Blackfriar Pub

Here's a pencil sketch of The Black Friar Pub in London. What attracts me to a scene like this is the weird juxtaposition of elements. The wedge-shaped art nouveau landmark stands alone, surrounded with stark geometric postwar forms.

I used two grades of graphite pencils, an HB and a 3B. I sharpened the soft pencil into a chisel tip, which helped with the treatment of the window details..

Daguerre, Painter

Louis Daguerre is best known as one of the pioneers of photography, but he was first a painter.

In 1803 he became a pupil of Degotti, a scene painter for the Paris Opera, and soon began he working on panorama paintings. He created enormous realistic depictions of cities and historical scenes.

To add to the illusion of reality, Daguerre’s paintings were arranged in rotundas lit from above. In 1822 he invented the diorama, a form of scenic entertainment that combined the panorama with a “diaphanorama,” which used translucent oiled paper lit from the side in subtly changing vistas.

To audiences of his day, these spectacles must have held the same “gee-whiz” appeal of HDTV or 3D movies in our time.

Tor Gallery

Tor.com has just posted a set of my images in their web gallery. The TOR Gallery is a great place to survey what's going on in contemporary fantasy art. My pictures can be seen here, and all of these will be included in the upcoming book.

Rear View Tip

Here’s a handy way to get a fresh look at a painting. For just a few dollars at an auto part store you can get one of these stick-on convex mirrors.

They help you see your work in a new way because they both reverse and miniaturize your composition, making it immediately clear if you’re getting the Big Statement right.

Remember: objects in mirror are closer than they appear!

Related GJ post on getting a fresh eye and Lorrain mirrors.

Sal Westrich

Art students at Pratt Institute in New York will know Sal Westrich. He teaches history there during the school year and then spends the summers in southern France, enjoying the delights of tomates à la Provençale and salade niçoise. What could be a better life?

Pen Disaster

Just heard a scream from the laundry room upstairs. Looks like I left my fountain pen in a load of whites. It busted up and bled in the spin cycle. Now we'll be walking around covered in strange brown spots.

Costumes, Part 2

Continuing yesterday's costume tips:


7. You can improvise a lot of costume details with samples of fabric combined with old clothes from your closet. It doesn’t matter if the color matches or if it looks good enough to go on stage. You’re just looking for information about folds and drapery.

8. If you can’t fine the right costume, don’t worry! Remnants of leather, satin, brocade, or velvet from a fabric store can provide you with helpful information about the behavior of the fabric. Steel bowls from the kitchen can give ideas for how armor would look.

9. For simple togas and capes, you can drape and pin fabric samples over your artist mannikin or dressmaker’s dummy. For the fabric to scale down to a miniature size, it should be a very light weight. Cellophane scales down really well over a miniature figure, and can be spray painted to give it opacity (Thanks, Graydon).

10. Don’t be shy to ask for help. If you know someone who is clever with a sewing machine and can think laterally, they might be able to help you improvise a few basic things.

11. Once you get your model (or yourself) in costume, you can take reference photos in a variety of poses. If it’s an easy pose to hold, you can work directly from the model. That's how I did the painting of Oriana above, which appears in Dinotopia: The World Beneath. I put pieces of tape on the floor to mark where the model's feet should return between breaks. The whole session only took about an hour and a half, which saved time over shooting reference or doing drawn studies.

12. If you attend a sketch group, ask if your fellow artists might enjoy sketching from a costumed model. If so, everyone can pitch in a costume or two, or the models may come with something. You can usually pay the model to stay after the sketch session to work with you for reference.

Costumes, Part 1

An artist like Edwin Austin Abbey (below: "Who is Sylvia") was legendary among his peers for lavishing a fortune on the right costume for reference. (More Abbey samples here)

Good costumes can be expensive to buy or rent. And they can be difficult to make. But having a real costume makes a huge difference in your finished work. You can tell right away if an artist just made up a costume or went to the trouble to get a real one.

Abbey’s illustrations commanded princely sums a hundred years ago. What are we mortals to do nowadays on a shoestring budget? Today and tomorrow I'll offer 12 tips to save you money, time, and trouble.



1. You can find costumes at thrift stores or junk shops. Almost every garage sale has a Halloween costume or an unusual hat that you may want to use later.

2. Many smaller communites have a local theater company with costume collections. They are sometimes willing to loan their costumes to illustrators.

3. Renaissance festivals have vendors with an assortment of hats, cloaks, corsets, gowns, breeches, and doublets. Example: Moresca Clothing and Costume. That’s where the blue and red jacket came from, and I’ve used it in many Dinotopia pictures.

4. People who work in living history museums wear very authentic costumes. I've found they're glad to model for a sketchbook study. They may also be willing to pose for photo reference, but be sure to get their written permission first. Examples: Plimouth Plantation, Old Sturbridge Village, Colonial Williamsburg.

5. Big cities like New York, London, or Los Angeles have rental agencies serving theatrical or movie productions. Sometimes they will sell off their older, worn-out costumes. That’s where the doublet with the slashed sleeves above came from. Examples: Palace Costumes, Adele's Costumes.

6. Large museums, like the Metropolitan Museum or the Victoria and Albert in London have costume collections which can usually be sketched or photographed. Examples: Metropolitan Museum Costume Institute, Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

Tomorrow: Six more costume tips.

Too-Smooth Tones

When he translated his reference photo into a painting, Andrew Loomis softened the edges and subordinated the unimportant small forms. For example, he simplified the details under the model’s left hand, and eliminated the delicate tracery in the lower half of the dress.

To idealize the figure, he made the head of the model slightly smaller in the painting than it appeared in the reference.

He was also conscious of breaking up the flat tones of the photo.

“One of the main things that identify a photo as a photo,” he wrote in his classic book Creative Illustration, “is the ultra-smoothness of the tones.”

Where the photo presented monotonous values, such as in the pillows behind the model’s shoulders, he activated the surface with painterly variations.

“Note the accents placed here and here of dark against light, to add punch,” Loomis says. “The lights have been forced somewhat to obtain extra brilliancy. The background has been lightened in spots to avoid the monotony of tone in the photo.”
-------
From Creative Illustration (1947)

Waterhouse in London

On June 23, The Royal Academy of Arts in London will present the largest retrospective ever assembled on the art of John William Waterhouse (1849-1917).

This exhibition includes 92 paintings and drawings, along with sketchbooks. The London exhibition will continue through September 13, after which it will continue at The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts in Canada from October 1, 2009 – 7 February 2010.
------
Royal Academy website, link.