Menzel Question

The Artist's Magazine asked about my favorite artist when it comes to draftsmanship, and you know who I had to spotlight!

More in my book Adolph Menzel: Drawings and Paintings 

Painting a Gravel Road

For this informal sketch of a gravel road crossing a stone bridge I use transparent watercolor because of the sparkling qualities it offers.

(Link to YouTube) In the middle of the video I demonstrate a simple “salt and pepper” exercise to practice leaving random light spots in a dark background, and dark spots in a light background. 

ART SUPPLIES 

Scarlet Pyrrol (watercolor)

Cerulean blue (watercolor)

Yellow ochre (watercolor) 

Cad yellow light (watercolor)

Permanent green pale (watercolor) 

Burnt Sienna (watercolor) 

Watercolor sketchbook

Travel brush set 

Water cup

Signed Bookplate

If you ordered a signed bookplate from my online store, chances are it's one of these. (Link to webstore)

Hand-Printed Bookplate

International fans have said they wish they could get something hand signed, so I came up with these hand-printed and signed bookplates which ship free worldwide.

 

Each one is unique, printed on a self-adhesive sticker with a backing sheet using two different linoleum blocks, inked with a gradation that gives the logo a 3D effect.

Stick one in your sketchbook or your Dinotopia book and own a unique hand-made original. Available only at the James Gurney website.

Ramón y Cajal's Drawings of Neurons

As far back as Leonardo da Vinci, artists have propelled our understanding of anatomy. 

One artist named Santiago Ramón y Cajal (1852-1934) contributed to our conception of the neurons of the brain with his exquisite drawings.

Before his time, anatomists believed that neurons were like a network of connected pipes and tubules that conveyed liquids throughout the brain. 

But Ramón y Cajal believed neurons were separate, individual structures and that he could see tiny gaps between them that came to be known as synapses. Together those two insights are known as the "neuron doctrine," and that understanding is fundamental to neuroscience.

Ramón y Cajal shared the Nobel Prize for his discovery with Camillo Golgi, who developed the special staining method that allowed the neurons to be individually visible. 

But even Golgi didn't agree that synapses existed, for they were so tiny that they were almost impossible to see through the microscopes of the time.

Learn more:

Wikipedia on: Santiago Ramón y Cajal

Quanta Magazine: Why the First Drawings of Neurons Were Defaced

BBC Science Focus podcast: Your Brain Chemistry and You

Arthur and Melanie

 

Melanie and Kalyptra, a Dryosaurus, take Arthur Denison on a tour of the plant world, from Dinotopia: A Land Apart from Time.

This looks like watercolor, but it's actually transparent oil over a pencil drawing, with just a few touches of opaque white.

Lutheran Church

 

Lutheran church, Ancram, NY, pencil and gray wash, 9 x 12 in.

The gray wash is diluted ink that I carried around in a plastic jar. It works nicely for a quick shadow value, but it's light enough to allow the soft pencil lines to stand out.

Erik Theodor Werenskiold

Erik Theodor Werenskiold (1855 – 1938) was a Norwegian illustrator and painter. 

He traveled to France, where he studied with Léon Bonnat. He also befriended Charles-François Daubigny, who convinced him of the value of painting outdoors from nature. 

Fridtjof Nansen (1861-1930) and Erik Werenskiold (1855-1938)

At first he was skeptical about Impressionism: "declaring that he had seen things that made him wonder whether he or the artist was suffering the effects of delirium. He was also surprised to see pictures with red grass and green skies, blue trees and yellow water, and astonished by compositions in which only part of the subject seemed to have been included." (Source)

He is best known for painting a country girl in a regional costume leaning on a fence.

On the Plain (1883)

Blog reader Jonny Andvik says: "He did several version of the motif and this one with only one girl hangs in the Gotenburg museum. It was painted at Gvarv in Telemark, Norway.

September (1883)

Jonny says that the landscape hasn't changed much since he painted it, and still looks a lot like the painting. He also told me that "the people are proud of the dress, now a national symbol called a beltestakk."

Wikipedia says: "In the spring of 1880, Werenskiold was paralyzed in the right arm. 

After half a year of hospitalization and recreation in Switzerland at Oberbayern and Tyrol, he finally regained his health."

Peasant Burial

Blog reader Bill Wiist says: Werenskiold was a very skilled artist with a romantic but still realist view of life. His paintings are among the best storytelling about life of the farmers in his days. 

Erik Werenskiold, The trolls had only one eye together all three, and they took turns using it (1878).

"But he also had a very lively imagination and did some amazing skilled drawings - both for fairytales and for the Snorri Sturluson saga of the kings." 

--

Erik Werenskiold on Wikipedia

Book: Norwegian Folk Tales

Book: Nordic Landscape Painting in the Nineteenth Century

Drawing a Chimp Portrait

This wild-born male chimpanzee named H.N. noticed that I was drawing his portrait.

I was careful not to stare at him, just glance respectfully. Every ten minutes or so he wanted me to show him how I was coming along on the sketch. 

I held up the book and he looked over casually. His buddies came over and he consulted with them. A couple of them came over to check me out, too.

The keeper told me that some of the chimps and gorillas are "very interested in people, especially children," and they're fascinated by the way pencils make marks on paper. 

Whether he recognized it as a representation of him, who knows?

---

Previously: 

Why do chimps paint?

Fantasy Art Exhibition Opens in Massachusetts

After a year's delay, the exhibition "Enchanted: A History of Fantasy Illustration" opens this weekend at the Norman Rockwell Museum. 

Standing: Laurie Norton Moffatt, director of the Norman Rockwell Museum, Scott Brundage, Sara Frazetta, James Warhola, Charles Vess, Thomas Blackshear, Ruth Sanderson, Scott Fischer, Alessandra Pisano, James Gurney, Jeff Echevarria, Mark Zug, Bob Eggleton, Scott Gustafson, Gary Gianni, Tony DiTerlizzi. Front row: Tyler Jacobson, Curator Jesse Kowalski, Greg Manchess, Donato Giancola, and Rebecca Guay.

For most of us, it was our first time venturing out of our lockdown isolation, and it felt good to be able to shake hands and see old friends again. 

 

Here I am with James Warhola, who painted the paperback cover "Magic for Sale" below.

Rather than setting up the exhibit chronologically, curator Jesse Kowalski arranged it thematically, with rooms full of new and classic paintings devoted to mythic themes, such as dragons, faeries, mermaids, and monsters. 

Abbott Handerson Thayer (1849-1921), Winged Figure, 1889, Oil on Canvas, 51.5 x 37.75 in.

Artists also include Arthur Rackham, William-Adolphe Bouguereau, Gustave Doré, NC Wyeth, Herbert Draper, Howard Pyle, Maxfield Parrish, Frank Frazetta, Winsor McCay, Jessie Willcox Smith, Joseph Clement Coll,  Willy Pogany, J. Allen St. John, Dean Cornwell, Virgil Finlay, Hal Foster, and many more.

The catalog produced by Abbeville, includes 180 images, mostly in color, with essays by Alice Carter, Stephanie Plunkett, and others.

Exhibition "Enchanted: A History of Fantasy Illustration" will be at the Norman Rockwell Museum through October 31, and then will travel to two other locations in the USA.