Marlet, Paul Lasaine, Nathan Fowkes, and Chris Sanders, but the individual pieces are not credited.

Presumably they arrived at this decision because many of the images are the result of the combined talent of several artists. Instead, credits for the topline directors are given at the beginning of each film's chapter.


Some of the characters, such as Shrek, went through many startling rejected versions.

DreamWorks should be commended for including these "roads not taken," because other studios have at times suppressed such alternate character designs, so as not to weaken the unified marketing image.

Above is some of the art from 2004's Shark Tales. 

Throughout the book, the artwork is not identified as digital or hand-made. Probably many pieces are a combination of the two. As the years progress the work becomes increasingly digital, but it's really hard to tell and maybe it doesn't matter.

During the last 20 years, DreamWorks Animation has become the largest animation studio and has released thirty animated films, and they're all covered in the book. Each film gets about five double page spreads.

The book is 324 pages long. It's 10x12 inches and weighs 5 pounds, 4 ounces.
More info about the book on Amazon: The Art of DreamWorks Animation

There's also a big art exhibition of DreamWorks Animation in Australia through October 5
and there will be public lectures and discussions at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image.
And here's an interview with DWA production designer (and AD of the book) Christopher Lautrette
All images ©DreamWorks Animation, SKG.

Brian Froud (and friend)

I drew this portrait of Brian Froud (author of Faeries and Trolls) as he gave his lecture at Illustration Master Class in Massachusetts.

OK, I took a few liberties. He didn't have the top hat or the little fellow on his shoulder. But his wonderful faith in the reality of his unseen world had me believing, too.

Allen Williams, Painting

I asked Allen Williams if I could paint him while he worked at Illustration Master Class in Amherst, Massachusetts yesterday. He said yes, so I set up my little casein easel. 

I love Allen's artwork, which has infinite depths and the quiet rhythms of Nature. I was attracted to him as a subject because of the joyful, focused attention he brings to his work. 

Allen Williams, painted by James Gurney. Photo by Lauren Panepinto.

Cool window light flooded his work area from behind, and the room lights were relatively warm. I had to decide between framing his profile against the dark painting or the cool window, and I think it could have worked either way.

Over a colored pencil lay-in, I washed in some warm and cool tones and started to establish the darks with a half-inch flat synthetic brush.

Now I'm blocking in big areas. I want the profile silhouetted against the light, but that dark edge of the painting is too hard.

I soften and cool that edge. I rub out and repaint the ear a couple of times, and sort out the big plane changes on his back. I switch to a smaller round as I paint details of his face.



Next I define the hand, add more detail in the hair, and a little more resolution in Allen's painting.

Scroll back up to the top for the finish, where I add the glasses, the mahl stick and I rework the bottom edge of the vignette.

I used the following colors of casein:
Titanium white

Cadmium Yellow Light

Raw sienna

Light red

Burnt umber

Cobalt blue

Cadmium red
Brushes:
Synthetic half-inch flat
Synthetic round #6
Sketchbook:
Watercolor journal

Allen Williams' website

"Greg Day" at IMC

Graphic novel artist Greg Ruth (The Lost Boy) made a surprise appearance at Illustration Master Class.

When Mike Mignola (Hellboy) saw the sketch I did of Greg, he said "Ruth is human broccoli."

The Drybrush Master from Ben Tobin on Vimeo.
Greg Ruth did a brush and ink demo to an enthusiastic group of students, right after sharing the trailer for the documentary about him called "Drybrush Master." (Direct link to video)


Later in the day, painting ninja Greg Manchess showed us how he was able to produce more than 20 oil illustrations for a client who only gave him about two weeks.
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The Lost Boy

Illustration Master Class 2014

We spent our first day at Illustration Master Class yesterday. It's a week-long workshop in Amherst, Massachusetts, where about 85 students work with a small group of instructors as they create a fantasy painting or sculpture.

Among the featured guests this year are Brian and Wendy Froud from England. The book Faeries that Brian did with Alan Lee in 1978 was a huge inspiration for Dinotopia, so it was a treat to meet him. Photo courtesy of Renae Taylor.

He designed the Jim Henson movie "The Dark Crystal," where he met his wife Wendy, a puppet/doll maker. She brought along some of her art dolls, including the one I'm holding, which is an affectionate caricature of Brian.  

Brian and Wendy recently collaborated on a new book about Trolls, which features the sculpts. They're made from a polymer clay called Fimo Puppen over an aluminum wire armature wrapped in masking tape. They're very delicately painted with transparent colors to achieve depth to the skin tones. 

In their focus group, the Frouds are working with a small group of students. Those working with Brian painted washes of watercolor tone into a sketchbook, and then magically pulled out the faces and figures suggested by the chance arrangements. Other students worked primarily with Wendy, building small figures under her guidance.

Casein Questions

My friend Jim asked:

"We’re headed off on vacation next week. And I’m mulling over my options for what art supplies to bring. I had eliminated oils, as there’s rarely time to really paint on a family trip. So I was leaning towards watercolor, but I find transparent media somewhat limiting, so maybe I’d bring along a few tubes of gouache, too.

Then I was just touching up a frame here and the light bulb flashed on in my brain: casein! You seem to be pleased with the medium as a full-service plein air sketch medium. I’ve never used it except on frames. But I have a full array of tube colors. Have you taken casein on a trip as your prime medium? When you travel with casein, do you work on watercolor paper? Or just in a sketchbook? And what have you used for a travel palette for casein? I guess the big issue I’d be concerned with is losing quantity of dry paint on the palette. (whereas gouache can kind of be re-wet)."

What do you think? I’d really appreciate your thoughts and experience with the medium.

Hi, Jim,

Like you, I don’t take my oils traveling as much as I used to, mainly because of TSA hassles and solvent, stains, and drying-time issues. I always take watercolor and water-soluble colored pencils in my most basic belt-pouch kit (I take this kit EVERYWHERE including the opera and the ballet!), but I add gouache or casein when I want to get more involved in opaques. I like the fact that I can ramp up from drawing to drawing-and-watercolor and then to watercolor-plus-opaque. This completely bridges the gap between drawing and painting.

Casein is an older medium than oil, and I'm told Egyptians used it, and that it actually conserves better than oil--no yellowing for one thing.

I usually work in hardbound watercolor-paper sketchbooks. The paper is beefy enough to handle full wet washes. Casein emulsion isn't that strong in impastos, so if you want to work with a lot of texture you need to either preload the whites with acrylic modeling paste or thick gesso or paint on a very solid surface. Unless you really gob on the impastos, there shouldn’t be any issues with cracking or adhesion. Of course you could work on stretched watercolor paper, board, or panel.

Gouache is probably better than casein for fine detail. I think casein lends itself best to bold opaque direct handling, as with the illustrators John Berkey and Harry Anderson. Some people don’t particularly like casein because of the “chalkiness,” the shift in drying colors, the matte surface, or the general lightness of the darks, but I love all those qualities.

Casein is also a good underpainting medium for oil. If you want a more oil-like surface with casein alone, you can varnish it. You can get casein emulsion and casein varnish. I've tried varnishing it, but I think the velvety matte surface has an attraction all its own.

There’s no way to rewet the dry paint on the palette, but you can keep it wet longer if you put it on a damp paper towel. I wouldn’t want to keep it wet on the palette for more than a few hours because of the risk of mold forming.

Other issues: it kills brushes, and has some ammonia in it, so you shouldn't use natural bristles or sables, but synthetics instead.

I use a variety of limited palettes, and usually only take out about five tubes at a time, just to keep life simpler. The last time I went out I took one similar to Stobart’s palette (Titanium white, ultramarine blue, pyrrole (Winsor) red, burnt sienna, cadmium yellow light, and permanent green). Are you familiar with that one?


One last thing: it has an unusual smell which you either like or don't like, but I've discovered that the smell attracts animals. Maybe it's the milk-based binder. 

All the best.
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Here's more about the tools I was using:
I was using Richeson / Shiva casein
1/4 inch flat brush 
Moleskine watercolor notebook
Waterman Phileas red fountain pen 
Lots of info on casein at Richeson's FAQ about casein

Reference Reference

How does an elephant lie down? It pulls itself forward, lowering its rear half onto the knees, then settling the front half on the elbows. (Link to video)

A free website called ReferenceReference has a wealth of stock video clips of such animal actions. Most clips are a few seconds long, and they're intended as reference for animators. 

But illustrators will find them fascinating too, because it's really important to know where a pose is coming from and where it's going.


Most of the clips show human action. There are several categories for fighting poses, including hand-to-hand, weapons, kick boxing, and defense. Typically they're shot against a simple background, with a grid to show the perspective of the floor.


There are also clips in categories like dance, contortionist, and push-pull-lift. The actors are divided into men, women, and children, with a variety of ages and ethnicities.


In addition to full-figure actions, there are close-up actions and facial expressions. Often the same action is presented from the front and side views at the same time so that you can get a clear spatial sense of what's going on.

For any actual illustration or animation job, of course, you will probably want to cast and direct your own models, but this resource is useful for generating ideas, for understanding basic principles, or for getting yourself out of habits.

And it's a good supplement to Muybridge's Human Figure in Motion or the Books of art poses.
ReferenceReference