Removing Underwater Atmospherics

Engineer and oceanographer Derya Akkaynak has developed an algorithm called Sea-Thru that removes the blue-green atmospherics of underwater photographs and renders them in "true" colors.

Photos courtesy Scientific American

The app is more than an overall hue shift, however. It uses distance data and removes a variety of aqueous atmospheric effects to show the colors of coral reefs as they would appear in air.

Scientific American says: "Sea-thru's image analysis factors in the physics of light absorption and scattering in the atmosphere, compared with that in the ocean, where the particles that light interacts with are much larger. Then the program effectively reverses image distortion from water pixel by pixel, restoring lost colors. One caveat is that the process requires distance information to work. Akkaynak takes numerous photographs of the same scene from various angles, which Sea-thru uses to estimate the distance between the camera and objects in the scene—and, in turn, the water's light-attenuating impact."
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Sea-thru Brings Clarity to Underwater Photos
Link to YouTube

Artistic Integrity and Commercial Art

S. H. R. Rjjal asks: "Mr. Gurney, what's your take on artistic integrity and commercial art? The original Harry Potter illustrator for instance does not own a single one of her work."

Adolph Menzel, "The signal for war was thus given to Europe."
Engraver: Unzelmann, Friedrich Ludwig (Source)
Book: Die Werke Friedrichs des Großen, vol. 2
Author: Volz, Gustav Berthold
Publisher:Berlin: Reimar Hobbing, 1913

Dear S.H.R,
Commissioned work doesn't have to be commercial. Just because you're paid to draw something doesn't mean you have to cynically crank it out. If you're going to do work on commission, it might as well include your personal inspiration and your highest standards.

The same is true with gallery art, which is potentially more commercial than illustration. There's always a temptation to produce work only because we know it will sell, though we may have drifted away from the authentic original inspiration.

If you do illustration work, you typically get to keep your originals. It's wise to keep at least some of your best examples. If you work hard on them, you'll be proud of them and they might be worth a lot more in the future.

An excerpt of my introduction to the book on Adolph Menzel (German, 1815-1905) addresses this point: As a commercial printer, Menzel threw himself into the task of producing decorative illustration work, such as menus, letterheads, greeting cards, and invitations. Anyone else might have written off such jobs as menial. For Menzel, to produce anything less than a sincere effort would be to “throw one’s cake in the water.” He told admiring students that it was essential to do justice to every assignment, and to accept everything as a genuine artistic challenge. “You will then cease at once to consider anything unworthy of your powers,” he said.

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Adolph Menzel: Drawings and Paintings (on Amazon)
Adolph Menzel: Drawings and Paintings (signed from my website)
Source for the Menzel illustration in this post

Painting Snow Scenes in Gouache

The new December/January issue of International Artist Magazine has an article that I wrote on painting snow scenes outdoors. I painted most of these small pictures on days when it was above 50 degrees Fahrenheit and there was no danger of the paint freezing. 

I haven’t had much luck using water media when the temperature goes below freezing. I have tried using vodka or whisky in place of the water, and I've tried putting hand warmers under the palette, but those methods haven’t worked for me. Once the paint freezes in a brush, it's game over.

But in the Hudson Valley of New York State, there are many days in the winter when there’s snow on the ground, but the temperature is above freezing. If I want to paint when it’s colder, I sketch from inside a car—or switch to oil paint.
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International Artist magazine

Sketchbook of a WWII Soldier

Victor Lundy (1923-) kept a sketchbook of his experiences in World War II.

Victor Lundy. En-route to Europe. Promenade Deck. (September 2, 1944)

His early sketches show the journey to the war zone. On his way to being deployed in Europe, the 21 year old artist wrote: "And you know, we were far from even thinking of combat. They didn’t tell us. We didn’t know what was going to happen, once we landed. …—you know, the day it happens they tell you.”

“Pat” (T/Sgt. Patenaude) zeroing in with the 60 mm
mortars in front of the 3rd platoon. (November 1, 1944)

Trained as an architect, he expected to serve in the rebuilding of Europe. But he was assigned to the infantry and went to the front lines, where he was wounded. Through it all, he documented air raids and crap games, and he sketched dead and wounded soldiers.

Victor Lundy, Rec. hall, intelligence school

Lundy, now 92, has had a prolific career as an architect. He donated his sketchbooks to the Library of Congress, where they've been scanned and put online.
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Victor Lundy Archive at Library of Congress
More about Lundy at MyModernMet
Victor Lundy on Wikipedia 

Thanks, Jason Waselenko

Getting an Oil Change, So Let's Paint

It's a few degrees above freezing, so while they give my car an oil change, I'll paint a streetscape in gouache and watercolor.

 
If I had remembered, I would have brought chemical hand warmers and fingerless gloves. (Link to YouTube video) 

Painting While Facing the Light

How can you capture light in a painting while facing toward the light? I've got a new video that you can watch here or on YouTube.

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The technique uses watercolor, gouache, and pastel over a casein priming to capture the feeling of objects against a bright sky. I also discuss whether it ‘breaks the rules’ to combine gouache, watercolor and other mixed media.
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Fortuny Watercolor Study

Mariano Fortuny's father and mother had died by the time he was 12, so he was raised by his grandfather, a craftsman who showed the boy how to make wax figurines. He took his grandson on the road from town to town, presenting the figures they sculpted.

Watercolor study by Mariano (or Marià) Fortuny (1838-1874)

Young Mariano showed early promise in drawing and painting. In Paris, he studied with was inspired by Ernest Meissonier and Jean Leon Gérôme, both of whom made careful studies from costumed models with watercolor.

Fortuny died young, but his influence was felt by many younger artists, who carried on his tradition of traveling and adventuring, painting people in exotic costumes.

Please see the additional biographical detail provided by Ramon in the comments.

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Source: Charles Yriarte, Fortuny (Artistes célèbres series) (Paris, 1886)

Book: Fortuny (1838-1874) (Catálago Esposición)

Most Museum-Goers Spend Just 10 Seconds Per Painting

In his new book First Blush: People's Intuitive Reactions to Famous Art, Dan Hill examines how we look at artwork, using an experimental approach that combines eye tracking with facial coding.

Image Courtesy Dan Hill, Sensory Logic

Facial coding involves the careful tracking of minute facial expressions that animate the face of a viewer while reacting to a stimulus. As we process images through our brains, the information passes through an emotional filter before we can rationalize what we're seeing.

Hill uses a market-research approach to analyzing our response to art. In a controlled experimental setting, he invites viewers to respond to a variety of famous paintings and photographs. The book is an informally written summary of his experimental results.

Image Courtesy Dan Hill, Sensory Logic

He makes some observations that should interest curators and us museum-goers. First, viewers have short attention spans. The best chance to hook someone's attention is in the first three seconds. After that there's a dramatic fall-off that never really bounces back.

Hill says: "an art work's window of opportunity for creating an emotional connection is typically super brief." After spending many hours in many different museums carefully watching how people interact with the art on the walls, he concludes that the average viewing time per painting in an art museum is about 10 seconds: "Most often, you're likely to look at an artwork for four seconds before taking five seconds to read the plaque (i.e., "tombstone") describing the work's title, the artist's name, and so forth. Then if still interested, you'll glance back at the artwork for another second, before moving on. The vast majority of museum viewers, he observes, read at most twenty words of the museum caption before their attention falters.
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On Amazon: First Blush: People's Intuitive Reactions to Famous Art

Eisaku Wada's Fuji Studies

While looking into Japan's tradition of European-influenced Yōga painting I ran across the work of Eisaku Wada (1874-1959).

He did a lot of plein air studies of Mount Fuji, which were evidently painted on location. 

Eisaku Wada was chosen by the Ministry of Education to study in France.

He also learned from Kuroda Seiki, who had studied in Paris.

He returned to Japan and became a professor of Tokyo University of Arts.

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Wikimedia Commons on Wada Eisaku

Yōga Painting

Old Woman (1908) Wada Eisaku

At various stages of Japan's history, artists have been interested in trying out European approaches to shading, perspective, and color.

Flower basket of Takahashi, 1879

After the Meiji Restoration in 1868, the Western style became known as Yōga painting, distinguished from Nihonga painting, which is a more traditional Japanese approach.

Shoemaker by Harada Naojiro (1863-1899)

According to The Art Story, "These new techniques introduced the employment of perspective, a push toward oil painting, lithography, pastels, watercolors, sketching, and the practice of plein air painting, and the incorporation of decidedly Western motifs and subjects."

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Yōga painting on Wikipedia (in German)
Previous post on Nihonga painting