Wisdom from Veterans

A couple of the guys that go to the diner are veterans, and they love to talk. I sketch them and write down what I hear. 

Sketching in a colonial farmhouse

I shared this sketch a few years ago, but just found some video clips so you can see what the scene looked like. (Link to video) Previous post: A Family Eating Dinner, 1760 style

New puppet design with incredibly fluid movement

(Link to Video) Barnaby Dixon has come up with a clever new way of articulating a puppet.

Not only can the little fellow dance with his feet and move his arms and head, he can point, grab things, and even scratch his face.

"My philosophy for puppetry is to get the fingers and the hands operating as directly as possible," says Dixon.

The hand articulation is cleverly built, using fine cable articulation, with a spring running inside the cable tube to cut down on friction. Here's another video explaining how the hand mechanism works.

CG Short about Aristocratic Anime

"Symphony of Two Minds" is a short film about CG animation finding its own style amid a variety of influences. (Link to YouTube)

It begins with two cartoon characters eating a meal in an aristocratic dining parlor. They remark on how sophisticated their world is. It is visually sumptuous indeed, with hand-held photographic camera work and richly rendered textures.

But the low-class young man hasn't fully elevated himself from his origins in a hyper 2D anime universe, and he keeps experiencing flashbacks to it.

Director Valere Amirault says: "How do we choose to mix influences when dealing with a medium as new as CG animation? From live action independent movies to Japanese anime, CG animation is still a new form of media trying to find its own style, to differentiate itself from traditional cartoons."
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Via Cartoon Brew

Facebook Live meets a manual typewriter

Yesterday Jeanette and I decide to try out an experiment.


It's the day before graduation at Bard College. Students are roaming around campus with their parents. We place the typewriter on a table in the student center, and I arrange the sketch easel.

We hope the typewriter will lure someone to pose for an impromptu portrait. First Cullan, and then his mom, try it out.

We set up the iPad to webcast the action via Facebook Live. The first session has audio issues due to problems with our old iPad (sorry). We switch over to an Android cellphone, and then it works fine. Here's the 16 minute webcast. (Link to video).


I start sketching Jeanette, but abandon the start and turn the page when Kathleen sits down. I lay down a few lines in watercolor pencils, then launch off with brush and watercolor to place the main shapes. With progressively smaller brushes, I place the smaller details.

Kathleen, watercolor and gouache 

Thanks to everyone who joined the webcast and left a comment. Let me know in the comments what you'd like to see on a future webcast. Thanks to Kathleen, Cullan, and Joe for lending a hand and being such good sports.

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My next video tutorial "Portraits in the Wild" comes out June 13. It's full of moments like this.

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Doing a Demo Now on Facebook Live

I'm about to do an experimental demo on the new platform Facebook Live at 2:55 EST.

It will be a clash of technologies: iPad meets typewriter meets sketchbook. Tell your friends!

Harold Speed Talks Brushes

Welcome to the GJ Book Club. Today we'll cover pages 237-242 of the chapter on "Materials," from Harold Speed's 1924 art instruction book Oil Painting Techniques and Materials.

I'll present Speed's main points in boldface type either verbatim or paraphrased, followed by my comments. If you want to add a comment, please use the numbered points to refer to the relevant section of the chapter.

In this section of the chapter, Speed discusses the brushes for oil painters.

1. You can use cheaper paints when you're a student, but even if you're poor, you shouldn't skimp on brushes.
I totally agree with Speed on this one. He says "A cheap brush is useless from the start and has, luckily, a very short life as they wear very badly. The best brushes last much longer."

2. Cleaning brushes. "Soap and water cleans them most thoroughly and is the best way of cleaning them. But it is a most tedious process after a hard day's work."
Here's a previous post on "How to Clean out a Brush"

3. After washing them out, the brushes "should be lovingly sucked to bring the hairs together." 
Never heard that one before. One would want to make sure to remove all the lead, cobalt, barium, and cadmium first. Or maybe pass on that idea.

4. "When thoroughly dry they have plenty of spring in them, whereas the slightest dampness gives them a flabbiness."
He's talking about bristle brushes here. It's really true. Damp brushes are flabbier.

5. Flats and Rounds: Flats are better for "laying a perfectly even tone, but give a nasty thin sharp edge...For figure work and form expression generally, one wants a brush that will lay the paint in even, flat tones without thin sharp edges." 
He's referring to flat brushes with rounded corners, alternately the modern filbert option, which has a flat cross section but a rounded tip. The image above shows a set of Simmons filberts.

6. Fashion for soft haired brushes used for flowing strokes (in the 1920s).
Speed notes that some of the inspiration came from studying Frans Hals, who apparently used such brushes. Speed generally prefers stiffer hogs' hair bristles.

7. "Always work with the biggest brush that will do what you want."
Then choose the next size bigger. Speed notes that a big flat brush is really several brushes in one, because you can use the corner and the edge for very different strokes.

8. "The brush makers have an absurd habit of making the size of the handle fit the size of the brush, instead of the size of the hand that will have to hold it." 
He continues, "Very small brushes need a very firm grip to control them as they are only used for very delicate work. And yet they are often given a handle no thicker than a match."

I totally agree, and I've always wondered about this, too. Pencils, pens, knives, and golf clubs have constant sized handles. Why don't brushes?

9. Only German brushes have an indented ring round the metal holder (ferrule) to prevent the tip falling off the handle.
Now crimped ferrules are pretty standard even on cheap brushes.

10. Cheap brushes "appear to have been sharpened off to make them a good shape, after being roughly put together; instead of the good shape being the result of a careful placing of the individual hairs."
Here's a video about how they make Escoda brushes

(Link to video)

More on brushes at:
MacPherson Arts / "Brush Basics"

Next week— Painting Grounds

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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, but there's an inexpensive print edition that Dover publishes under a different title "Oil Painting Techniques and Materials (with a Sargent cover)," and there's also a Kindle edition.

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Video Portrait of Hong Kong

(Via BoingBoing) There's some interesting camera work and sound design in this portrait of Hong Kong by filmmaker Brandon Li.
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If you like this, you'll also like his other film "Tokyo Roar," set against the poem by A.D. Hope.

Spanish Edition of I.R. Coming

Here's something in the works for a July release — a Spanish edition of Imaginative Realism.
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Previously: Luz y Color, "Color and Light" in Spanish

Three Tips for Twilight Painting

Three tips for painting twilight streetscapes in opaques (gouache or casein):
1. Bring a battery-operated LED light so you can see what you're doing.
2. When you start, try to anticipate where the scene will be at peak color, and aim for that in your layin.
3. Paint a big yellow area under windows first and then paint the dark areas over them.
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Weed Painting Challenge

“A weed is but an unloved flower.” ― Ella Wheeler Wilcox

It's time for the next GurneyJourney painting challenge. Let's paint some weeds.

Ivan Shishkin, Aegopodium, Pargolovo (study) 1884, 35x59 cm

Fidelia Bridges, Thistle and Landscape

How does the challenge work?

We've done this before with gas stations, graveyards, and outdoor markets (Links take you to results). 

This time we'll paint some weeds on location. Everyone can upload their examples to this special Facebook event page. I'll choose a Grand Prize winner and five Finalists. Each receive a coveted "Department of Art" embroidered patch, and the Grand Prize winner will also receive a free tutorial download.

I hesitate to call it a "contest" because there's no entry fee and the spirit is more about cooperation, community, and camaraderie than competition. We're all at different levels of skill and experience, but we're all out there braving the elements and trying out new painting ideas.

Ivan Shishkin Grasses

How do you define a weed?

• By "weed" I mean any naturally growing herbaceous plant. For example: wildflowers, cattails, vines, lily pads, grasses, dandelions, ferns, mushrooms—really any natural plants. 

• That excludes anything planted, cultivated, or tended by humans, such as nursery or garden flowers or food crops.

• Nothing too big: no woody plants and no trees. 

Ivan Shishkin A Woman Under an Umbrella

• Must be painted outdoors with the weeds in situ. The weeds can't be cut and brought indoors or painted from photos. 

• The scene can include a landscape background, but the emphasis should be on the foreground with the plant carefully observed, with some botanical detail. 

• You can put a piece of white or black board behind a weed if you want to isolate it against a simple flat background. But I'm not looking for botanical studies so much as weeds in natural (or man-made) settings.

• OK to include some trash, insects, signs or other things you find around the weeds.

William Scott The Butterflies' Haunt--
Dandelion Clocks and Thistles

What media are OK?

• All painting media accepted, such as oil, watercolor, acrylic, gouache, acryla-gouache, alkyd, casein, or water-soluble colored pencils. 

• No limits on palette of colors.

Deadline

• You can enter as soon as you finish the piece, but no later than the deadline: Friday, June 24, 2016 at midnight New York time. Winners will be announced on Sunday, June 26.

William Henry Hunt Birds Nest and Primroses

Fidelia Bridges
Thistle in a Field

Submission Guidelines

• Free to enter

• It must be a new painting done for this challenge. In addition to a scan of the final painting, your entry must include a photo (or video) of your painting in progress in front of the motif. 

• Please include somewhere in the title or description the name of the weed, either a common name or Latin name.

• Upload the images to this Facebook Event Page. If you don't have a Facebook account, please ask a friend with an account to help you. Please include in the FB post a mention of what medium you used, and if you want, a word about your inspiration or design strategy, or an anecdote about your painting experience.

• In addition to the Facebook event page, you can use the hashtag #weedpaintingchallenge on Instagram or Twitter to see what other people are doing. 

• If you end up doing more than one entry, please delete your weaker entry so that we end up with just one entry per person.

Aaron Draper Shattuck Leaf Study with Swallowtail

Prizes
I'll pick one Grand Prize and five Finalists. All six entries will be published on GurneyJourney, and all six will receive an exclusive "Department of Art" embroidered patch. In addition, the Grand Prize winner receives a video (DVD or download) of their choice. Everybody who participates will have their work on the Facebook page, too.

EDIT: Winners of the Weed Painting Challenge
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Check out the previous results for gas stations, graveyards, and outdoor markets.
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Group Portrait in a Diner

Yesterday I painted a group portrait in our local diner. I captured a video snapshot to give you the atmosphere of the moment: (Link to YouTube)

I used gouache with a severely limited palette: raw sienna, brilliant purple, cadmium yellow deep, and white, plus some white Nupastel stick to convey the effect of the window glare. The sketchbook is a Pentalic watercolor journal. (Links take you to Amazon pages)

The gouache has a very receptive matte surface that takes the pastel well. You can rub it in firmly with your fingers if you want the rough texture to disappear and look like airbrush. If you put on too much pastel, you can lift it off with a kneaded eraser.

The next full length tutorial video will be "Portraits in the Wild," which releases June 13. It follows me on similar painting adventures portraits of people in the real world, with in-depth coverage of watercolor, gouache, casein, and oil techniques. If you haven't already, check out my video "Gouache in the Wild" today.
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Harry Beckhoff and the Clear Line Style

The new issue of Illustration magazine (Issue 52) has a feature on American illustrator Harry Beckhoff (1901-1979). Although he studied with Dean Cornwell and Harvey Dunn, he didn't pursue the style of painterly brushstrokes and impastos.

Instead, he defined his forms with flat shapes, whose internal forms are defined by thin lines. The emphasis is more on silhouette and line than it is on texture and lighting.

His style is more reminiscent of the ligne claire ("clear line") style of European comic artists like Hergé (Tintin), and of illustrators like Pierre Brissaud (1885-1964) or André Marty (1882-1974).

As with all of the articles in Illustration magazine, this one is comprehensive (47 pages long) and amply illustrated (89 images, most color).

There are a lot of examples of his photo references and his preliminary sketches, which were famous for being exquisite and tiny. The one above is typical, no bigger than a business card.

The bio by publisher Dan Zimmer fills an important gap in American illustration history. Even though Beckhoff was busy and in demand, his work isn't well enough known. There's no book on him and there's not even a Wikipedia page for him. 

The new Illustration magazine (Issue 52) also contains the articles "The Art of John La Gatta" and "Artists for Victory." 

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Read more

(Print)

There is a good chapter about Beckhoff in Fred Taraba's book Masters of American Illustration: 41 Illustrators and How They Worked.

American Artist January 1947

(Online sources)

Illustration Art 

Today's Inspiration

Art Contrarion

DB Dowd's Ulcer City

A Vision of Augmented Reality

Where are we headed with augmented reality? This short film by Keiichi Matsuda presents an unsettling vision of a possible future. The film superimposes digital animations over a mundane live action video showing a person's point of view as they ride a bus and shop for food. (Link to Vimeo)

Apps address us as personal assistants. Rewards and bonuses tally up like in a video game. Ads and offers leap out from products. Guidelines appear on sidewalks. The person interacts with this hybrid reality by using voice and hand gestures.

At the website Hyper Reality, Mr. Matsuda says: "Our physical and virtual realities are becoming increasingly intertwined. Technologies such as VR, augmented reality, wearables, and the internet of things are pointing to a world where technology will envelop every aspect of our lives. It will be the glue between every interaction and experience, offering amazing possibilities, while also controlling the way we understand the world. Hyper-Reality attempts to explore this exciting but dangerous trajectory. It was crowdfunded, and shot on location in Medellín, Colombia."
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via Cartoon Brew

Keeping Gouache Wet on the Palette

Following on the discussion yesterday, blog reader Glenn Tait shared a do-it-yourself option for keeping gouache wet longer on the palette.

He says: "I have tested different 'Sta-Wet' palette options with gouache and found the following to be very effective.

Glenn Tait's DIY 'stay-wet' palette tests

"Take a piece of soaked micro fiber sponge and tightly wrap it with baking parchment paper. I placed mine in a medium sized watercolour tin box so I could take it on location.

"It works really well, especially with the tube squeezed colours. The mixed colours don't last as long due to their being thinned out more. Even after a couple of hours working outside on a windy day the colours were still fresh.

"I did a test to see how long they would last inside. I was surprised that they were still fresh after about 10 hours and usable up to 13. My test chart is included below along with some photos of the sponge.



"The sponge is the type used to put under dish racks to absorb excess water - I picked this one up at a Dollar store. The sponges come in different colours, this one was a medium gray which worked nicely as a palette surface colour, as opposed to the typical yellow cellulose sponges from regular Sta-Wet palettes.

"Another advantage is that when the micro fiber dries it doesn't twist out of shape or go hard like the cellulose tends to do."

Thanks, Glenn!
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Links to materials
Quilted micro-fiber dish cloth
Waffle weave dish cloths (gray)
Baking parchment paper
Watercolour tin box

Previous informational posts about gouache
Your questions about gouache
Seven gouache hazards and how to avoid them
Gouache ingredients—info from manufacturers
Questions about gouache

Gurney video tutorials
Gouache in the Wild

The Mammal that Ate Dinosaurs

Watercolor in the Wild

Your Questions on Gouache

A lot of you have asked me questions about gouache, so I've gathered up the answers here for the benefit of everybody:

Carlos says, "After watching Gouache in the Wild, I'm finally going to buy some gouache tubes. I was wondering if the same colors list you posted on the Watercolor in the Wild post serves as a guide to build my first set."

Carlos,  those colors would serve you well. Basically a high-chroma yellow (such as a Permanent Arylide Yellow), a bright red (such as Flame red), and then earth color versions of yellow and red, such as yellow ochre and burnt sienna or Venetian red.

Then you'd want to get a couple of blues. I like cobalt, ultramarine, Prussian, and cerulean, but I rarely take more than two of them at a time into the field. I also like having Viridian and a brilliant purple. Again, these are mainly for limited palettes, or if for some reason I need high chroma (saturation). And of course you'll need white. And black, especially if you ever want to paint in pure black/white grisaille.

Concept sketches for Scientific American "Ascent of Mammals."
Watercolor, gouache, and water-soluble colored pencils.

Mary says, "I sketch in watercolor with a minimal kit (Maria's tiny card-sized kit) and would love to be able to bypass colored pencils if possible. Do you think it's possible to sketch as quickly and realistically without them?"

The answer is yes, definitely. Painting with pure watercolor is totally fine and you can get any effect you want with a brush alone. You might want to use the brush both wet and dry -- the drier brush, splayed out, will give you all the textural effects you might otherwise get with a pencil. The only problem with those extremely tiny kits is that you can't mix generous washes of either transparent or opaque watercolor for skies or other large areas.

Vodka Fashion says, "I just stared implementing gouache in my paintings. My question is, do you travel with the actual tubes, or have you made a gouache travel kit? I tried making a travel kit, but the paints dried out."
I travel with a small set of tubes in a plastic bag, anywhere from two tubes (black and white) to about eight or 10 tubes. Sometimes I carry just a limited palette of three colors plus white. That forces me to do what I can with those colors. Although you can squeeze them into a watercolor-type palette, in advance, let them dry, and then rewet them, they don't reconstitute into the smooth consistency that they had when they came out of the tube. And there's the problem of them breaking up. If you just want to solve that breakup problem, you can mix them with more of the water-soluble glue-like binder gum arabic, which you can get in liquid or powdered form.

Suzy Powell says: "So you just rewet? Where I live we have 00000% humidity. Haha (West Texas)
No, I don't rewet dry gouache except as a last resort. I've used gouache in low humidity and it does dry quickly. It can get very frustrating on a hot day in the sunshine in a desert, in which case oil would be a better medium. But for gouache, using a damp paper towel under the paint you squeeze from the tube will help it last longer. You can also extend the time by misting your palette with a little water from a spray bottle. But once it's totally dry or used up it's best to reset the palette by cleaning it off and starting with freshly squeezed paint. Don't keep dabbing at the spot where the paint used to be.

Matt Urbanowicz says: "I wanted to ask about the colours bleeding: I have a problem that while painting in gouache or poster colours when adding layers I tend to pick up and smudge the colours from the layer underneath, even when it's dry. Am I doing something wrong?

Matt, yes, gouache will tend to pick up if you put a wet layer over a previous layer, especially if you work it with the brush at all. The fact that the surface can be reactivated can be a good thing if you want to soften edges after the fact. But if you don't want those previous layers to come up, there are two remedies. The first is to lay down every stroke quickly and without any extra brushing. Make it your motto to "Make every stroke count." Or "Think twice, touch once."

If that doesn't work, you can use Acryla Gouache or Casein, which have a closed surface when they dry.

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Previous posts about gouache
Seven gouache hazards and how to avoid them
Gouache ingredients—info from manufacturers
Questions about gouache

Video tutorials
Gouache in the Wild

The Mammal that Ate Dinosaurs

Watercolor in the Wild