Burgess Shale Fauna

Burgess Shale Fauna and other ancient ocean creatures, 

from Dinotopia: The World Beneath

available signed from the JamesGurney.com store

Lightbox Expo 2022

On the final day of Lighbox Expo I painted the huge yellow letters out in front of the Pasadena Convention Center.

It stayed overcast all day, which meant the light on the surfaces of he letters was fairly constant.
 

Artists from all over the world and with all sorts of stories hung out as I painted. They asked good questions about brushes, paints (I'm using gouache), perspective, skyholes, and the adventure of painting on location.

One person asked "Have you ever been kicked out of a painting spot?" 

The answer is Yes! By a security guard, a harbormaster, and an angry nun in Tuscany. 

More at the previous post about "Gamestoppers." 

Day 3 wrap video

Corner Shop, Final

 

Here's the finished study of the Corner Shop in Dun Laoghaire, with the light bouncing off the shiny road surface. The light here is whiter than the light I painted for the night scene of the caffé earlier.

The Corner Shop

The Corner Shop is on another street in Dun Laoghaire, Ireland.

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But actually I’m now in Pasadena at Lightbox Expo, and I’ll be signing at Stuart Ng’s booth today between 4 and 5:00, booth 122, and tomorrow I'll be doing a presentation and a panel discussion about imaginative realism and worldbuilding.

Knitting Hands

Jeanette's hands as she makes a sweater with slip-stitch knitting. She's looking at a chart she made from graph paper to get the pattern right. Gouache.

We're heading to Lightbox Expo in Los Angeles, and I'll be doing a book signing at Stuart NG's booth on Friday from 4-5pm. 

Hopper's "Early Sunday Morning"

In my recent painting of a street scene in Ireland, I decided not to include people in the scene. 

The image that occurred to me was Early Sunday Morning by Edward Hopper, painted in 1930. He says that the word "Sunday" was tacked on by someone else. 

With or without the title, the painting gives the feeling of either a quiet morning when people are still asleep or a desolate row of shops stilled by the Great Depression.

Hopper said the scene "was almost a literal translation of Seventh Avenue" in New York, but it wasn't literal at all, as you can see from the photo. 

He rolled up the awnings, cleared away the far buildings, and blurred the signs on the shops. He also originally planned to have a woman looking out of an upper window, but he removed her. 

By holding back on specific details his painting transcends a literal portrait of an actual street and achieves a more universal appeal.

Painting a Night Scene in the Daytime

 You don't have to paint exactly what you see. 

You can paint a night scene in the middle of the day by shifting the colors inside and outside of the structures. In this new YouTube video, I take you to Ireland for some plein-air urban sketching.

Smooth, Ready for Takeoff

 OK, one last dog portrait: Here's Smooth with his ears in flight position.

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Painted on craft foam with liquid acrylic.

Border Collie in Action

 A Border Collie herding a flock of sheep is a thing of beauty. 

As animal-behavior-expert Desmond Morris says, "they work silently, crouching, creeping and then springing into action, single-handedly marshalling its sheep and moving them from spot to spot with the control of a chess master."

Morris explains how the human shepherd communicates with the collie. "When the dog is near at hand, spoken signals can be used, but when it is further away, the shepherd switches to whistled commands." 

"Each shepherd has his own variations of these commands, and adds further ones for special instructions. To watch man and dog cooperate using this unique language is to witness one of the most intimate and subtle of all human-canine interactions."

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In this little portrait sketch, I misplaced one of the eyes and had to move it over. Easy to make such a mistake, but it's easy to fix, too. 

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Dogs: The Ultimate Dictionary of Over 1,000 Breeds by Desmond Morris

Cottage in Cleggan

I paint this cottage near Sellerna Cove, Cleggan, Co. Galway, Connemara, in the fabled west of Ireland.

 When the owner notices me painting, she brings in the laundry. Then she invites me into the kitchen, which is lit by just one light bulb.