Questions from Joseph

Joseph (who calls himself Sansu the Cat)  had some questions for me:

What do you think it is about dinosaurs that excites our imagination, especially while we are young?

What I love most about dinosaurs is the constantly unfolding revelations about them. New forms are discovered, and new theories emerge about their life and death. Of course that means I have to wince a bit when I look back at the way I portrayed them in my paintings from 20 or 30 years ago, but the more we learn about them the more amazing they become.



2. What impresses me a great deal about the Dinotopia series is the attention to scientific detail and plausibility. What role has science had in shaping Dinotopia?

The very earliest inklings of the idea came from brainstorm sessions with archaeologists on National Geographic expeditions and with paleontologists from the Smithsonian. Throughout the process of world-building I consulted with scientists to help me with the outward form of the dinosaurs. When it came to the more speculative elements of the story, such as saurian writing systems, I was surprised how most scientists were interested in contributing science fiction ideas. I realized most scientists start out as science fiction buffs, and many of them remain fans.

Will Denison and Ambassador Bix. 

3. The characters of Dinotopia, such as Ambassador Bix, Lee Crabb, and Oriana Nascava are so memorable and rich. How do you go about creating such characters?

Most of those characters are based on real people, or combinations of real people, and I then try to focus their personalities. Lee Crabb is based on an art teacher friend of mine who is a rugged, physical guy, very sweet natured, but he likes to pretend to be Crabb. Oriana is based on a friend of mine who taught art to sixth graders, and she said her students got a big kick out of seeing her appear in the book. Bix is a combination of my chihuahua, my grandmother, and the Dalai Lama.

“Waterfall City” by James Gurney. 

4. Your paintings are an essential part of the Dinotopia experience. The most iconic, I’d argue, is “Waterfall City.” What inspired you to create such an original vision?

I first painted a city built on a waterfall around 1981, and again in 1988. That panoramic painting was the first image that ultimately became a part of the first book Dinotopia: A Land Apart from Time. The city is a combination of Italian hill towns which I saw while on assignment with National Geographic, together with Niagara Falls, which I painted from Goat Island before undertaking the big painting.



5. When I was a kid, I enjoyed playing Dinotopia: The Timestone Pirates for the GameBoy Advance. To what extent were you involved in the game, and do you have any fond memories of it?

I love the job the developers did in translating Dinotopia into a GameBoy platform-jumper. Although I wasn’t directly involved in creating that game, its development came at a good time because my own two sons were heavily into GBA at that time.



6. Nowadays you have also been sharing your passion for painting on your blog as well as through YouTube videos. How has your experience been interacting with fellow artists through the Internet?

I like interacting with other artists through the Internet, and I get a lot out of creating posts and videos for Instagram, Blogger, and YouTube.

There are at least four reasons:

1. It provides a good excuse for learning. Explaining or demonstrating some aspect of your art life forces you to understand it, and you learn even more from the feedback.
2. It helps me as a writer. I find out right away if a topic is controversial, confusing, electrifying, or boring.
3. It builds a following. People who follow any artist’s artwork want to hear what went into making it. They feel a sense of belonging to your next project if I include them in its creation.
4. We all benefit from sharing. The Internet at its best is about sharing, and it has fostered a spirit of openness that has never existed before in the history of art.

7. One of my favorite sayings in Dinotopia is “breathe deep, seek peace,” which I see as a good practice that we can all use when confronted in moments of conflict. Do you any words of wisdom to offer for those of us who are still seeking peace in our own lives?

The world is always in need of a vision of people getting along and working things out, both with each other and with the natural world. We’re always going to be a work in progress, but we’ve got to remember that we’re all in this together. Hopefully good things will emerge from times of stress, both in our personal lives and the world around us. The best way to eliminate worry for me is to remember that the things I have worried about the most never came to pass, and the bad things that happened have usually been unanticipated. So all we can do is try to fix things, grow things, and encourage people to find common cause.
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First published in Medium
Get Dinotopia signed by me from my website

Proko Challenge Deadline Coming Monday

We’re coming up on the deadline for the May Proko Challenge that I’ll be officiating. The goal is to reimagine something as a creature or character. I painted this weird encounter in grisaille gouache around 1981 when I was a self-taught art student. Rules

1. Like this post & follow the Instagram accounts of @jamesgurneyart, @prokotv, and @wacom
2. Transform household objects, vehicles, or whatever into a character or creature! Depict them interacting with an environment rather than individual character design. It can be a drawing, painting, or sculpture. Digital or traditional.
3. Post it to your Instagram account using #prokochallenge
4. I will judge based on originality, consistency of vision, well-thought-out implied story, and convincing execution in terms of design, color, lighting, dynamics, and perspective.

And I'll make a reaction video! The deadline is - Monday, June 1 at 11:59 pm (EST)

Heinrich Kley, High-Speed Press Schnellpresse

Prizes
1st place - Wacom One Creative Pen Display, signed print with a sketch by James Gurney, and the Proko Figure, Portrait, and Anatomy courses.
2nd place - Wacom Intuos medium tablet, signed print with a sketch by James Gurney, and 1 Proko course of their choice.
3rd place - Signed print with a sketch by James Gurney and 1 Proko course of their choice
RANDOM WINNER - To give students a higher chance of winning, a random winner will also get a Wacom Intuos small tablet and signed print with a sketch by James Gurney
PROKO TEAM CHOICE - The Proko team will choose their favorite along with a few fun awards with prizes TBD.

Winners will be contacted via DM. This promotion is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with, Instagram. Free shipping of Wacom prizes to US, Canada, Latin America (except Venezuela), EU, UK, Japan, and Australia. Participants in all other countries would pay shipping costs to claim a tablet.

COVID-19 Alert: Shipping to certain countries will not be possible right now because of the pandemic. Please be aware of an indefinite delay for shipping prizes to winners outside of the United States.

Schoonover Recalls Howard Pyle's Nature Excursions

Howard Pyle and Frank Schoonover

Illustrator Franklin Schoonover said that it was Howard Pyle's custom to take his students on frequent excursions through the low hill country of Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania.

 "Upon these gentle voyages through field and woodland, there was the subtle pointing out of a purple, of broken color in a whitewashed wall, of all the delicate gradations of tone and value, the knowledge of which is not always accredited to the varied equipment of an illustrator. I recall most vividly an October day, clear and cool, with a touch of winter in the hazy air. 

Frank Schoonover at the easel

"With easel and canvas within the shadow of a barn Mr. Pyle had been working from the models — a team of white horses and a plough-boy, posing in the autumn sunlight. As the light of afternoon faded and the chill of a frosty air crept up from the valley, the artist laid aside the brushes and called some of his pupils to go with him in search of adventure. 

"We were glad to relax and to enter into a short interval of, perhaps, well- earned rest. We followed the windings of a small stream that brought us finally to a broad opening and the summit of a hill. On the crest of this gentle knoll stood an oak — a wonderful, radiant picture, silhouetted against the sky. Mr. Pyle stopped and drank it in as one athirst. 

 "'Look,' he said, 'just look at it!; 'It's like the exquisite creation of a worker in metal, a great yellow thing with plate after plate of burnished gold towering up against the arch of heaven.' 'Yes, that is it,' he continued, with a tenderness and reverence so characteristic of him. 'After all, it is not a mere inanimate tree with its leaf turned yellow, it's fashioned as a human being with a trunk, arms and fingers, all clothed in shining garments, standing there to reflect the glory of the Divine Maker.'" 

"How, simple and how true it was. I doubt if a single one present that October day has forgotten the translation of what might otherwise have appealed as commonplace, into a world of divine purpose, leagues beyond the shell that surrounded our own feeble efforts."

Exploring nature together with reverence and common purpose was a central part of Pyle's teaching.
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From "Howard Pyle" by Schoonover

Heiligenschein

Heiligenschein, is an optical effect where a bright spot appears to surround the cast shadow of the head of the observer. The glowing spot is caused by rays of sunlight reflecting back from individual dewdrops, and the effect is best seen on a cool, clear morning.

The word translates from the German as "saintly illumination" or "holy light." The effect was described in the memoirs of Benvenuto Cellini (1500-1571), so it's sometimes called "Cellini's halo."
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Photo courtesy New York Times, which published the article "How to become an angel in the morning dew"
Heiligenschein on Wikipedia

The Preservation of Fire

At our forest campsite: roasted hot dogs, French potato salad, a sketch in gouache, and a thought about continuity.

Quick Landscape Impression Alongside the Hudson River

In this YouTube video (Link to video), I paint a quiet estuary from the edge of a forest.

I'm using casein paint, a gouache-like paint that was popular before acrylics. Along the way I share tips for capturing that simple first impression. Here are the colors I'm using.

The forest is shadowy, and the light increases as we go out into the fringes of the estuary. This painting is a fairly quick one, about 45 minutes altogether.

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Gumroad tutorial: Casein in the Wild

Adolph Menzel's Hochkirch Painting

Adolph Menzel (German 1815-1905) undertook this ambitious painting without a commission. It was a battle scene, but it didn't glorify the war.

Adolph Menzel, Frederick the Great and His Men in the Battle of Hochkirch
(Night Attack at Hochkirch), 1856, oil on canvas, 295 x 378 cm,
destroyed during the Second World War

It shows Frederick the Great's soldiers engaged "in a crushing defeat suffered during the Seven Years War, and, to make matters worse, a defeat that could be laid entirely at the feet of the king and that cost the lives of a sizable number of his leading generals, not to mention those of nine thousand soldiers, was not a painting that lent itself to propaganda purposes or the the glorification of the Hohenzollern dynasty."

Nevertheless, the painting was much talked about, and eventually it was bought by the king. What helped sell it was the argument, which Menzel made in a letter to the king, that the painting shows Frederick's nobility in the way he accepted defeat.

The work took Menzel a long time to complete. It come down to us in photographs of poor quality, because the canvas itself was destroyed in World War II.
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Quote from the book Adolph Menzel: The Quest for Reality by Werner Busch.

Grouping Heads in a Composition

"Alas, poor Yorick," scene from Hamlet by Pascal Dagnan-Bouveret

Compositional tip: If you're staging a scene with more than two figures, overlap two of them, especially if those two are reacting to something.

This illustration from Emma by Jane Austin by Charles and Henry Brock

In this scene from Jane Austin's Emma, the two characters have been whispering to each other, and the tale is told from the point of view of the woman on the left. By bringing two of the faces close together, it's easier to see their reactions.

Luis Jiménez Aranda, Capturing Everyday Life

Luis Jiménez y Aranda (Edit: and his brother Jose) (1845–1928) painted moments from ordinary life in Spain.  

Jose Jiménez y Aranda The Bibliophiles, 1879

Here he shows book lovers from various walks of life surveying the wares. To paint scenes like this, he used models, and he would have set up the actual costumes on lay figures. 

Luis Jiménez y Aranda, The Artist's Studio

Here he paints of an artist's studio, showing the artist with his palette standing behind a wealthy patron, as a model lounges in a festive pose on the far right.

 Jose Jiménez y Aranda, Self Portrait

Luis Jiménez y Aranda was part of a worldwide artistic movement using realism to capture the detail of everyday life.
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Previously on GJ: Costumbrism

Attacked by a Bugling Elk

Wildlife artist Ken Carlson (born 1937) learned to draw animals at the zoo." Eventually the director gave him the keys to the animal cages so that he could go there at night after work."

Bugling elk by Ken Carlson

"'At night I would turn on the lights in the zoo and sketch. I worked in the pens, wearing a keeper's jacket. One day I went into the elk pen to get photographs of him bugling, and the animal charged and almost killed me."

"After that,' Carlson says wryly, 'I lost my zoo privileges and spent a week in the hospital. I had paid my dues as a wildlife artist."
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Book: From the Tundra to Texas: The Art of Ken CarlsonQuotes from: Wildlife Artists at Work by Patricia van Gelder
Bio of Ken Carlson at the National Museum of Wildlife Art