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Thursday, January 3, 2019
Did you make a New Year's Resolution?
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Life Lessons from Dinosaurs
Art from Dinotopia plus whimsical wisdom
James Gurney
This weblog by Dinotopia creator James Gurney is for illustrators, plein-air painters, sketchers, comic artists, animators, art students, and writers. You'll find practical studio tips, insights into the making of the Dinotopia books, and first-hand reports from art schools and museums.
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Blog Archive
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2019
(375)
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January
(32)
- Interview with a Russian Academic Master, Part 2
- Interview with a Russian Academic Master, Part 1
- Virtual Salvador Dalí
- Fête Galante
- French Gouaches at Sotheby's
- Starting Loosely in Gouache
- Mixing Blue
- Deadline Today for Submitting to Spectrum
- Matt's Questions
- What do you draw to loosen up?
- A Baby Who Draws and a Horse Who Paints
- A Sunlit Interior by Carl Holsøe
- Simplification in Cartooning
- The Sad Fate of Konstantin Kryzhitsky
- Skyfish Rods
- Wilhelm Simmler's Paintings
- Dinosaur Art in International Artist
- What is "Poetic" in Art?
- Paul Meyerheim
- Did Nuns Paint Medieval Illuminations?
- Controlling Light and Depth in Landscape
- The Road by the Far Hayfield
- Setting up a Sight-Size Portrait
- The Sketchbook Project
- A Museum for Stones with Faces
- Gaston la Touche
- Remembering Frank Duveneck
- Reading Rooms
- Did you make a New Year's Resolution?
- Ron Lesser in Illustration #62
- Shake Your Head to Make an Image Appear
- Using machine-learning to arrange a bedroom
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January
(32)
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Contact
You can write me at:
James Gurney
PO Box 693
Rhinebeck, NY 12572
or by email:
gurneyjourney (at) gmail.com
Sorry, I can't give personal art advice or portfolio reviews. If you can, it's best to ask art questions in the blog comments.
James Gurney
PO Box 693
Rhinebeck, NY 12572
or by email:
gurneyjourney (at) gmail.com
Sorry, I can't give personal art advice or portfolio reviews. If you can, it's best to ask art questions in the blog comments.
Permissions
All images and text are copyright 2020 James Gurney and/or their respective owners. Dinotopia is a registered trademark of James Gurney. For use of text or images in traditional print media or for any commercial licensing rights, please email me for permission.
However, you can quote images or text without asking permission on your educational or non-commercial blog, website, or Facebook page as long as you give me credit and provide a link back. Students and teachers can also quote images or text for their non-commercial school activity. It's also OK to do an artistic copy of my paintings as a study exercise without asking permission.
However, you can quote images or text without asking permission on your educational or non-commercial blog, website, or Facebook page as long as you give me credit and provide a link back. Students and teachers can also quote images or text for their non-commercial school activity. It's also OK to do an artistic copy of my paintings as a study exercise without asking permission.
27 comments:
Carefully copy a master portrait in acrylic in an 8x8" 50 page notebook each week (use Bargue and Reilly methods for copying initial drawing). Maintain a gouache book and paint a "loose" 7x9" painting each week. Go to live model portrait class once a month. Paint an 11x14" something in oils or alkyds at least once a quarter. Though it's a hobby: Practice, practice, practice.
Draw more with a purpose. For example study hands from the inside out. Paint something or part of something daily - value study for a larger piece etc. - in other words no excuses for not being in the studio daily moving those brushes. Do more marketing. I think I could go on but but time will tell about the above mentioned.
I work every day with digital tools as a product designer and my resolution is to start using more traditional tools for my own work and on a more consistent basis. I've been nearly 100% digital for close to 30 years, ever since I got my first Amiga Computer, eventually moving to Macs and PCs. I've never really enjoyed drawing with pencils (I'm left handed and they always smudge as I move my hand around) but admire those who have the discipline to draw, paint and create something everyday and hope to do the same this year.
I don't like reworking old paintings. I like the excitement of the new, the premier coup. For the month of January, I am not going to paint anything new, but just rework old paintings. Get out the tiny brushes and put leaves on the trees.
I posted something like this on the corresponding Youtube Community post: to not only get a foot on the art career ladder, but avoid falling off, which seems too easy to do by all accounts. For that I'm going to have to knuckle down to some serious study.
Here's one to address, not a New Years Resolution, but image resolution. Eyvind Earl's stylized flora for example. A form for foliage suggestive of the plant is blocked in and a bit of sharp-focus foliage is overlaid, defining the whole, and perceived as such pending further examination. Context cues.
Resolved to start and keep a sketchbook. This is the 3rd or 4th time, but - hey - this time I will succeed! I have decided to draw or paint scenes from inside or outside my house. Any medium except oil (I have bought a watercolour sketch book that opens flat, like yours). At least one per week. So this time next year - 52 little paintings! I will be so chuffed if I can do this. I have no experience of working from life (except the odd apple). Happy New Year to everyone.
To paint in watercolor every day, to take a photo every day and to practice calligraphy every day.
Return to combining my love of exotic traveling with my floral painting. Years ago I created the "Painting in Paradise" web site which invited people to join me in Rarotonga in the Cook Islands for the floral painting workshop of a lifetime. I did one Painting in Paradise and it was a great success. Then my wife got cancer. She lived for four years and five months. Now she's passed away and I plan to resurrect Painting in Paradise and return to Rarotonga. I would like to do one to three workshops per year. I welcome your thoughts and ideas. www.PaintingInParadise.net
Larger more significant work in a series.
I want to paint more regularly. In order to do this, I hope to take an online course.
Go beyond the sketchbook and make some actual paintings. Try oil and gouache. Plein air this summer.
I started painting and drawing as my resolution last year. It was a good start and I learned a lot. But honestly, I avoided painting people. If I included a person, they were silhouettes, or from the back. This year in addition to painting every day, I intend to draw more people. I figure a person had to paint a lot of bad portraits before they can paint good ones...right? So far I have three bad portraits down but each one has been a little better than the last.
To write and finish my first fully illustrated novel and to bring on further book projects.
The only thing that keeps me from drawing and painting more are a whole a lot of distractions from the media side. Sadly, I will lose. But at least, I am aware...
To do a painting every week. I draw every day even if it's just a quick sketch but want to do more intensive work.
trying to draw every day (on top of my job, which is drawing/painting all day, albeit mainly digitally) but moreover to let go of the idea that every sketchbook drawing I do has to be 'good for my training', and to make sure that I also focus on drawing things which I love to draw and which excite me and others, rather than just being a means to get better at my job/craft
I tend to want to "keep up with the Joneses" and post and create a lot of content. I don't think that has been very good for the quality of my art. I am going to make a conscious effort to slow down a bit and focus on improving the quality, not the quantity, of work I produce.
I'm gonna be a dinosaur!!! Continue being awesome Mr. Gurney and have a blessed new year!!!!
I normally don't make new year's resolutions. Rather, I just try all year to be a better person; well-grounded and balanced. This year, though, I did make a personal commitment to myself to seek out art mentors - styles and techniques that I admire and aspire to. I booked a 2-day Plein Air workshop in February with a local artist. I am sooooo looking forward to this.
By the way, Brian Blankenship, I too want to be a dinosaur.
To paint more often, even 15 min a day. I don't care if it's a youtube tutorial or just playing around doing something silly, as long as I'm doing something. I really got off track last year and wound up becoming a project hoarder and not a doer. I saw tons of things I wanted to do, and let myself get distracted by the next one and the next one, but never did much. I have a few half started projects that I want to finish this year.
To try to improve my drawing style, your youtube videos are very inspiring thank you
Sell a bunch of paintings! I painted 122 this year, and have still more from the years before that. I need to clear out stock so I have room for more!
Yesterday, I spent the day searching for cafes and restaurants in the area that display and sell local art - I've already gotten a response back from one.
My intention is to do more painting, and lessen the distraction from my computer. Also, to work up some of my sketchbook ideas into actual pieces.
I want to draw something presentable every day. It does not need to be a finished up masterpiece, but something that would not get me laughed out of social media. I also made a sort of a game plan to improve, with specific book and the courses I intend to finish this year.
I want to fill my 3 5x8 pentalic sketchbooks with plein air studies and in studio studies of subjects I have ideas to paint but would rather experiment with the idea before full on commitment.
I also recently reserved a spot at the Rockford quad con where it will be my first time setting up shop.
I have a long history of digital 2d and 3d painting, but I discovered oils early last year and my love no longer resides in traditional. So I want to dive Right in with oil sketches and gouache sketches to finally fill those books. You sketch easel will assist greatly in my goals
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