How to Edit an Art Video

The upcoming issue of International Artist Magazine has my top tips for making art videos.

For example, here's what I suggest in the section on Editing:

❌ Don’t waste the viewer’s time.
✅ Do cut anything that doesn’t advance the story.

❌ Don’t hide your reference.
✅ Do show a short video clip of the scene you’re looking at or the photo you’re working from. To save cutting, put the subject and painting side by side in split-screen mode.

❌ Don’t use gimmicky transitions.
✅ Do use straight cuts, dissolves (to suggest time passing between similar shots), and fade-to-black (for an interruption or shift in story).

❌ Don’t leave out key steps, but at the other extreme, don’t be tedious.
✅ Do capture the key moments when you make noticeable changes. Show the steps along the way, without any large leaps. If there’s a part of the process that’s repetitive or boring, just include a representative segment of it, and then dissolve between clips of it at various stages, or speed up the playback.

❌ Don’t just show off and make it look easy.
✅ Do share your mistakes. Show how to fix them. It goes against the presenter’s instincts to switch on the camera when things screw up, but it makes for better instruction and better storytelling. As YouTube community member Travis Noble said: “Watching an expert make mistakes is the best part of an art tutorial, because you learn truly what makes the difference between an expert and beginner is not in the mistakes but how they recover from them.”

I learned a lot from the 200+ user comments from on my YouTube Community page. Thanks to all who contributed.

The article is in issue #143 (Feb/March 2022) of International Artist Magazine.

Louise Wright Paints a Fashion Illo

It's rare to see step-by-step sequences for illustrations done over a century ago. 

British illustrator Louise Wright (born 1863) creates a fashion plate with two female figures, and the process was captured by Percy Bradshaw in a book called The Art of the Illustrator. 

Stage 1: "The figures are lightly touched in with pencil on Roberson’s Fashion Board, B surface (extra smooth), the board measuring 14 inches wide by 21 inches high. The design of the costumes is original, and was suggested by certain characteristic details which were in fashion at the time when Miss Wright commenced the drawing."

Stage 2: "Brush work is commenced, Lamp Black and Sables of various sizes from No. 0 to No. 5 being used. Faint washes of tone are introduced into the face seen in profile, for instance around the eyes, nose and chin, while in the other face light washes can be seen across the forehead, down the nose, mouth and shadow side of the face, beneath the chin, and on the neck of the front view."

Stage 3: "The modeling of the faces is carried considerably further, by stippling up the light tones previously introduced. Dead white is still left over the major portion of the heads, but the strengthening of tone which would be noted in the reproduction is accomplished by a delicate cross-hatching with the point of the brush used comparatively dry. This cross-hatching needs very dexterous manipulation, and wherever it is possible to obtain the effect by fresh washes it is preferable."

Stage 4: "The artist has been chiefly concerned here with the strengthening of tone all over the outdoor costume, while the Evening dress is taken a stage further by the introduction of some fresh, simple washes. It was noticed, in working upon the outdoor costume, that the drawing of the left hip created a somewhat ugly line, and the outline has consequently been reduced or flattened here by the introduction of a little Chinese White. A flat light wash has been taken all over the cloth portion of the dress, the folds at the left arm and the outline of the bust have been more definitely shaded, and the sash in the centre very considerably increased in color."

Stage 5: "The drapery of the sleeve has also been emphasized by outlining each of the shadows with this opaque white, a wash has been carried over the edge of the sleeve to form a frill, and further broad touches of white added to give transparency to the material. A bunch of flowers has been broadly indicated, chiefly with a wash of tone, the petals of the white rose being indicated with the opaque white, the dark flower with a wash of half tone, the shadows being filled in with black. The high lights on the waist-band have also been emphasized with the Blanc d’Argent and the outline of the band defined in the same way."

Stage 6: "The hair has been slightly strengthened in color, the outline of the face altered by introducing a slightly fuller chin, and rather more prominence and fullness in the lips, which formerly suggested a rather simpering mouth. These alterations have been made with Chinese White. The eye and eyebrow have been introduced more heavily, the lips strengthened in color, the line at the back of the neck more definitely drawn."

Wikipedia on Louise Wright

On Archive.org: Percy Bradshaw "The Art of the Illustrator"

Color in French Art Prints

The Clark Art Institute in northwestern Massachusetts is presenting an exhibit of French printmaking called Hue and Cry: French Printmaking and the Debate Over Colors. It examines how color found its way into the world of black and white prints. 

Philibert Louis Debucourt, The Climb, or Morning Farewell, 1787, 

Color engraving on paper. The Clark Art Institute, 1955.1897.

The earliest prints were all black and white, using methods such as woodcut, wood engraving, and etching. When the technology made it possible to print in full color, tastemakers in France dismissed them, arguing that they were cheap and low-class. 

The exhibit includes fine examples of these early intaglio color prints, such as the one above.

When color lithography was developed, artists embraced it as a fast and efficient method that was perfect for large public posters. The show includes many prints by Jules Chéret, the master of the show poster.

Jules Chéret, Lady with a Mask [Comedy], c. 1891, Lithograph in sanguine on paper. The Clark Art Institute, 1955.2391.

I was also impressed by the informal sanguine prints by Jules Chéret, where he explores different arrangements of carefree figures. 

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, An Englishman at the Moulin Rouge

The exhibition also includes prints by Pierre Bonnard, Mary Cassatt, Paul Cézanne, Maurice Denis, Camille Pissarro, Edouard Vuillard, and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec.  

I was hoping the show would include printed works by Alphonse Mucha. He was Czech, technically, but he was the major star in the Paris print scene, and his graphic works were extremely influential. Théophile-Alexandre Steinlen and Eugène Grasset were also notably missing from the show, perhaps because the Clark doesn't have good examples of the color prints in their collection. 

A secondary exhibit called "Competing Currents" about Japanese prints of the 20th century makes a perfect enhancement to the show. I'll share more about that on a future post. 

Hue and Cry: French Printmaking and the Debate Over Colors closes March 6. Admission is free for the month of January.

Jim Lawlor's 'Remember When'

Jim Lawlor ran the "Remember When" shop and soda parlor in Germantown, NY. It was full of memorabilia of the grand old days of soda parlors: old radios, metal signs, and Coca-Cola painted trays. He put cellophane over the shelves to discourage collectors from asking if they could buy the stuff.

Jim had one corner of the shop still functioning, and he loved to play the role of soda jerk. He would use his still-functioning soda machine to make you a cream soda or a root beer float. 

If he really liked you he'd invite you to sit with him in his classic 1950s car (I forget the model) with big tail fins and soft tires that was forever parked next to the building.

Sarah Bernhardt's Inkwell

Sarah Bernhardt (1845-1923) was not just an actress. She was also a sculptor. In 1879 she created this bronze inkwell in the form of a self-portrait. The inkwell traveled with her on her American tour, and was shown in the lobbies of theaters where she had starring performances.

Her head is tipped forward, and she appears in chimera form as a rare and ominous mythological creature, with bat wings and griffin feet clutching the ink vessel. 

According to the Clark Art Institute, which acquired the piece in 2020, "As one of the first celebrities in the age of photography, she was no stranger to having her likeness reproduced, which gave her a deep understanding of the power of public image as a tool for self-promotion and creative expression."

Previous posts about Sarah Bernhardt

Norchia in Perspective

Norchia is the site of a necropolis created by the ancient Etruscans in Italy, with fake buildings carved out of volcanic tuff. On the bluff above they conducted funerary games. 

I painted this aerial view in oil for the National Geographic magazine, and planned the scene with a perspective drawing.

If you have a question about perspective — (it could be a basic, practical question, or a more obscure one) —please ask me on this Speakpipe link. The website lets you record and review a brief voice message that I might incorporate in a future video.

 

Enchanted Goes Next to Tennessee

  

"Enchanted: A History of Fantasy Illustration" will travel next to Tennessee in May 20, 2022 through September 5, 2022  

"Skeleton Pirate" and "Garden of Hope" 

Two of my paintings were part of the big fantasy exhibition, which happened summer 2021 at the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Massachusetts.

 

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.

After it goes to the Hunter Museum of America Art in Chattanooga, the exhibition "Enchanted: A History of Fantasy Illustration" will travel to the Flint Institute of Arts, Flint, MI -- September 23, 2022 through January 8, 2023

Ask Your Question About Perspective

The thing I found the most challenging on this one was the perspective drawing. 

Scart Road, Bantry, watercolor, 9 x 12 inches.

I knew all those buildings have different vanishing points from each other. And the road has its own set of vanishing points below eye level. And I expected I would be tricked by those building fronts, which were extremely foreshortened.

But even knowing all that, I still had to erase and redraw the pencil drawing three times until I was convinced I had it right.

You can ask me your question about perspective on the SpeakPipe website. I might use your question in a future video.

Vladimir Orlovsky

Vladimir Orlovsky (1842-1914) was a Ukranian painter who used dramatic lighting to create a spacious feeling.

The main subject of the horses and people on the frozen road is not dramatically lit, but instead held in a soft shadow. The brighter light is in the foreground and in the far sky.

The wide open basin of the Dniepr river stretches out peacefully in the far distance.

This one uses the opposite regime of light, with an illuminated foreground and a road leading back into a soft cloud shadow.

--

Vladimir Orlovsky on Wikipedia

Book: Vladimir Orlovsky: Selected Paintings

Painting a Beaver Dam in Winter

 In this new YouTube video, I do a plein-air gouache painting of a beaver dam in winter, with a light coating of snow.

There was a lot of detail to capture. Since I couldn't paint every twig, I had to invent a way to suggest the detail using wet-into-wet passages and drybrush.

Here are the colors I used:

Titanium white (gouache) 

Terra rosa (watercolor) 

Raw umber (gouache) 

Cobalt blue (gouache)

Cadmium red (gouache) 

Magenta (gouache)

Cadmium yellow light (gouache)

Painting tutorial:
Gouache in the Wild Gumroad download
Give Me Gouache!