On this first day of 2009, I’d like to give you a little preview of some of the upcoming topics.
We’ll take a look at (in no particular order):
Spotlighting
Fibonacci
Day for Night Sketching
The Prix de Rome
The Form Principle
Ecorche Figures
Cast Shadows
The Ebauche
Getting Kids to Pose
Premixing Color
The Pathetic Fallacy
Painting Wet Streets
Spherical Panoramas
Plus visits to new art schools and museum exhibitions.
The goal of this blog is to explore art-related ideas that are completely new to me, along with topics that are review. l’ve always felt that learning about art consists of 10% of new ideas, and 90% relearning the same things I already knew, but in a new light.
I also believe that our experience of art weaves itself into every aspect of our lives, so you can expect offbeat sidelights into contemporary culture and philosophy, or strange new revelations of science.
COMMENTS
The big fun of all this blogging is hearing from you, and I thank you for all the great insights, comments, questions, arguments, and kind words you’ve shared over the last year and a half. Even if I don’t get a chance to acknowledge each of your comments, I’ve learned as much from you as you have from me.
And for those of you who read without posting comments, that’s perfectly OK. I don’t believe in the word “lurking,” and I think it’s fine to read a post and not say anything.
Last night we got hit with a huge batch of Asian spam blog comments. That’s usually the only thing that I’ve ever had to delete. If a lot more spam comes in, I may have to set up the letter recognition step.
ART BY COMMITTEE
Many of you have asked to resume Art By Committee. I had to take a break only because it was getting so popular, and was taking a lot of time and a lot of my megabyte allottment from Google. At some point we can try it again, and we’ll see if it’s manageable. The results of your work are certainly amazing, and I’m always grateful for your effort.
To each of you I send my best wishes for the new art year. May the muse of inspiration be always at your side.
Happy drawing, painting, blogging and publishing in 09!
ReplyDelete"Gurney Journey" has been one of my most valuable online sources of art information since I discovered it - the upcoming topics make me jump up and down with excitement - ONWARDS!! Hope we get to meet in person this year :)
ReplyDeleteI totally agree! I absolutely love this blog and have learned quite a bit from it. It's definitely one of the few that I follow regularly.
ReplyDeleteAs I'm still in the early learning phases, I definitely be trying to post more comments on different topics (and more questions).
Happy New Year! I am one of those "lurking" readers - I enjoy your blog enormously and it gives me lots of inspiration but I don't have much to say most of the time. Thank you for your great blog, and your beautiful work. I enjoy your every post, both visually and for the wealth of information you provide.
ReplyDeleteSweet. I'm looking forward to reading your posts on just about all of those subjects. In particular, I'm taking an Ecorche class this semester at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. I'm pretty interested in anatomy and sculpture though my major is in painting. If you are ever in Philly let me know! I would love to show you our school and museum.
ReplyDeleteDave, I will be in Philly, at least on the 14th of February for the Paleopalooza event at the Academy of Natural Sciences, and maybe another trip later. Please email me at jgurneyart(a)yahoo.com and let me know the contact person at your school so I can explore the possibility of doing a presentation or booksigning.
ReplyDeleteThanks everyone else, you guys are great!
It's a great blog, thanks so much for sharing your knowledge and insights. I look forward to the posts of the coming year. Happy New Year!
ReplyDeleteThanks so much for your blog. It's number one on my list of art blogs and I have learned a lot from it.
ReplyDeleteRegarding "Art by Committee", perhaps you could follow the Illustration Friday model and post links rather than the actual art. That would save you bandwidth.
Happy New Year
Thank you again for this blog, and looking forward for all the upcoming posts!
ReplyDeleteThanks for such a great blog James. This is the only blog I look forward to reading everyday. Happy New Year
ReplyDeleteThanks for all your work. I'm a better painter because of your blog!
ReplyDeleteI've enjoyed your blog so much I syndicated it to Livejournal so that I could read it--and share it with other Livejournal-readers--more easily.
ReplyDeleteHappy new year!
I share your view that art weaves itself into every aspect of our lives.
ReplyDeleteI am happy to hear that we can look forward to your views of contemporary culture and philosophy. Those posts are of interest to those of us who don't practice visual arts as our main creative outlet.
I LOVE your blog. Like others, it's a daily vitamin for me.
Thanks for musing about art and being such a great teacher to all of us. I can't wait to see what you have to say about some of these topics. All the best to you and yours in 2009.
ReplyDeletei dont read the morning paper i read the gurney blog and its a great way to start the day!
ReplyDeletei know you get questions all the time about if you will teach classes, and then i realized he is teaching class everyday in homes all over the world...then i slowly start to see why you are so dedicated to this blog.
it is a beautiful thing you are doing and i'm glad your keeping it up and doing a great job!
I love the blog and you books.
ReplyDeleteIts always fun to sit back on a rainy day and read through the extravagantly illustrated Dinotopia books. They are breathtaking!!!
I just purchased the journey the Chandara, and loved it. The illustrations are so imaginative. Are you ever going to publish another? Imagining an end to the adventures of Aurthur and Will Dension is quite dreadful.
-Garrett, age 13
Hello~
ReplyDeleteFor art by committee you can have people be responsible for uploading their own submissions to an image host like photobucket.com, you would only need to post the image link.
I hope you come by San Jose State again, when i saw you last year it totally blew my mind, now I read your blog everyday! Sometimes my professors like to refer students to your blog when we have lectures on technical aspects of art, it has been quite helpful.
Thank you for giving us the benefit of your time and talent, and entertaining us with your travels. Happy New Year!
ReplyDeleteI'll echo what's already been said - thank you for an indispensable resource!
ReplyDeleteThe information you've passed on through this blag has been absolutely invaluable, and it looks like you're giving us a wonderful year to look forward to!
ReplyDeleteI don't always comment because I'm worried that I would just be reiterating what has already been said by others, but I've been checking this blog every day since you started it. My roommate and I are both aspiring artists and I can't begin to tell you jsut how much we've both learned from your entries.
Thanks for doing what you do, and looking forward to another great year!
Wonderful! More great posts coming up!
ReplyDeleteHappy New Year!
I am planning to take two friends to your exhibition in Yverdon this week end, I can't wait to see it again.
A very happy new year to you and your family James! I can't wait to see and read what you have in store for us.
ReplyDeleteJames, thank you for the preview of topics to come!!
ReplyDeleteYour blog is a daily delight. I'm glad that you enjoy it as much as we your readers. Thank you for the teaching, sharing and inspiration. Happy new year to you!
Thank you for doing this blog. It has made a difference in my art and thinking about how I do things every time I read. It has taught me to go out and do more, experiment, and not be afraid of failure ( or architecture!). Thanks so much for doing it.
ReplyDeleteI "lurke" daily! thanks for a year of great posts and i eagerly anticipate another great year!
ReplyDeleteThank you for taking the time and sharing your knowledge with us. I have learnt so much and it's helped me look at the world with different eyes. I'm very much looking forward to the topics to come this year!
ReplyDelete