Meeting James Gurney

Today at work at met James Gurney, the author of the acclaimed series of "Dinotopia" books.
http://www.jamesgurney.com/
He even signed a copy of "Journey to Chandara" with a little dinosaur doodle for me. He is a remarkable illustrator. In this book there are clear influences from Gerome and the "Orientalistes" as well as from Alma Tadema and other decimononic painters. The first thing that struck me was the similarity of the cover -which I won't reproduce here- with the Leon Belly painting : "Pilgrims to Mecca". It is a good exercise of inspiration without plagiarism. Even though I love his landscapes and I took a good look at his amazing travel notebooks (unpublished) I still think his human characters are not properly integrated and look as if they are just modern people with operatic costumes and hairdos straight out of Supercuts.
Nevertheless, he is a great illustrator by any measure.

Jury Duty

I had Jury duty yesterday and I thought to myself. Great. may be I'll be able to practice my greyscale drawings there. I did. And now I am addicted to the little suckers. I even made one while waiting for an oil change this morning.


Downtown Los Angeles, who knew, has some nice views around "Angels Flight", a quite pathetic little tram in the middle of nothing. And more importantly, what a discovery it was to see the Grand Central Market! Oh my oh my oh my (gasp for air) . If you can get a couple of bodyguards it must be the best place to paint...evah! Sure there are hookers and hobos and nasty looking security that couldn't outrun a dead lizard but the colors! ...and the the prices for produce are ridiculous!


( A few minutes later) Well, I called the manager at Grand Central Market and she thought that I was either going to rent a stall, paint the walls or do a graffiti performance. I don't know what she thought. Some people live in this bubble .... She just said "No you can't 'paint' , goodbye'". I'll prove her wrong soon enough. Now it is a challenge.

http://www.grandcentralsquare.com/location.html

...and day Three

I was not feeling all that well this day but I managed to produce a quite "delicious" little piece to quote Miss McChristian. Again, she had good suggestions and I am very eager to see if I can use some of the "revelations" on my own next time.

I like this painting because it is both bucolic and urban. The "urban" side is merely a suggestion of cars in a freeway and a lightpost hidden behind the trees.

Workshop . Day Two.

So we arrived with NO homework done to speak off. I mean, we are all so damn busy during the week. But everybody had made little improvements to their setup: a new gesso'ed canvas here, some new colors there...
We did a gray-scale drawing with three values. It as amazing to see that such a simple exercise would simplify the scene a big deal and become a road map for the painting. My usual mistakes: punching contrasts too much, over-detailing of areas that are not the foucs of interest, etc...became apparent in 5 minutes. I am enthusiastic about this technique and shall exercise it often.
We painted our hearts out while Jennifer hovered around giving pointers that mostly dealt with the true observation of color. The scene had little contrast due to the gloomy day but that made the work even more of a challenge. Jennifer made some color corrections as I painted. I tend to automatically blend the backdrop of mountains with the sky color. Not this time. I tend to eliminate warmth from the sky the same way children paint all tree trunks brown. Not this time. Jennifer's notes were dead on. Note to self: Observation has no shortcuts. Nature will be obeyed. I loved the result and I a glad I organized this workshop.

The workshop. Part deux.

The workshop tested our endurance of heat as the Santa Ana weather created really hot conditions in the middle of October. But we all soldiered along as Jennifer laid her big dark shapes first. She doesn't fuss with color, she observes , mixes a clean batch and applies with accurate eye leaving the lighter areas and thin calligraphic details for the end. There is very little on-canvas blending or scrubbing. McChristian is a sharp-shooter and the queen of economy as far as the amount of paint or meddling with the paints. A good brush stroke is worth more than a thousand smudges.

The workshop

We finally gathered for the Jennifer Mc Christian workshop at the Verdant Equestrian Center in Atwater. Jennifer was a little nervous. She is a novice in this "teaching" business after all. But she did a great job at laying out her techniques and materials. We are an eclectic group at very different levels of experience and that was a concern . However, there was something for everyone. Jennifer has a technique that she has refined by studying other artists (like Kevin Mc Phearson et al. ) and accommodating it for herself.
She uses canvas that she gessoed and sanded herself taped to the surface of her Guerrilla pochade box. We used color "isolators" and viewfinders and some red gel whatchamathingie to understand value. jennifer demoe's how to do a value study as a roadmap for the whole painting. Strong design stands out even form afar.

The lesson of nature

The main breakthrough while I was in San Luis Obispo was the fact that I understood that the nature outside is not the only important subject in a painting. Most painters understand color and composition but the really good ones understand that the painting is a natural ecosystem in itself. Color and matter and texture help us recreate the natural world outside by acting as themselves, not being forced and overworked. Watercolor needs to flow like watercolor and oil needs to behave like oil. pounding the materials only makes them dull and lifeless.