"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.
Blog reader Susan Fox did some good sleuth work, and found the Broadway, U.K. home of American expatriate illustrator Edwin Austin Abbey.
"The house is called Morgan Hall," she writes. "It took a little asking around the village, but I found someone who remembered that Abbey the artist had lived here. I walked down the drive, took a deep breath and knocked on the door, but no one was home. The drapes were pulled and a I sneaked a peek at the beautifully furnished interior and grabbed a couple of photos of the outside. This was in 1993."
"As you will see, Illustration and painting seems to have paid pretty well for Abbey. It's quite a house. Classic Cotswolds stone country home. It's right off the village green on one of the roads out of town. As far as I have been able to figure out, this is where Sargent painted Carnation Lily, Lily Rose."
Thanks, Susan! See her work on Cafepress. Previous GJ post on Abbey.
Illustrator and collector Ian Schoenherr has just started a blog on Howard Pyle. He explains:
I avidly collect the work of Howard Pyle. But that's only a slender part of my Pylomania. I also seek out information - even seemingly meaningless or useless factoids - about his life, his family, his art school, his working and teaching methods, as well as copies of his correspondence, sketches, drawings, paintings, photographs, books, magazines, prints, ephemera and esoterica - pretty much any and every kind of tidbit that has something to do with Howard Pyle. So, to justify my existence and my obsession, I've start this blog to share some of what I've learned or accumulated.
If William Bliss Baker had not died at age 27 from a skating injury, he might have gone on to be a bright star in the firmament of American landscape painting.
His "Fallen Monarchs," above, shows the influence of one of his teachers, Albert Bierstadt, with a keen awareness of light and atmosphere, and a close observation of forest detail.
Pericle Luigi Giovannetti (born 1916) was a pantomime cartoonist for Punch who was popular after World War II. He was known for his sympathetic portrayals of the foibles of old age, for his haughty hound dogs, and for a brash little animal character he invented called Max.
This cartoon is from a 1956 book called "Max Presents." More about him on the cartooning blog "Now Read This."
In honor of President Barack Obama visiting the People's Republic of China, I extend my best wishes to those who love imaginative art there.
I'm curious if anyone who has been to China and knows the culture could comment on the status of fantasy art in that country. Is fantasy or science fiction art something you see in the poster shops, newsstands, or bookstores?
It’s the 15th of November, and that means it's time for our group sketch game called "Art by Committee." The way it works is I share an excerpt from a science fiction story and you come up with a picture to go with it. This month the quote was :
“He is shorter than I remember, and thin. His fur is grayed to white in a fringe around his head, just below his ears. His coat is dull, thinning, and coarse. His eyes, so bright I…”
As always, the results are impressive and incredibly varied. Nice work, everybody!
Here's the drawing that appears in the original ABC book.
For next month, let’s try the Business Card Challenge. The idea here is to look at a real business card, and try to imagine its owner.
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 at full size and learn more about your other work. Please have your entries in by the 12th of December. I'll post the results December 15.
Today is Friday the 13th, the lucky day for one of the four following videos. A while ago one of the blog readers suggested a book trailer contest for Imaginative Realism. You are the judges!
Please watch all four videos (they're only a minute long) and vote for your favorite in the poll at left. The videos are presented in the order I received them. It's OK to vote for more than one video. Poll closes Sunday morning.
"Imaginative Realism" by Room 9 Studios, Chana High School.
"If You Can See, You Can Imagine Too" by Emmanuel Laverde. (Link to website)
"The James Gurney Show" By GooGoo Supreme (Click Here to see flash animation).
Note to contestants: Since there's a small number of entries, we can improve the prizes that I announced in the contest rules. Each contest entrant will get to choose one favorite signed and remarqued book, DVD, or audio from the selection in The Dinotopia Store, as well as an Imaginative Realism poster. The Grand Prize Winner will get the choice of two books from the Store selection.
Thank you all for entering and working so hard! I'm glad I'm not the judge. I'd never be able to decide! -------- Addendum: The votes are in! Thanks for all who voted, and thanks to the four contestants for creating those incredible videos.
Emmanuel Laverde, you were the winner with 113 votes, followed the Futuristic Flamingo with 94, Room 9 Studios with 59, and GooGoo Supreme with 27.
Would all four contestants please email me at jgurneyart (at) yahoo (dot) com? Please let me know your choice of book, DVD, or CD set, along with your mailing address. Mr. Laverde, please choose two items. Congratulations to all.
Here's Al Dorne, one of the founders of the Famous Artists School, and the illustrator with the most resplendent eyebrows.
His philosophy of teaching was a mix of pragmatism, idealism, and populism. "Commercial illustration means pictures you can understand," he said. He also believed the work of the illustrator was the highest possible calling. In the introduction to the Famous Artists Course, he said,
"As people divided into different tribes and developed their different dialects, art became more specifically and necessarily the one universal language. It was used to record events——to tell religious stories——basically to communicate ideas to all, regardless of their own spoken language. Today art is used commercially to convey definite messages to the people."
A large collection of Dorne's illustrations can be found (and downloaded) at Leif Peng's Flickr page on Dorne.
Arthur Rackham, the story goes, hired an old woman model who posed for many of his characters: not just nymphs and hags, but also trees and dragons.
Whenever you’re creating an imaginary creature, it’s good to have someone act out the pose. In a pinch you can act it out yourself in front of a mirror or a camera with a self-timer. You can change all the forms around, but there are often valuable details you can pick up from real life.
This little hunchback monster, a sidekick to the Birdman character (full image on earlier GJ post) was such a reality-based creature.
Even though I made a little maquette, I based details of his forehead and his hands on the live-action photograph, which I made with a digital camera on a timer.
The original painting is currently on display at the "Son of Baby Tattooville" exhibition at Riverside Art Museum in southern California. The show will end November 21.
"The house is called Morgan Hall," she writes. "It took a little asking around the village, but I found someone who remembered that Abbey the artist had lived here. I walked down the drive, took a deep breath and knocked on the door, but no one was home. The drapes were pulled and a I sneaked a peek at the beautifully furnished interior and grabbed a couple of photos of the outside. This was in 1993." 
"As you will see, Illustration and painting seems to have paid pretty well for Abbey. It's quite a house. Classic Cotswolds stone country home. It's right off the village green on one of the roads out of town. As far as I have been able to figure out, this is where Sargent painted Carnation Lily, Lily Rose."
