Rockwell Visits a Country Editor

One of the paintings in tomorrow's auction of American Art at Christie's is "Norman Rockwell Visits a Country Editor."

Norman Rockwell Visits a Country Editor, 1946, oil, 33 x 63 in.

It was published in Saturday Evening Post in 1946, one of a series of portrayals of American life that Rockwell did for the magazine in the guise of artist/reporter. 

The mural-like painting commemorates Rockwell's visit to the Monroe County Appeal, a small-town newspaper in Paris, Missouri. Rockwell took photos of the setting and then assembled the composition back in his studio.

He donated the painting to the National Press Club, which is now putting it up for sale. It is estimated between $10 and 15 million, though it will probably exceed the estimate. The proceeds will benefit the National Press Club and the National Press Club Journalism Institute.

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Norman Rockwell Visits a Country Editor at Christie's

Thanks, Matthew Innis

Harvey Dunn at the NRM

An exhibition of the work of Golden Age illustrator Harvey Dunn has opened at the Norman Rockwell Museum. 



Dunn grew up on a South Dakota farm and studied with Howard Pyle. He became an artist reporter in World War I, and then spent the balance of his career as an influential story illustrator and teacher.

The exhibition includes work from throughout his career, as well as paintings by some of his noteworthy students such as Dean Cornwell, Henry C. Pitz, Mead Schaeffer, Harold von Schmidt, Frank Street, Saul Tepper, John Clymer, Lyman Anderson, and James E. Allen. There will also be public talks by experts on Dunn.

They'll be showing the little film I put together using footage by Frank Reilly. (Link to Video)

Dunn said, “We think of art as sort of a flimsy thing,” he said, “but do you realize that the only thing left from ancient times is the art… The Greek statues that are armless and nameless are just as beautiful today as they were the day the unknown sculptor laid down his hammer and chisel and said, ‘Oh, hell, I can’t do it!'”
The exhibition will be up through March 13.
NRM presents: Harvey Dunn and His Students

Sidebar to Close

Sidebar, the podcast with lively interviews of comic artists and illustrators, will be shutting down. 

"As announced on our final show (#337), all the Sidebar back episodes — including the ones previously archived in our store — are available for free download over the next three weeks. After early December, no more. We will be shutting this blog down along with all other hosting sites."

You can still hear 2010 my interview for free.
Many thanks to Dwight, Swain, and Adrian for all the great interviews you've done over the years, and thanks, Eric, for letting me know.

The Orchestra Now's "Sight and Sound" Program

Last night I attended an orchestral concert at Bard College conducted by James Bagwell. I did these sketches during the concert to try to capture Mr. Bagwell's movements.

James Bagwell, Conductor of "The Orchestra Now" (TŌN) at Bard College

The players are part of an innovative training orchestra called "The Orchestra Now" (TŌN). One of the goals of this organization is to explore new ways to engage with the audience.

For example, many of the players came out into the lobby during intermission to talk with concert-goers about the music. We talked with bassoonist Wade Coufal, who has taken his music into children's hospitals (Here's his essay about the experience).

Another vision of the orchestra's founders is to connect music with art.

In a program called "Sight and Sound" on December 6th at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, curators will talk about Louis-Léopold Boilly's painting "The Public Viewing David’s Coronation at the Louvre," accompanied by a performance of Beethoven's Eroica symphony.

They'll also be doing free concerts throughout the New York City boroughs.
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Official website of The Orchestra Now
The sketch is done with watercolor pencils and water brushes in a 5x8 inch sketchbook.

Previously on GurneyJourney:
James Bagwell Conducts
Maestro Bagwell
James Bagwell at a Rehearsal

Previous posts on concert sketching:
The "Flash-Glance" Method
Gouache portrait of an Irish whistle player
Sketching a vocal concert  
Violinist in ink wash
Horn Player
Mirko Listening
Club Passim Gig
Shapewelding Sketching 
The Cello and the Pencil
Concertgoer
Mass in C
Handel's Messiah

Bix Puppet Prototype

Here is a one-of-a-kind prototype of a Bix puppet. It was made by Hasbro for a proposed line of Dinotopia toys that was stalled when the Hollywood film went into turnaround in 1997.

The front half of Bix emerges through a piece of black cloth behind an arched door. Her skin is molded in flexible latex or silicon over a skeletal framework.

The operator is able to control the movement of her mouth, the tilt of her head, and the movement of the eye ridges by means of a set of levers in the back.

You can watch a brief video of the prototype's movement on my Public Facebook or my Instagram page.

In previous blog posts you can see other prototypes from the Hasbro presentation, including action figures, a skybax toy, a Sylvia doll, and a strutter model.

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Jezebel Waiting for the Barn

Late in the afternoon the donkeys wait to be let into the barn. I sit up on the fence, because otherwise Jezebel will put her head in my lap to get attention.

At 43 years old, Jezebel is the oldest jenny. She has her own stall in the barn because she is on a special diet. 

Donkeys' proportions are different from those of horses: large head and ears, small hindquarters, big long belly, and small hooves. They also have a black marking called a "cross" running perpendicular to the back and down along the withers.

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Watercolor with colored pencils and fountain pen.

Harold Speed on Painting: Preface and Intro

Let's resume the GJ Book Club with Harold Speed's 1924 classic The Science and Practice of Oil Painting, which continues where his previous book, The Practice and Science of Drawing left off.

I'll present his points in bold either verbatim or paraphrased, followed by comments of my own.

1. "Painting is drawing (form expression) with the added complication of tone and color."
One of Speed's great contributions as a teacher is to narrow the gulf in students' minds between drawing and painting. As he says, the key is to break down the problem into easy stages and to take one thing at a time. In his previous book, he talked a lot about "mass drawing," by which he meant seeing form in terms of tone. The jump from charcoal to monochromatic oil isn't that great. His book is a good lifeline for those who have been frustrated by all the variables of a full-color painting.

J. S. Sargent, portrait of Charles Stuart Forbes

2. The impressionist movement has required a reformulation of the course of study in art schools because of the new vision that the movement has given us.
From the standpoint of British art schools in the early 20th century, this impressionist way of seeing would have been regarded "Continental" or foreign, and not altogether acceptable. Eventually the British painters adopted the ideas of broken color and direct painting, but there were many in the Royal Academy who resisted it.

3. There are two modes of teaching: hard drilling on technical methods or leaving the student to figure out a technique on his own.
Some of the great teachers have come from both camps. Frank Reilly was more of the former, while Howard Pyle was more of the latter. But, Howard Pyle had the luxury of incoming students who had already been drilled on academic methods. The problem with the first method, Speed suggests, is that the student can get lost in technical issues and lose sight of their unique expressive potential. Later in the introduction Speed suggests that any art school should nurture the natural impulses of each individual student while providing the technical tools.

4. Every work of art starts with a nebulous idea.
This is true for me, and my thumbnail process is so important to work through. The buzzword for this process these days is "iteration." A lot of people seeing a finished painting assume the artist just sits down and renders out an idea fully formed.

5. "The best definition of a genius I have seen, is that he is described as the man most under the influence of these mental uprushes from the subconscious."
I know what he means, but I think the statement could be misleading. So many great geniuses like Michelangelo define genius as "eternal patience," or "the infinite capacity for taking pains" or "90% perspiration." Those uprushes from the subconscious only arrive, in my experience, in the context of steadfast effort. Patience, steadfastness, hard work, and an insatiable dissatisfaction. Who else but Sargent would have the intense application to wipe out a portrait again and again after 15-20 false starts.

6. Conscious / unconscious
Speed talks a lot about the relationship between the conscious and the unconscious. I love the idea that we should study consciously and paint intuitively. His preoccupation with the unconscious was very much of his time, as Henry James and other psychologists were building on what Freud had posited about the workings of the creative mind.

More recently, neuroscientists have explained the process by which skills are internalized. Beginners focus consciously on each skill, and then gradually, through practice, the neural pathways migrate into deeper subcortical regions of the brain.

7. Practical / intuitive
In the later part of the introduction, he sets up for the analytical approach that he'll use in his course of study, without neglecting the value of intuition and elusive rhythms that are harder to dissect. He wisely chooses to avoid the mysteries of the origins of creativity and to stick with more practical and rational matters.

At the end of the chapter, he decries the loss of drawing as a commonplace skill practiced by non-artists, perhaps a consequence of mystifying the process and undermining the value of traditional skills.

He ends with a great quote: "It is only those you cannot discourage who are worth encouraging."

I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

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In its original edition, the book is called "The Science and Practice of Oil Painting." Unfortunately it's not available in a free edition that I know of, but there's an inexpensive print edition that Dover publishes under a different title "Oil Painting Techniques and Materials," and there's also a Kindle edition.

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Previously on GJ
Speed's drawing book: Chapter 1: Preface and Introduction

Dinotopia in Philadelphia through Monday

The Philadelphia Inquirer recommends the Dinotopia art exhibition as one of the best things to do with families.

"It’s nice to think that if the dinosaurs had survived that comet (or meteor, or earthquake, or visit from the Rigelian Empire, or whatever did them in) and continued to coexist with us, we’d be pals. That’s part of the appeal of “Dinotopia,” artist and author James Gurney’s delightful series about a 19th-century explorer visiting an island where gentle humans and smart dinos share an idyllic life. The other appealing aspect is Gurney’s gorgeous, detailed paintings for the books."

The exhibit ends Monday. Check it out 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Friday, Nov. 13 and Monday, Nov. 16 at the University of Arts von Hess Illustration Gallery, Anderson Hall 717 (333 S. Broad St.).

Thank you, Michael Harrington at the Philadelphia Inquirer

Fishing Boat in Pencil

I like switching from paint to pencil when I'm sketching on location. It's easy to overlook the fun of pencil and be lured into paint. But pencil, even in its elemental simplicity, lends itself to painterly effects, too.

I'm interested in all the rigging, but I'm also trying to convey the blinding light in the bay. I partially erase the lines that cross those hot reflections in the water, and I add a softening sfumato or enveloping tone, smudged with my thumb, to the area where the hull meets the water.

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Tools: Ebony pencil, 2B graphite pencil, and a kneaded eraser

Menzel and Glazing

Adolph Menzel The Balcony Room, oil, 1845

Adolph Menzel was painting from life in oil many years before the Impressionists. His friend Paul Meyerheim described his way of working: “Especially in the time where the whole world was painting out of that brown soup, it was Menzel's characteristic to put every tone correctly mixed and thickly into the right place."

Adolph Menzel, The Studio Wall

Meyerheim continues: "He never performed the method of glazing. He always painted differently than his contemporaries and as a result the world wasn't familiar with his technique."

"He compared glazing or similar transitions with transparent colors to the use of the pedal on the piano, stating that a good pianist can play everything as if he was using the pedal. Yet as a matter of fact everything has to be played on the keys themselves without the tones getting blurred.”
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Thanks to Christian Schlierkamp and Christoph Heuer for help with the translation.
From Paul Meyerheim