Boss Cat

My friend's rescue-cat Ralphie lost an eye and broke his jaw when he tangled with a car....but don't feel sorry for him.

He's the toughest cat in town. All the other cats—and even the dogs—are terrified of him, and he'll grab the brisket off table if you turn your back for a second.

Oil change. Let's paint!

We're stuck for an hour and a half in the waiting room of the tire place while the car gets an oil change and a tire rotation. The icy rain is coming down on the remnants of snow.

Oil Change, gouache, 5 x 8 inches.

Luckily I have a few tubes of gouache. I choose Prussian blue, perylene maroon, cadmium yellow deep, and white. I'm painting over a page primed with a violet-gray layer of casein. That color becomes the basic tone of the outside scene.

The indoor scene is a study in warm and cool—cool on the horizontal planes that catch cool light from outdoors, and warm on the vertical planes facing into the room.



The video shows the process. If you're getting this post by email, you might need to follow this link to see the video.

Previous posts about sketching while waiting
Strange light at the tire place
While waiting for tires
Waiting room
Car dealership
Mud puddle outside the car mechanic
Amtrak station

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Gouache in the Wild Tutorial

Blended Faces--Marilyn to Elvis

Here's a series of faces morphing from Marilyn to Elvis. As you look through them, at what point does one become the other? What happens to your brain when the switch happens?
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Source

Book Review: Mad Art of Caricature

The art of caricature may seem like something you either have a knack for, or you don't. But if you have a desire to learn, you can get good at it. There just needs to be a book that lays out the expert knowledge behind the art.

Tom Richmond has written just that book, called The Mad Art of Caricature!: A Serious Guide to Drawing Funny Faces.

Richmond is best known as one of the "Usual Gang of Idiots" at Mad Magazine, but he has worked as a freelance illustrator for lots of other major clients. He got his start doing theme park caricatures in 1985.

David Lynch by Tom Richmond

Richmond explains how to analyze an individual's appearance to recognize what's unique about their head shape and their attitude. He talks about how to exaggerate the distinctive traits, rather than randomly distorting.

First you key in on the head shape, and then the main shapes within the face (eyes, nose, and mouth), and, importantly, the spacing between them. 

He analyzes each of the features, as well as the chin, cheekbones, and hair, considering carefully how they change with different angles and different expressions.

Instead of seeing the features separately, you learn to group them. Richmond came up with the "T-Shape Theory," where you group the eyes and nose into a single shape within the face, taking note of the length and width of the T.

Tom is a good writer and teacher as well as a good artist, so this book is really worth reading carefully. The layouts are loaded with many drawings and diagrams on every page. It wraps up with a discussion of the challenges doing live caricatures, caricatures in illustration, and how he constructs a complex multi-figure scene for MAD magazine.

Tom Richmond also has an excellent blog that is constantly updated with new work and teaching.

On Amazon: The Mad Art of Caricature!: A Serious Guide to Drawing Funny Faces

Russian Paintings in London

Several well known folklore paintings from Russia's classic age of imaginative realism are on show in London at the Mall Galleries.

Ilya Repin, Sadko in the Underwater Kingdom

Sadko is a hero from a medieval epic. Musician, gambler, and adventurer, he traveled to the sea floor where the "Sea Tsar" or king of the mermen provided him with his choice of a bride.

Viktor Mikhaylovich Vasnetsov, The Flying Carpet

According to a press release, these paintings were acquired by Art Russe from a noble family.

EDIT. The Sadko painting and perhaps some of the other ones in the London show may be copies, done either by Repin or another artist. The original of Sadko is on view right now in Holland (Link for more info). Thanks, Damian and Annelotte.

Victor Vasnetsov (1848–1926) Alionushka
1881, Oil on canvas, 167 × 107 cm

They're currently part of an exhibition on Russian folktale art at The Mall Galleries, London until January 6. It's free to get in, but check the website because it may only be open to the public tomorrow and the next day.

Not included in the exhibition are the following studies for Repin's Sadko painting.



He probably painted the color comp from his imagination, and then the head studies from models.

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Thanks, Damian Johnston

My Best Nine of Instagram

If you do Instagram, you might enjoy following my daily feed, which often includes images that are different from the blog. Here are my top 9 from 2016. 

James Gurney on Instagram

Party Time

We're about to launch into 2017. Why not party?

We're all just refugees from a bygone era, doing our best to adapt to the demands of a new world. So let us bake a pie, play a tune, dance a jig, or paint a picture, because that's what we do.
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Image from Dinotopia: Journey to Chandara, available signed from our USA web store or on Amazon.
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Old House by the Tracks

The old house perches above the tracks, battered by the thunder of the night trains. The porch collapsed. The leaves fell off the trees and lie sleeping beneath the snow.

In its youth the house watched over sailing sloops and the busy river landing. Its heart burned with coal fire before the nervous energy of electricity. It clings on into the fury and frenzy of the modern age, shaken but resolute.

Dealing with Our Inner Critic

Gabriel Cornelius Ritter von Max (1840-1915), 

who actually lived with a family of monkeys

Over on YouTube, Natasha asks:

"Because of all your videos, it has inspired me to want to go out and quit being afraid of what others think or say about my paintings. Yet I think we artists may be our biggest critics of all. How were you able to overcome any fears of hearing what bad things other people have to say?"

Natasha, You're right that we're usually our own toughest critic. That can be a good thing. It's helpful to hold ourselves to a high standard, always asking 'How can I make this better?' That self criticism is what keeps us improving, hopefully. The other extreme, overconfidence— being overly satisfied with everything we do—can be as big a problem as being self-critical, and it makes a student unteachable.

At the same time, don't be so hard on yourself that you avoid taking risks. We all need to take satisfaction in our successes and in our experimental attempts, even if they don't work out the way we had hoped. You don't have to show anyone your duds. Paint over them or put them on the Gallery Flambeau. 

So should we shut off our inner critic? OK, temporarily if that helps you get into the flow. But keep your critic nearby. You'll need that voice to guide the flow in the right direction.

Painting on an Amish farm in Ohio

Develop your determination and your steel nerves about trying out new media. Be analytical in your experiments. If you're overwhelmed with a complicated procedure, simplify the variables. Try painting in grisaille, which removes the color issues. Break the picture down into smaller steps. Do more preliminary sketches. Confidence builds on little successes. Most importantly, stay with the problem. My mantra is "All problems yield to effort."

If a piece isn't going the way you had hoped, ask for the private opinions of a few people you trust and give them permission to say what's not working about your piece. Be ready for honesty, and thank them for it. People are usually unwilling to offer constructive criticism unless you ask for it, especially on social media.

Try new things. Don't let fear of criticism cause you to hold back and play it safe. You don't want to keep doing the same thing over and over again just because you know it will work and you'll get approval for it.

As far as strangers who walk by and make remarks when you're painting outside, don't worry at all! That's part of the sport. People say all kinds of nutty things, and just about every picture goes through stages of looking awful. But once in a while, you'll get a critical comment from a passerby that will really help you see you see your work in a new way. Keep your antenna tuned for that.

Previous Posts about Criticism and Confidence
Top ten ways to deal with curious spectators
How Rockwell turned a detractor into a defender
Gerome and his Critics (57 comments)
Critics Redux
OKGo Answers its critics
Zorn's Self-Confidence

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Flint's Advice for Watercolor Procedure

In his book called "Water-Colour for Beginners" Francis Russell Flint (1915-1977) starts a picture with large flat washes in just four colors: cobalt blue, light red, French ultramarine, and burnt sienna.

In the top image, he first drew the outline of the mountains. He painted the sky in pure cobalt blue with a large sable brush. Then he lifted the painting off the easel to let the color run to the top of the sky. He continued by painting the silhouette of the mountains in light red.

In the bottom image, he notes: 

"SKY: Using a slightly blue mixture of light red and cobalt blue and a large sable brush, paint the suggestion of clouds, darkest at the top. Dry. Then give the whole sky a third wash of light red and cobalt blue, using plenty of water, especially at the bottom of the sky. Leave a small part of the first wash visible above the hills on the right-hand side. Dry."

"HILLS: Using medium-size brush with pure burnt sienna, paint in middle tones over certain areas to give strength, warmth, and a feeling of solidarity. A new range of hills in the distance is introduced by carrying the burnt sienna over the original hill outline. The hills are low in tone and give added distance to the picture. Dry."  

Francis Russell Flint (1915-1977) was the son of the more famous watercolorist Sir William Russell Flint (above).

Previously: Flint's Watercolor Sketching Gear
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