Dinotopia Meme

Whoever created this meme....thanks!

 

Tiny Concept

Tiny concept for a big Dinotopia panorama.

 

What a Sketch Easel Should Do

A sketch easel should achieve the following ten goals:

1. Allow you to stand or sit, and to back up from the work.
2. Free up your non-painting hand.
3. Position the artwork close to your line of sight, and the palette close to the artwork.
4. Allow easy adjustments of height, slope, and angle.
5. Fit into a compact bag, large purse, or backpack.
6. Be super strong and light in weight (mine weighs just 12 ounces)
7. Set up and take down quickly.
8. Include a diffuser to soften the direct sunlight.
9. Resist being blown over by the wind.
10. Be easy to build from readily available materials.

The problem with traditional easels is that they are too heavy or cumbersome to be of much use for small works. Modern pochade easels that fit on camera tripods are an improvement. But, still, most of the ones on the market are more massive, complicated, or expensive than they need to be.

My homemade sketch easel fits on a standard camera tripod, which allows me to control the height and slope of the upper panel, where the painting surface is held to the panel by spring clamps. The lower panel is for the water cup and palette, which hold on by magnets. My palette is usually either a metal watercolor box or the steel lid of a colored pencil box, spray painted white.

A set of portable brushes hangs over the left hand page. The white surface above the painting is a ripstop nylon diffuser designed to shield just the painting and the palette. To reduce wind exposure, it’s no bigger than it needs to be.

More at the Facebook group called "Sketch Easel Builders,” linked in bio.

Gumroad tutorial: How to Make a Sketch Easel.

Susie Barstow Exhibit and Lecture

 "I will overcome every barrier to success." said American landscape painter Susie Barstow (1836-1923).

Barstow typically walked over 10 miles a day, and when she got to the end of her walk, she did a sketch or a study. She worked in many different media, including pencil, watercolor, and oil. 

There is currently an exhibit of her works at the Thomas Cole Historic Site in Catskill, New York, and there will be a free lecture in Albany on October 8, 2023 by Professor of Art History Nancy Siegel, who has done extensive research into her archives. The exhibit will continue to the New Britain Museum and the Woodson Museum.

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Exhibition: Women Reframe American Landscape: Susie Barstow & Her Circle/ Contemporary Practices through October 29 of this year.

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Goethe's Color Chart

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's "Theory of Colours" (Zur Farbenlehre) is a book that presents his views on the nature of colors and how they are perceived by humans
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This chart is based on his personal observations and theories about color vision. In his book, Goethe proposed a different approach to color than the objective scientific principles of Sir Isaac Newton. According to Goethe, color arises from the interaction between light and darkness. He believed that darkness is not the absence of light but its rival or counterpart. He categorized colors into two main groups: blue and yellow. Goethe considered blue to be a lightening of black and yellow to be a darkening of white. All other colors, including green, red, and magenta, were grouped between these two opposing colors. Goethe's color chart is not focused on the scientific analysis of color, but rather on the psychological, moral, and spiritual aspects of color perception. His ideas about color pairings, particularly the opposition of blue and yellow, have influenced modern theories of color vision, such as the opponent process theory, which states that our perception of color arises from interactions between pairs of color receptors. 

Inside a Parisian Architecture School

The Ecole Nationale des Beaux-Arts included ateliers for Architecture as well as painting. Photos of the interiors of those schools reveal some of the spirit and style of the school, and the kind of work they did.

Most of the work was done on big flat tables lit by high windows or skylights. Each student's work was accomplished on individual drawing boards propped up on books or boxes, with T-squares and triangles to give them horizontal and vertical lines.

Mustaches seem to be universal in the Atelier Pascal. The walls and ceilings are festooned with medallions, sketches of the fluting on a column, and a crude drawing. There's a shallow ceramic dish that might have been used for watercolor washes.

Because of the spirit of eclecticism during this era, these architects would have possessed plenty of drawing skills, and could draw from memory any architectural style, such as Gothic, Romanesque, or any of the classical orders. They also had skills at figure drawing, and presumably the hanging rings would have be for a model to do a long pose with upraised arms.

Antarctic Strawberry Feather Star,

 

Newly discovered deep in the southern oceans, the Antarctic Strawberry Feather Star, is a large creature with 20 arms.

Painting Trinity Church

In a new video on YouTube I paint Trinity Church in Newport, Rhode Island, and consider how the human eye interprets reality differently than the camera does.

John Constable and the Field Mouse

One day, John Constable (English, 1776-1837) was painting outside in the landscape when a field mouse crawled into his pocket.

He was so focused on his work that he didn't notice the mouse at first. As he continued to paint, the mouse began to nibble on a piece of cheese that Constable had in his pocket.

Eventually, Constable felt the mouse moving around in his pocket and realized what had happened.
He gently removed it and placed it back in the field where it belonged.

Later he painted a picture of a mouse with a piece of cheese, which is now in the collection of the British Museum.

Stobart's Overview of Painting Methods

In this hour-long YouTube tutorial, veteran realist artist John Stobart (1929-2023) shares his basic painting tips.

 

He covers the following topics:

• Basic geometric forms.

• Linear perspective

• Stretching and priming a canvas

• Importance of skies

• Brushwork and aerial perspective 

 

You can paint almost any natural subject with Stobart's small set of primary colors: French ultramarine, Winsor red, cadmium yellow light, burnt sienna, permanent green light, and titanium white. 

In this video and other "Worldscape" videos on his YouTube channel, his manner is forthright, confident, and resolute: "One must keep soldiering on irrespective of the discomfort." 

Stobart is best known for his large paintings of maritime history, but he was also an inspiring leader in the revival of plein-air methods. He said: "My purpose is to trigger your enthusiasm, to make you realize that you never achieve anything unless you yourself are triggered, motivated, inspired, convinced about what you want to do."