Wilson's Watercolors from Antarctica

Edward Wilson painting auroras in the hut

In 1910, Edward Wilson was on Captain Scott's Terra Nova expedition to the South Pole, serving as biologist and doctor. 

He was also a watercolorist, and he produced color images of a world that was otherwise only known by black and white photos.

Wilson, Midnight

Although Wilson perished on the expedition in 1912, his watercolors were published in 1922 in a book called "The Worst Journey in the World" 

Edward Wilson, The great ice barrier
 looking east from Cape Crozier

The comment about the painting above reads: "The Great Ice Barrier is the edge of the Ross Ice Shelf that extends for hundreds of miles. It is where the glaciers that flow from the Antarctic land mass begin to float on the sea providing a cliff of ice with only very rare places where a landing is possible. These ice-cliffs prevented the early explorers of Antarctica from making landfall, they would sail for days in awe of the height and extent of the ice."

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Wikipedia on EA Wilson
Bio on Edward Adrian Wilson
More on the website: Cool Antarctica
Book on Amazon: The Worst Journey in the World
Thank you, Dr Alun ap Rhisiart

Art Students: How Are You Coping?

I talked on the phone yesterday to two art students at a prestigious art school about how they're doing during this isolation period. 

A visit to an 3 Kicks Studio several years ago

Here are some of the issues they're facing:

• One was an incoming photography student working with old-school cameras, and she can't get into the darkroom.
• Another was a senior about to present a thesis project, which consists of a room-size installation. That crucial graduation artwork can't be finished or presented.
• Their school is shut for the rest of the term but it didn't shut down decisively. First they extended the spring break and then they did a hard shutdown. But that means that now they're not letting students into their art labs to get their tools, materials, and half-finished projects. 
• Sculpture students can't bring their clay, marble, or welding supplies back to their apartments. 
• Figure drawing students don't have access to a models, and the experience of painting from a three-dimensional subject can't be simulated.
• There are so many technical problems with live conferencing. Most teachers aren't set up for audio and video, and they use several different apps, which gets confusing for the students. 
• What's missing are all the subtle non-verbal signals that tell you what sort of critique to give someone, and the camaraderie that can't be conveyed through an internet connection.
• The school is keeping all the tuition money, but they're just not set up as well as a dedicated online art school, which would cost only a fraction as much.  
• Seniors were offered the chance to reconvene in the fall, but realistically most of them will have gone their separate ways.
• What do you think will change permanently about art teaching after this coronavirus event?
• Silver linings? They both said they're spending more time reading, contemplating, walking in the park, and exploring their imagination and their personal resources.

Art-students and teachers: I would love to hear in the comments how you're doing, and what challenges you're dealing with. If you want your story to be anonymous, just send me an email, and I'll post what you say without a name.

Daniel Greene (1934-2020)

Daniel Greene, Portrait of Robert Beverly Hale

One of the keepers of the flame, Daniel Greene (1934-2020), has died after surgery complications. Here is his pastel portrait of Robert Beverly Hale, another legendary teacher at the Art Students League.

Rumble and Mist

A skybax and its rider glide alongside Waterfall City toward the brink of the thundering falls.

"Rumble and Mist" is the title page of Dinotopia: The World Beneath and is a limited edition art print in our web store.

How Microdroplets Travel from Coughs, Sneezes, and Talking

A lab in Japan with sensitive cameras and simulations shows how we inadvertently generate virus-filled microdroplets and how they remain suspended for a remarkably long time in indoor spaces without proper ventilation.
Via Vimeo

Anna May-Rychter watercolors

Anna May-Rychter (1864–1955) was born in Bavaria and learned to paint. She fell in love with Polish artist Tadeusz Rychter, who left his first wife for Anna. But being a Catholic he couldn't obtain a divorce. Because they faced social disapproval in Europe for not being properly married, they departed to live in Jerusalem, which provided the subjects for her watercolors.

Life sometimes takes us to unexpected places. Wherever those places might be, find your inspiration there.

Hiding Out from the Black Plague

A group of elegant young men and women tell stories and play music in an Italian garden.

A Tale from the Decameron (1916) by John William Waterhouse.

The scene, painted by J.W. Waterhouse, shows people sheltered in a secluded villa outside Florence hoping to escape the Black Plague of 1348-1353.

The plague killed between 40,000 and 60,000 citizens of Florence, about half of the population.

Decamerone by Raffaello Sorbi

What better way to pass the time in quarantine than to tell stories? 

Decameron X.7: How Liza Loved the King, by Edmund Blair Leighton, 1890

The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio (1313–1375) uses the framing idea for telling tales of wit, eroticism, practical jokes, and life lessons. E. Blair Leighton's painting shows:

"Lisa is the daughter of the apothecary Bernando Puccini. Lisa saw King Pietro of Aragon from a distance and fell in love with him, becoming deathly ill as a consequence. The tale was retold in the 19th century by George Eliot (1869) and Charles Algernon Swinburne, among others." (Source: Columbia University.)

Lauretta, one of the narrators of the Decameron,
painted by Jules Joseph Lefebvre

The Decameron is one of the masterpieces of early Italian literature, written in the vernacular. The stories were inspired by Dante's Inferno and in turn inspired Chaucer's Canterbury Tales.

John Everett Millais (1829–1896), Isabella (Lorenzo and Isabella)
(1848-49), oil on canvas, 103 x 142.8 cm,

One of the stories, Lorenzo and Isabella, involved infidelity, murder, and a severed head buried in a pot of basil. Read more online in Flowerpot's Grisly Secret.



There are a few free long-form readings in English. (Link to video) and you can get good English translations in print, such as The Decameron (Penguin Classics) 

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More at Wikipedia on The Decameron.
Columbia University website: Historical Context for The Decameron by Boccaccio.

Gurneys At Home: Making Face Masks

We're lucky to have my son Frank and his girlfriend Amelia living with us during the pandemic.

They're working at home, and in their spare time they're making protective masks to donate to medical workers and people in public facing jobs.


(Link to YouTube)

I paint a gouache portrait of Amelia (Instagram @amelihere) at the sewing machine. The video shows the process. In the second half (around 4:00), Amelia and Frank (@frankster.g) share their tips on how to make them.

Recreate Your Favorite Old Master Painting

The J. Paul Getty Museum in California invited its followers to recreate a famous work of art from by posing with ordinary objects in the safety of their own homes.

The museum received a lot of great responses, and you can see more of them at SadandUseless.
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Thanks, Mel!

Retouching Before the Digital Age

Before the age of Photoshop and other forms of digital image editing, photographs were much harder to manipulate.  

Die Falscher Alien from Forgetomori

As a result, people were more willing to believe them. "It must be true...I saw it in a photo!" 

The tools that photo retouchers used in the pre-digital age were basic, such as scissors, knife, gelatin, opaque watercolors, and airbrush. Retouchers basically painted right on the surface of the black and white print, which was then put back under a copy camera and rephotographed.  

"Shortcuts to Photo Retouching For Commercial Use"
by Raymond Wardell, 1946

An effective retoucher had to be good at disguising any evidence of the brush or the hand. Straight lines had to be absolutely straight and gradations absolutely smooth. The stencil brush with stiff bristles (center, above) created an array of stippled dots.

Having premixed values of gray was a timesaver and ensured predictable, consistent tones to match the grays of the photo. 

A lot of people were employed in photo retouching, but most of the work didn't involve outright deception or fantastic claims of aliens, flying saucers, or dinosaurs. 

The bulk of photo retouching work was motivated by the desire to eliminate clutter, to make old people look younger, and to make blurry photos clearer.
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Previously on GurneyJourney: Composographs
Read more in PetaPixel: How Photographers ‘Photoshopped’ Their Pictures Back in 1946