Sargent by Herford

Here's Sargent doing the Duchess X
In pink velours and pea-green checks.
"It helps," says he, "to lift your Grace
A bit above the commonplace."

--Oliver Herford, from Confessions of a Caricaturist
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Download Herford's book of caricatures at Project Gutenberg, link.
Feature on Oliver Herford on 100 Years of Illustration, link.

Creature Design Workshop Update

Plans are going well for the fantasy art workshop that I'll be teaching July 27-31 at the Woodstock School of Art in New York State.


Each of us will be creating an image of Pan, the famous character from Greek mythology.

Pan, as you’ll recall, is half man and half goat. We’ll be doing observational studies from a live human model. I’ll offer lots of tips for animal drawing and creature design and I’ll bring glass goat eyes from a taxidermist, three gorgeous skulls and a pelt from Icelandic rams, and I’m working on getting a live goat (a first for the school).

The materials list that I’d like you to bring is now online, if you follow this link and click on "Supply Lists." You can do your finished art in whatever painting or sculpting medium you choose.

There’s still room in the class if you’d like to join.

Woodstock School of Art, link.
2470 Route 212
Woodstock NY 12498

For any questions about registration, lodging, costs, etc, please call the school at 845. 679. 2388 or email: wsart@earthlink.net.
Any questions about the class itself, you can ask me in the comments.

The Anatomy of the Ear

The external ear is also called the auricula or pinna. The outer rim or helix spirals up out of the bowl-like conchal fossa. A swelling known as Darwin’s tubercle is present in 10.4% of the population.

The antihelix curves inside the helix, separated by the groove called the scapha. It splits at the top into the superior and inferior crux or leg, with the triangular fossa in between.

The flap called the tragus protects of the auditory meatus, or earhole. Often with two distinct swellings, it uses the Greek name for goat because of its beard-like hairs.

Across the intertragical notch is the prominence known as the antitragus, part of the stiff cartilaginous shelf from which hangs the fleshy auricular lobule (earlobe). The depression behind the ear is called the auricular sulcus.

Wikipedia on external ear,
Darwin's tubercle (thanks, Donna)
tragus (thanks, Stape)

Two Things to Remember

Before his students graduate from the Hartford Art School, instructor Dennis Nolan sits each one of them down and gives them his intense wild-man look.

“You can forget everything else I taught you,” he tells them. “But I want you to remember just two things: how to place the horizon line, and how to draw an ear.”

Mr. Nolan told me that it’s rare to find a well-drawn ear these days, even among professional artists. “Most people forget to show the leg of the helix descending into the conchal fossa,” he said. “And not many artists know about Darwin’s tuber.”

Uh-oh, I thought to myself. I’m supposed to be a professional artist, but I’m not sure what he’s talking about.

So tonight after the workday is done I’m going to sit down and figure out the artistic anatomy of the ear. I’ll show you the results and we'll compare notes tomorrow.
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GJ post on the horizon line or eye level, part 1, part 2, and part 3.
GJ post on the Hartford Art School.

Puttin’ on Daubs

One day Edgar Payne was painting outdoors, far from any sign of habitation. He was surprised to find a man behind him, watching.

Then the man said, “ Why that’s nuthin but puttin’ on daubs!”

A little later the man shook his head and said, “But you sure gotta know where to put them daubs!” and walked away.
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Recollection by Evelyn Payne Hatcher in an addendum to Composition of Outdoor Painting by Edgar A. Payne.

ABC: Harvard Depository

The 15th of the month is the day for a group sketch game called "Art by Committee." The way it works is I share a prompt and you come up with a picture to go with it. This time we started with a business card:

I must admit that I thought the assignment was unpromising, but I was blown away. You came up with some amazing characterizations for Trudy and imaginative ideas for her environment. You can practically smell the dust on the bookshelves.

Dave Lebow
Image
Website


Mei-Yi Chun
Image
Link:

Ginger Nielson
Image:
Website
Blog:

Mario Zara
Blog

Andy Wales
Blog
Image:

Michael Manomivibul
Website

Michael Geissler
Read or Die, link.
Image:

Marisa Bryan
Image


Dave Harshberger
Blog

Rob Hummer
Image

Jared Updike
Image

Here's my solution. To show you how clueless I am, I thought Trudy was a guy’s name until Jeanette pointed out it’s short for Gertrude. And all I could think of for “depository” was a piggy bank.

Now get ready for next month. The quote for July is: “But when the dots did not vanish even after he scrubbed his fists across his eyes three times, he shouted hoarsely…”


Have fun! Please scale your JPG to 400 pixels across and compress it as much as possible. Title it with your name, send it to: jgurneyart(at)yahoo.com, subject line ABC. Please let me know in your email the full URL of the link to a larger image or your blog or website so people can see your image in all its glory and learn more about your other work. Please have your entries in by the 12th of July. I'll post the results July 15.
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Previous Art-By-Committees

Irish Music Party

Here's yesterday's sketchbook page, with quick portraits from Irish accordion player John Whelan's 50th birthday party last night. Along the top are drawings of the Half Moon, the Clearwater, and the Onrust, flagships of the Henry Hudson Quadricentennial celebrations. We watched them from the shores of the Hudson River as they sailed by.

More about the Quadricentennial, link.

Csont and New Urbanism

David Csont is one of the most admired members of the American Society of Architectural Illustrators (ASAI). He’s a principal of the firm Urban Design Associates in Pittsburgh, which is a leader in New Urbanism. New Urbanism is a movement to design communities to be more walkable, diverse, and sustainable.


Mr. Csont spends a lot of time meeting with his clients all over the world. He brings his watercolor setup to those meetings and paints right there at the conference table. Seeing his colorful renderings take shape before their eyes energizes planning groups and gets them thinking about specifics.

Although his firm uses computers extensively, this role of visualizing with traditional media can’t be replaced by the machine because of the artist’s ability to select and accentuate detail and to convey mood. Below: overviews produced by his team.

For Mr. Csont, the appeal of new urbanism grows out of childhood experiences of intact traditional communities. “I grew up in a suburban neighborhood,” Mr. Csont told me. “My grandmother lived in an old house in a traditional neighborhood. We’d sit on the front porch and watch the cars go by. There was a store on the corner and she would send me out for a loaf of bread. Those were my fondest memories.”
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New Urbanism on Wikipedia and Official Site
Urban Design Associates website
Dave Csont Bio
American Society of Architectural Illustrators (ASAI) website

Brush Washer

Here's an easy and cheap way of making a brush washer for oil painting using a glass jar and a plastic container, with kerosene as the solvent. The holes in the plastic container are made with a power drill and a 1/4 inch high speed drill.

After the jar fills up with sediment it can be discarded at the recycling center on toxic waste day.

Also check out the GJ post on Ed Ahlstrom's design for a coffee can brush washer, link.

Clotheslines

Clotheslines are beautiful things.


Charles Curran painted these sheets drying on the line, using the cloth as a back projection screen for the cast shadows of the nearby foliage.

Clothes dried on the line smell fresher. Hanging laundry floods the soul with joyful light. And it uses free energy.


So why don’t we see more clotheslines in America? The energy and appliance companies ran a relentless series of ads in the 1950s and 1960s brainwashing people into thinking clotheslines are ugly or old fashioned. Many communities have laws against clotheslines. You could get fined for hanging out your laundry.