"This is the book that started it all" —Patrick O'Brien, MICA
James Gurney
This weblog by Dinotopia creator James Gurney is for illustrators, plein-air painters, sketchers, comic artists, animators, art students, and writers. You'll find practical studio tips, insights into the making of the Dinotopia books, and first-hand reports from art schools and museums.
You can write me at: James Gurney PO Box 693 Rhinebeck, NY 12572
or by email: gurneyjourney (at) gmail.com Sorry, I can't give personal art advice or portfolio reviews. If you can, it's best to ask art questions in the blog comments.
Permissions
All images and text are copyright 2020 James Gurney and/or their respective owners. Dinotopia is a registered trademark of James Gurney. For use of text or images in traditional print media or for any commercial licensing rights, please email me for permission.
However, you can quote images or text without asking permission on your educational or non-commercial blog, website, or Facebook page as long as you give me credit and provide a link back. Students and teachers can also quote images or text for their non-commercial school activity. It's also OK to do an artistic copy of my paintings as a study exercise without asking permission.
The destroyed city on the picture is Ypres (or Ieper as we Flemish say), where a mediaeval city hall was destroyed. After the war, the English wanted to leave the city in ruins to commemorate all of the bloody battles there. But the people of Ypres wanted to rebuild the city after the war. Nowadays, it's an interactive WWI-museum.
Ypres also features a Vauban wall structure (French military defensive structure from the era of Louis XIV), and then there also is the Menin gate, built after WWI in style colonial Indian style. Within engraved are the names of 30,000 English and Commonwealth soldiers that died there. Every evening (since 1920 or so) at 8 pm a delegation of the local firebrigade plays the "Last Post" for them.
I visited Ypres plenty of times, because I grew up two villages away: Ypres was a protruding part in the English frontline, while my hometown was the first one in the German frontline. Every square meter got hit during the war by an average of 3 bombs/grenades, to give you an impression of the impact of the war on the landscape there...
5 comments:
hmm. Are we sure those illustrations are his? some of them look like magazine illustrations or illustrations done for magazines..
side note:
http://www.allworldwars.com/World%20War%20II%20Sketches%20By%20Hans%20Liska.html
James, how do you find all this stuff? Do you have a methodical approach to your information gathering?
Stephen, a lot of times, blog readers send me links. This one was from K-tron.
The destroyed city on the picture is Ypres (or Ieper as we Flemish say), where a mediaeval city hall was destroyed.
After the war, the English wanted to leave the city in ruins to commemorate all of the bloody battles there.
But the people of Ypres wanted to rebuild the city after the war. Nowadays, it's an interactive WWI-museum.
Current situation: see here.
Ypres also features a Vauban wall structure (French military defensive structure from the era of Louis XIV), and then there also is the Menin gate, built after WWI in style colonial Indian style. Within engraved are the names of 30,000 English and Commonwealth soldiers that died there. Every evening (since 1920 or so) at 8 pm a delegation of the local firebrigade plays the "Last Post" for them.
I visited Ypres plenty of times, because I grew up two villages away: Ypres was a protruding part in the English frontline, while my hometown was the first one in the German frontline. Every square meter got hit during the war by an average of 3 bombs/grenades, to give you an impression of the impact of the war on the landscape there...
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