Colossal Characters in Two Weeks

 

We'll be sketching Colossal Characters two weeks from today in Pasadena. Bring a sketchbook and join us, and let’s dream with our eyes open.

This year’s list of Mentors is off the charts (links to Instagram)
Thomas Fluharty @thomasfluharty
Jess Karpishin @jess.karp
Karla Ortiz @kortizart
John Burton @johnburtonart
Kiptoe @kiptoe1
Angela Sung @angothemango
Sean Bodley @seanbodley
Jeff Hong @chromacorg
Amanda Grose @myworldinillustration
Qianjian Ma @q_sketches
Kate Rado @katerado
James Gurney @jamesgurneyart

(Pictured from last year: Kymba Plushner (LeCrone) and Gabriel Gonzalez, lead artists at Blizzard.) 

 eyes open!

Painting a Film-Noir Streetscape

Welcome Visitors and New Subscribers. 

Link to YouTube short video. This Lincoln Town Car looks mysterious to me, like it’s waiting to pick someone up for some weird errand.

I want to paint it faithfully, but change the lighting to make it look like a moody and mysterious street scene that evokes the mood of film noir. More about this strategy at my Substack.

Penovác's Cats

Endre Penovác (Serbia, b. 1956) paints cats using a unique wet-into-wet technique.

 

He uses a wet-in-wet technique, which involves applying wet paint to a pre-wetted surface. This approach allows the pigments to blend and spread organically, creating soft, ethereal effects.

More about how he paints these cats on my Substack post

Which Sticker Idea Is Best?

We're thinking of making stickers to go with the February 25th, 2025 release of The Artist’s Guide to Sketching. Here are five ideas. Which do you like best? 

 

Deeply Ingrained Concepts

Some concepts are so fundamental & deeply ingrained in Western culture that it's hard to see them—including Cartesian dualism, free will, individualism, and linear time. But new science and other cultures offer other ways to think about these things.

For example, here are some concepts:

1. That thinking takes place in the brain.

But scientists are helping us to understand embodied cognition, which suggests that thinking is distributed throughout the body and shaped by our sensory experiences.

2. That consciousness only happens with complex nervous systems

But modern botanical science and studies of colonial insects suggests that emergent behaviors and structures appear beyond our current understanding of information processing.

3. That the mind and the body are separate.

But this Cartesian dualism has been challenged by various philosophical and scientific perspectives, including monism, which posits that the mind and body are intertwined and inseparable.

4. That we act on the basis of free will.

But many philosophers argue that free will is an illusion, and that our choices are influenced by factors like genetics, environment, past experiences, and even gut bacteria which shape our brain activity and behavior.

5. That we perceive the totality of the world around us.

But we’re only aware of a thin slice of the electromagnetic spectrum, and many animals and plants can sense things we’re blind to, such as ultraviolet light, magnetic fields, or vibrations in the air.

6. That time is linear and absolute.

But modern physics has shown that time is relative, flexible, and dependent on the observer's frame of reference. Some cultures also perceive time as cyclical or fluid.

Read the rest for free on Substack  Art: "A Poet" by Ernest Meissonier

The Store Is Open

Life Lessons from Dinosaurs is now available, and Artist's Guide to Sketching can be preordered here. 

Famous Artist's School Ad

Here's part of an advertisement from the Famous Artist School for their correspondence course.

The lobster shack with its seagulls, pilings, and boats demonstrates a lot of depth and overlapping, skills that beginning artists often lack. But this simple step-by-step sequence makes it look attainable.

Painting Calm Water

  New YouTube video about painting calm water from a chaotic roadside.

Nuit Américaine

 Williams College Chapel, pencil.

You can make a daytime drawing look like night by suppressing detail and softening edges in the darker areas. More on "day-for-night sketching" on Substack.

Every Utopia

 

Every utopia needs a Lee Crabb.