Antonio Mancini's Graticola

Antonio Mancini (1852-1930), whom Sargent called “the best living painter,” used a unique grid system for sight-size painting.



Mancini's system has been called the "graticola" or the "raster." It involved a network of strings stretched across a frame between the artist and the model, and a corresponding set of strings, exactly the same size, stretched directly on top of the painting itself.

The system was adapted from processes described by old masters such as Dürer and Leonardo.

By looking through the grid of strings, and then painting what he saw in each of the spaces between the strings, he could match painted reality to observed reality. 

The system required that the sitter remain exactly in the same position, and that Mancini always observe the model through one eye from a specific point in three-dimensional space. 

According to a witness in 1893, "He always works at a distance from his canvas, always returning to sit at precisely the same little spot that he carefully marked on the floor." 

He observed the painting and the model together, then advanced quickly and attacked the canvas to correct a small spot and make it match the values of subject. 

Many of the paintings bear the imprint of the grid. Presumably there would be a point in the process where you would lift the frame off the painting and blend together the patches to get rid of the lines. 

But reportedly Mancini liked leaving a hint of the squares because it endowed the paintings with a sense of objectivity and scientific accuracy.

Even though Mancini's paint technique can often be loose and gestural, there's a sense of objective realism hovering behind it. 

Mancini was a proponent of the Verismo movement, an Italian response to the striving for Realism in France.

Mancini was passionate about his use of the tool, saying “the advantages I derive from it are unlimited.” 

I've selected samples that show the influence of the grid, but to be fair, many of his other paintings don't show the evidence of the process.

In addition to the horizontal and vertical strings, he also used diagonal grid lines. Sitters reported that he added strings to the grid during the painting process. 

Presumably the diagonal strings helped him locate individual squares and they also gave additional bounding lines to compare to the form.

For all the precision and objectivity of his method, Mancini was in extreme emotional states during the process of painting: "at one moment he is grieved to his soul, then he is singing happily- then livid and wild- every square of tone shows what you get out of him- every little square he paints is another little piece of his sanity lost- it won’t be long before he runs out. I hope that I’m mistaken in this, but… the great genius that leads to madness tosses and turns in his head incessantly."
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Online Resources
Mancini's Graticola by Matthew Innis (more on sources of quotes)
Juan Ramirez did a Kickstarter project to reconstruct the graticola
Carolyn Anderson's blog "Fractals, Chaos, and Mancini's Graticola"
Antonio Mancini on Lines and Colors
Wikipedia article on Mancini
Thanks to Darren Rousar for telling me about the graticola.
Exhibition Catalog: Antonio Mancini: Nineteenth-Century Italian Master (Philadelphia Museum of Art)

10 Years of Blogging

Today marks ten years of GurneyJourney. My first post was July 16, 2007, and I've done a daily post since then.

I started my blog “GurneyJourney” in July of 2007 at the suggestion of my publisher. The idea was to do a visual journal of the book tour for "Dinotopia: Journey to Chandara." It quickly expanded to become a daily summary about whatever I was learning about. The reason I like to blog is that it gives me a chance to explore ideas, to share discoveries, to think out loud, and to learn things from you, the reader. Thanks to all of you that are part of the GJ community, both the regular and occasional commentators, and those who only just read without commenting, which is OK, too.

I've tried to follow these seven goals:
1. Brevity. (Omit needless words).
2. Simplicity (One basic idea per post).
3. Variety (Funny stories, obscure videos, geeky factoids and useful studio tips).
4. Commercial free (No popups, ads, or sponsored content).
5. Information over opinions (I'm better as an explainer than a detractor).
6. Credit (Try to identify and link to stuff that's not mine).
7. Show, don't tell (Let the practice drive the theory).

The main way I've supported the blog and paid my staff is with links to Amazon. The way it works is that whenever you make a purchase through one of my links, Amazon sends me a few cents on the dollar from the sale. I like that system because it doesn't cost the shopper anything extra. So if you shop Amazon, just start your session through a sponsored link. You don't have to buy art books or art supplies for me to receive the percentage. It works for anything, as long as you enter through my link and while the tab is open you can buy your almond butter or dog bed or whatever.

Writing Dinotopia: Journey to Chandara in 2007

I didn't expect that blogging would lead to so many other things. The books “Imaginative Realism” and “Color and Light” grew directly out of blog posts, and since then I've released ten feature-length instructional videos and over 200 free YouTube videos. I made those books and videos to translate the ideas from the blog into a more comprehensive form. There are more books and videos coming and lots more ideas for the blog in coming weeks and months, so stay tuned.
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"GurneyJourney at 10" on Lines and Colors
Remember, the "Dead Vehicle Challenge" is July 31. And if you spend time at Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, please check out my channels, as I often post different things there.
Previously: Meet the GurneyJourney Staff

Art Talk Tape: Work and the Freelance Lifestyle

In the 1980s I was part of a group of friends called "The Golden Palm Tape Network" who shared conversations about art via cassette tapes that we would mail to each other. Here's a sample of a vintage "podcast" on the topic of work and the freelancer. (Link to podcast on YouTube)

Contributors include fellow fantasy- and comic artists James Warhola (Uncle Andy's), Paul Chadwick (Concrete) (at 29:45), and Tom Kidd (Gnemo).

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Previous podcast: "Academic Chatter: Gerome, Repin, and Shishkin"
More about the GP Tape Network

Song "Caterpillar Man" is by Carl Trent

Early Sketching Stools

This tripod easel and these stools are typical of what plein-air artists would use in the 1890s. 

The legs of the easel were made from sliding sections that closed down to about 31 inches when not in use. A metal clamp at the top held onto the canvas so that it wouldn't blow over.

The folding stools had either canvas or perforated wood seats.

Cartoon "Stymied" by Punch cartoonist and Winnie the Pooh illustrator E.H. Shepard.

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See also Early Sketching Umbrellas

International Artist article on the Sketch Easel

The new issue of International Artist magazine (#116/August/Sept. 2017) has a feature on how to make a sketch easel. Pick up a copy or order online.

Don't miss the previous GurneyJourney posts: "Your DIY Pochade Easel Designs" and "Sketch Easel Materials."

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Be part of the maker community. Get yourself a copy of "How to Make a Sketch Easel".

The 1080p HD download is available now for just $14.95 from Gumroad.

The DVD version is available for $24.50, and it includes a slide show. The DVD is also available on Amazon.

Finding it in the paint

The house is across Route 81 from the churchyard. Jeanette and I set up our easels next to the gravestones and we start painting.

I try to get the overall measurements as close as I can while I'm still in the pencil stage, but most of the discovery happens in the paint. I like gouache because it lets me clean up edges and fix things as I go.



(Link to video) The whole session takes an hour and a half. By then the sun is down, the mosquitoes are up, and the ghosts are stirring.

Resources
Previous posts: Gouache Materials List
Experiments with a Limited Palette
My library of HD tutorial downloads
My tutorials on DVD (credit cards)
My tutorials on DVD (Paypal)

View out the Manure Door

The barn is a bank barn, built into a sloping hillside. The upper floor is accessible at ground level to horses and wagons on the east side. You enter the bottom level on the downhill side. 

If you sit on the main floor and face west, you look out past the duckling pen and the brooding box to a balcony over the manure pile.

In the afternoon the light streams in. That's where Handsome, the barn cat, likes to sit.

It was that simple value arrangement that attracted me. The light shape consists of the open door and the polygon of light on the floor. There's a railing at the lower left sticking out into the light, and the light just catches some of the brooms and the edge of the brooding box. (Link to video)

Jamie's Wyeth's Box

Jamie Wyeth painting in Maine, 1994. Photo by David Alan Harvey

Painting outside is a public spectacle. People like to stop and watch and chat, which can be OK most of the time. But what do you do when you want to screen out those distractions? Jamie Wyeth has a novel solution, according to Daniel Grant:

'Perhaps winning the prize for oddest looking is Jamie Wyeth who kneels inside a four-foot high, seven-foot long three-sided wooden bait box when he goes outside to paint on Monhegan Island, Maine. (He puts a heater in during cold weather.) “My box is mainly for privacy,” he said, noting that “I find it extremely bothersome when people talk to me while I’m painting. If I don’t say anything to them when they ask a question, or if I tell them I don’t like to talk while I’m working, then I feel terrible that I’ve been rude. Inside the box, people see that I clearly don’t want to talk, and they eventually scurry away.'

Related posts:
Top Ten Ways to Deal with Curious Spectators 
The Problem of Curious Spectators
'Can I Borrow Your Paintbrush?'
Your Experiences with Spectators

Boldini's French Plein-Airs

I'm wondering how Giovanni Boldini (1842-1931) painted these pictures of dynamic street life. I assume they're painted from observation and not from photos. 

If I was tackling such a subject. I would rough in the composition on location. In another session I would have the model pose on a patio or sidewalk, then go back and finish up the background on the spot.

Same with this one. You could do it in sections. A groom could hold the harnessed horses in the same lighting as the background scene.

It's possible that this scene came readymade, but it's also possible he painted the house and trees of the river scene, and then grabbed the steamboats, rowboats, and ducks in other places and added them to the half finished painting.

I love the way Boldini is so playful and daring in his paint application. He appears to be using a variety of brushes: big ones, small ones, new ones, and old ones.



Sometimes students want their set of brushes to be all new and fresh, but experienced painters also cherish their worn, splayed brushes.

 This painting of a riverside laundry appears to be a plein-air study.

This related work is also small (13 x 20 inches), but it might have been completed in the studio using plein air sketches as reference notes. I'm just guessing here, and if anyone knows more about this, please share in the comments.

If indeed Boldini composited elements in these paintings, he would have started with the idea in sketch stage, and then built the picture from elements he found. It's like what Ansel Adams said about camera work: "You don't take a photograph, you make it."
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Book about the exhibit of Boldini's French Landscapes: Giovanni Boldini in Impressionist Paris (Sterling & Francine Clark Art Institute)

Gouache on a Colored Underpainting

Here's a tip for painting in gouache. You can prep some pages in your sketchbook with various colored underpaintings.



When you're choosing a subject to paint, study it first to see if a certain color pops up throughout, and then pick an underpainting with that color. The priming color will influence later passages and will unify the painting.

For such underpaintings, you can use Acryla Gouache, matte acrylics, or Casein.

You'll also notice the maiden voyage of my reflector system, which bounces light back into a shadowed painting when facing contre jour.

Linkistics
(Link to video on YouTube)
Gumroad tutorial "Gouache in the Wild."
Color and Light: A Guide for the Realist Painter (James Gurney Art)