Wednesday, May 27, 2020

The Preservation of Fire


At our forest campsite: roasted hot dogs, French potato salad, a sketch in gouache, and a thought about continuity.

6 comments:

Bevan said...

What a cool quote. Keeping the flame alive takes work but the is great and has power within it. A fun sketch to boot.

Tobias Gembalski said...

Great quote and painting ...Just lovely!

GeraldS said...

Awesome James! I am always impressed with your lettering. I have tried that in my sketchbook and regardless how wet thin paint mixture I just cant pull it off. Curious? Did you use the ash of the fire in the darker wash on the left that is under the quote?

James Gurney said...

GeraldS. I had only a couple tubes of gouache with me for that sketch, just red and yellow. The underpainting was an orange glowing center surrounded by a dark gray. The darker wash was was just umber and Payne's gray watercolor.

JustKat said...

...and, no doubt, it was dark as pitch & you had to use your x-ray vision, or some crazy diy contraption you McGuyvered on the fly out of a few twigs, grasses & broken glass... (that's all in the way of expressing my inexpressible admiration...)

James Gurney said...

JustKat, thanks. Actually it was still afternoon light when I painted it and I imagined it much darker than it really was.