It's Casein Week, Day One

I goofed around a little with casein paint when I was in art school, but then I forgot about it. I moved on to oil, gouache, and watercolor. Fast-forward thirty years. In 2013 at an art convention I learned it was still being manufactured, so I thought I'd give it a try again.

Mountain Stream, casein, 5 x 8 inches

When I unscrewed the cap and inhaled the unique smell, the memories of my art school days flooded back.

Part of my fascination with the medium is that it's old fashioned. It was a favorite of many of the old-school illustrators I admire, such as John Berkey and Harry Anderson. Casein was popular with illustrators for the same reasons as gouache. It dries fast to a matte surface and the colors photograph well. The slight difference from gouache is that it has a milk-based binder, which seals just enough so that it won't reactivate with successive layers (unless you really scrub).

If you've been following the blog, you'll know that casein has become one of my favorite media for outdoor painting. Here's a link to all 52 blog posts tagged with "casein."

My newest Gumroad tutorial "Casein Painting in the Wild" releases today.

Here's the first trailer. (Link to YouTube) I tackle seven different painting challenges from start to finish and show you a wealth of practical tips that you can apply to other kinds of opaque water-based media, such as acrylic or gouache.

I'm told that casein is hard to find in Europe, but you can get it in the USA from Amazon. If you can't find casein in your region, no worries. You can substitute gouache or Acryla Gouache and get very similar results.

Links and resources

"Casein Painting in the Wild"
HD Digital download on Gumroad (Credit cards)
HD Digital download on Sellfy (Paypal) Buy now
DVD at Kunaki (ships worldwide) or Amazon
Casein Explorers Pack (12) (A good introductory palette that gives you pretty wide gamut.)
Casein 6 Pack (The colors I used for this painting. On its own, it's a rather muted palette. It makes a good supplement to the 12 pack.)
Casein 6-pack with travel brush set (Same set as above with the short-handled set).

The manufacturer Richeson put together the sets based on the colors I usually use. Full disclosure: I get a small percentage when you buy a set of caseins from the Amazon links above. The Richeson company did not sponsor me to make the video, nor did they review or approve the content.

If you have any questions about casein, please ask them in the comments, and I'll answer some of them tomorrow.

SciVizNYC 2016

The first annual SciViz conference took place in New York City last Friday. The guest speakers at SciViz discussed data visualization and the connection between art and science.



Nigel Holmes showed case studies of his witty hand-drawn explanatory graphics.

Mike Deal showed sonographs of whale songs. Len Small presented examples of the art he has used for the magazine Nautilus.

Giorgia Lupi talked about her book project "Dear Data," where she corresponded with a friend using postcards illustrating the random and mundane data of their lives.

Enrico Bertini's talked about how he communicates with clients, not just about the image that they want to commission, but also about how the visuals can help inspire new lines of scientific inquiry.

Michael Grimaldi shared how he has taken his art students at the New York Academy into the dissection lab to deepen their knowledge of anatomy.

Ed Bell showed how he used 3D graphics to help generate imagined landscape views on far-off planets.


My talk was about face recognition: what artists, scientists, and technologists can learn from each other.

SciViz Conference

Caricature Iterations

It often takes four or five tries at a caricature to before a theme emerges. Then it's a matter of simplifying. 

Tony DeMarco, fiddler in the Irish tradition from NYC

Tony was talking and moving as he played a concert, so I had a chance to observe him in a variety of angles and expressions. 

If you want a reality check, you can watch Tony talk and fiddle on this YouTube video.

Using Cast Shadows for Depth

The late afternoon sun is casting shadows across this street in Poughkeepsie. Bands of light and shadow crossing the middle ground can add a lot of depth to a scene like this. 

The shadows also reveal the crown of the road. Streets are always slightly crowned to allow the water to flow off to the sides.

Advertising Art--A Washing Machine as a Masterpiece

This magazine ad from 1957 features a painting by Tom Lovell of an artist at work. 

It was a different age in advertising, not only because they hired an illustrator for the visual, but because of the rational argument of the copywriting, explaining why they chose the kind of grease they use to lube the machine. 

------

Thanks, Jim Pinkoski (The ultimate collector of Tom Lovell tearsheets.)

New tools will let you edit and invent spoken words

Adobe recently gave a sneak peak of new software called #VoCo with an amazing (and potentially alarming) capacity to edit recorded speech.

Users will easily be able to change word order and even to invent new words using a simple keyboard interface. Novel words can be generated if you have a database of about 20 minutes of recorded speech to draw from.  (Link to YouTube).

A few implications:
1. Fake news stories with manufactured quotes will be easy to create.
2. Human voice actors won't be need to read an entire recorded book or to voice every line for an animated film, especially for low budget productions.
3. Adding voices in ADR to the sound edit of a film will be much easier.

Comic Art and Illustration Auction in Paris

Jean-Pierre Gibrat, La Ligne de Demarcation

Christie's Auctions in Paris will be hosting a sale of bande dessinée and illustration this Saturday, November 19. 

The sale will include work by Peyo, Jean Giraud / Moebius, Albert Uderzo, Hergé, Juanjo Guarnido, Enki Bilal, and Daniel Cacouault. The show was organized in part by Olivier Souillé of Daniel Maghen Gallery.

Bande Dessinée et Illustration at Christie's Paris

Strange Light at the Tire Place

Yesterday while Jeanette was at the supermarket, I stood on the hill across from the discount tire place and imagined the world in different light. 

Mavis Tire, casein 5 x 8 inches

The line written on the sketchbook page says: "They told us to meet the ship at midnight at the tire place."

This short video documents the painting process, but also sets up the mood and story a little more. If you're receiving this by email, you might need to follow this link to watch the video on Facebook.
-----

Casein Painting in the Wild Launches in a Week

I'm pleased to announce that my next tutorial video, Casein Painting in the Wild, will release one week from today. If you're not familiar with it, casein is an opaque, fast-drying water-based medium that was popular before acrylic. 

It's similar to gouache, but given its milk-based binder, it dries to a sealed surface that is ideally suited to painterly but precise handling.

We'll go on on seven plein-air painting adventures, with all the footage shot on location. Each episode demonstrates a different approach for achieving accuracy and spontaneity. I document the various stages from start to finish, complete with a discussion of materials and a detailed and helpful commentary about the thinking behind the technique.

The lessons are applicable to other opaque painting media, especially oil, acrylic, and gouache—so you don't have to own or use casein to get a lot out of it. 

The video is widescreen, 74 minutes long. It will be available as a DVD at $24.50 USA, and an HD download at $14.50.

Book Review: The Forgotten Art of Fortunino Matania

Those of you who have been reading my blog for a while will be familiar with Fortunino Matania (1881-1963), an illustrator specializing in historical subjects for the British news magazines.

I recently received an advance copy of Drawing from History: The Forgotten Art of Fortunino Matania, which will be available soon. Full disclosure: I was asked to write the preface to the book, which I was glad to do, being a fan of his work for more than 30 years.

The book was ten years in the making. It's a giant volume, 10 x 13 inches (25 x 33 cm), 340 pages with 750 illustrations, many of which were taken from the original art.

Matania's illustrations portrayed everything from ancient Rome to English Royalty to contemporary life in the early 20th century, all visualized with authoritative detail.

Lucinda Gosling's introduction to the book tells the story of Matania's life, as well as his working method for producing a great number of watercolor and wash drawings under tight deadlines. Sometimes he did so with the help of props and models, and sometimes he worked entirely from his rich imagination.


Matania's World War I illustrations, made with the aid of interviews with veterans and visits to battlefields, are well represented in the book.

There is also a good sampling of Matania's lesser-known science fiction pictures. He illustrated several science fiction novels, such as "Pirates of Venus" and "Lost on Venus" by Edgar Rice Burroughs, and "When Worlds Collide" by Edwin Balmer and Phillip Wylie.

His imaginative work has a steampunk feel that was a big inspiration to 20th century illustrators like Frank Frazetta, Al Williamson, and Roy Krenkel.

This book is a comprehensive resource for concept artists and storyboarders who want references on a variety of historical scenes, and also an inspiration for academic artists who want to develop their imaginative muscles.
------
Resources and Links

Drawing from History: The Forgotten Art of Fortunino Matania is taking advance orders currently listed as not available at Amazon, but the publisher's website in the U.K. says it's taking orders. Part of the edition is a boxed set that's limited to 100 copies, as well as a standard hardcover edition for £60.00.

There's also a Special issue on Matania in Illustrator's Magazine.

If you're a collector, you might want to check out the catalog of original works and prints by Matania produced as a companion volume for £20.00.

Previous posts: 

Matania famous demo of the Belgian barricade

Matania's props and models

Fortunino Matania on Wikipedia