Happy Halloween 2021

 Keep smiling. It's Halloween and we've all managed to hang in there another year.

The Dinotopia CD-Rom Game

 In 1996 Turner Interactive produced a CD-Rom game called Dinotopia: Living the Adventure.

 

This YouTube review by Simone de Rochefort of Polygon explores the history and the gameplay.

The game was and is unusual because it wasn't based on killing dinosaurs. Simone is so right that it was hard to get any game company to imagine a way to develop rich dino/human interactions without combat. 

We had similar issues dealing with the toy industry. The industry experts would tell us that "boys only want battles." The movie business leaders said the same thing. 

Conflict, peril, and risk in some form really is necessary for most games and dramatic presentations, but there are so many ways to present those elements without having the good guys trying to kill all the bad guys. 

Spacebiker Aliens

A gang of spacebiker aliens are lined up at the bar, sucking the juice out of fermented jakey melons. Their transparent braincases pulsate with the music, but I try not to stare, because those dudes are touchy about the way they look so far away from their home planet.

Mapping the Fruit-Fly Brain

 Scientists have succeeded in mapping the neurons and connections of a fruit fly brain.

"A population of neurons that is responsible for updating the fly’s internal compass."

FlyEM/Janelia Research Campus / New York Times

According to the New York Times, "their speck-size brains are tremendously complex, containing some 100,000 neurons and tens of millions of connections, or synapses, between them....The work, which is continuing, is time-consuming and expensive, even with the help of state-of-the-art machine-learning algorithms. But the data they have released so far is stunning in its detail, composing an atlas of tens of thousands of gnarled neurons in many crucial areas of the fly brain."

Paintings of Sarah Bernhardt

 

Sarah Bernhardt by Paul Merton

Sarah Bernhardt was a French actress who lived from 1844-1923.

Sarah Bernhardt in the Role of Cleopatra by Georges Clairin

She was greatly admired for her stage presence, her striking poses, and her emotional presentation.

Sarah Bernhardt by Jules Bastien-Lepage

Because of her striking appearance and theatricality, she was a favorite model of artists of the period.

Sarah Bernhardt by Georges Antoine Rochegrosse

Rochegrosse painted her several times in Orientalist mode.

Sarah Bernhardt by Georges Antoine Rochegrosse

In this one she reclines in a chinois interior.

Poster design by Alphonse Mucha

She chose a young Alphonse Mucha to create one of her posters, and the image was a sensation, making both of them much more famous.

Alphonse Mucha

Mucha went on to do many portrayals of her in various guises.

Portrait of Sarah Bernhardt as Roxanna by Walford Graham Robertson (1866-1948) 

The playwright Edmond Rostand referred to her as "the queen of the pose and the princess of the gesture." 

Sarah Bernhardt by Georges Clairin

Victor Hugo said she had a "golden voice."

She's one of the first actors from the period who appeared in silent movies.

Her voice also appears fleetingly in sound recordings. It sounds strange to our ears, but in her day it brought people to tears.

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Book: Sarah Bernhardt: The Art of High Drama (Yale University Press) 

Makovsky's Portrait of Tsvetkov

Vladimir Makovsky (1846-1920) Lover of Painting. Portrait of Collector I.V. Tsvetkov, 1907

Painting Autumn Leaves

I want to paint the autumn leaves before they’re gone.

In this new YouTube video, I also share Sonnet #73 from William Shakespeare:

That time of year thou mayst in me behold 

When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang 

Upon those boughs which shake against the cold, 

Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang. 

In me thou see'st the twilight of such day 

As after sunset fadeth in the west, 

Which by and by black night doth take away, 

Death's second self, that seals up all in rest. 

In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire 

That on the ashes of his youth doth lie, 

As the death-bed whereon it must expire, 

Consum'd with that which it was nourish'd by. 

This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong, 

To love that well which thou must leave ere long.

---

Music by Kevin Macleod.

Creature of the Rondout Lagoon

Something disturbed the deep waters of Rondout Creek.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by James Gurney (@jamesgurneyart)

Just when I thought I was doing an ordinary riverside scene, what pops up but the dreaded Creature of the Black Lagoon.

Artists Collaborate with Museums to Explore Techniques

A growing number of art museums have teamed up with practicing artists to explore the painting methods of historical painters.  

 

Watercolor expert Mike Chaplin heads outdoors to demonstrate how J.M.W. Turner may have thought about tone (Link to YouTube). Instead of trying to copy a Turner, he paints directly from nature using materials and methods similar to what Turner might have used. Chaplin teamed with the Tate to produce similar videos with line and color.

London's National Gallery examines Titian's technique with commentary from art historians, conservators, and a practicing painter.  (Link to YouTube)

The Victoria and Albert Museum has demonstrated techniques of Renaissance artists (Link to YouTube).

Other museums such as the Yale Art Gallery have hosted illustrated lectures by conservators about painting methods, but it's not quite as engaging as watching someone try to replicate antique methods. It's a difficult gig for the living artist and it requires considerable humility.

Collaborations between artists and museum experts help to bring historical artists to life and make their work more approachable. Are you aware of other museum / artist collaborations? Please share them in the comments.

Sketching on the Subway

In 1980 Tom Kinkade (yes, that Kinkade) and I decided to take a summer off from art school to ride the freight trains across America from California to New York City.

Manhattan thrilled me, terrified me, and fascinated me. I desperately wanted to capture some of NYC's energy directly from life into my sketchbook using pens, and gray markers.

I never went back to art school because I was learning so much more from the real world. Tom and I wrote a book called The Artist's Guide to Sketching in 1982, and that was long before he became the "Painter of Light" and also before "urban sketching" and "plein-air painting" came along.

You can hear a vintage tape recording from that journey on this YouTube video. The quality isn't great, but it's a memory rescued from oblivion.

Branch Autonomy Theory

By thinking of a tree as an individual organism, we misunderstand it. It's better to think of a tree as a colony of branches.

According to the branch autonomy theory, "1) No branch imports carbohydrate from its parent tree after its first year, and 2) Each branch satisfies its own material and energy requirements before exporting any carbohydrate to the rest of the tree."

"The conclusion drawn from these postulates is that where light is the primary limiting factor, critical characteristics of the branch's carbohydrate economy such as photosynthesis, growth, and carbon export are largely independent of the tree to which it is attached." (from the abstract by Sprugel and Hinckley).

The theory is mentioned in a podcast interview with Chris Earle, curator of the Gymnosperm Database.

Graphene Protects Paintings from Fading

In Vincent van Gogh's sunflower paintings, some of the red lead pigments have turned white because of the reactions of paint impurities with light and carbon dioxide. 

But artwork like this can be protected from fading and discoloration by applying a thin layer of a material called graphene.

It's completely transparent and just one atom thick. 

According to Artnet: "Graphene is a two-dimensional carbon allotrope whose molecules bind together through a phenomenon called Van der Waals forces. It is invisible to the eye but forms a honeycomb pattern under a microscope, and can be extracted from the surface of graphite using a piece of tape. Hailed as a “wonder material” since its isolation in a single-layer form in 2004, graphene has many potential uses. China appears convinced of its military and aerospace promise, and it is being used to protect roads in the U.K."

Read more at Artnet: Can Graphene, a One-Atom Thick ‘Wonder Material,’ Keep Precious Artworks From Fading? Scientists Say It Shows Promise

Pipeline of Meaning

Our eyes work with our brain to make sense of the world. 

At any given moment our conscious attention is fixated on one spot, but we're also guessing what's around it. This peripheral awareness cues the eyes where to jump next. That jumping or saltation happens about three times per second. 

By combining data from brain scans and eye-tracking, scientists at the University of Birmingham are trying to understand how we guess at what the next point of attention might be, and how different regions of the brain cooperate in this "pipeline of meaning" as "one object is established while another region of the brain is simultaneously deciding which next item is important."  

N.C. Wyeth (1882-1945), The Studio, ca. 1913-1915, oil on canvas, 16 x 20 1/4 in.

Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Frank E. Fowler. Photo Rick Rhodes

The scientists say: "Humans do not necessarily perceive objects simply one after another (in series), and nor do they perceive items simultaneously (in parallel). Instead, they establish a pipeline of observations, in which meaning from one object is established while another region of the brain is simultaneously deciding which next item is important."

A similar process happens when we read text. "The neuronal activity required to scan the next word in a sentence also increases according to the complexity of the word."

Read more: Our eyes and brain work together to create a ‘pipeline’ of meaning – new study

Thoughts about Bastien-Lepage from Breton

Jules Bastien-Lepage, Portrait of my Grandfather, 1874

In his autobiography, Jules Breton said: "[Jules] Bastien-Lepage (1848-1884) will leave a lasting fame. This young artist, cut down in the flush of his promise, was a true investigator. How conscientious was his work! He made his debut with a masterpiece, the 'Portrait of my Grandfather.' Touching familiarity, simple and accurate drawing, admirable truth of tone, strong and fine harmony, just relation of the figure to the background—all are there."

Book: Jules BASTIEN LEPAGE (French Edition) 

Races in Skybax Canyon

Will and Cirrus lead the skybax races around ancient demisaurian monuments near Ebulon in Dinotopia's great desert.

The painting is 3 x 6 inches, oil on board, published in my illustrated adventure Dinotopia: Journey to Chandara (signed copies available in my online store).

Cornelius Varley's Watercolors

Watercolor can convey a lot of information with simple means.

Cornelius Varley

This looks like a practice sheet to try different ways of capturing those wind-blown shapes. Each sort of tree has a different silhouette shape and leafy character. 

The studies in this post are by Cornelius Varley (1781–1873), who was a scientific instrument maker by profession. In 1845 he wrote a Treatise on Optical Drawing Instruments.

He painted in watercolor for the pure love of it, creating many of his studies on trips to Wales. This sky study from 1803, making him a very early plein-air practitioner. 

Imagine the thrill of painting directly from Nature with very little precedent or tradition. 

Turner's Small Watercolor Kits

J.M.W. Turner's super-portable watercolor set consisted of a small set of cake colors in a leather pocket pouch.

He also had slightly larger sets with flasks. This is his paintbox, found in his studio after his death in 1851

(Tate Archive 7315.6)

To learn more about 19th century watercolor sets, check out the website whimsie.com or the Tate Archive

How Sacrificing Detail Can Add Mood

In a new YouTube video I show how I painted this moody morning scene in gouache by sacrificing detail and emphasizing light effects.

My goal is to capture a fleeing light effect by using a warm priming color to achieve a "photographic" lens flare. Halfway through, I paint over the whole thing with a glaze to reduce detail. The glaze is risky because gouache reactivates when it's rewet, and to be honest, it's kind of a disaster for a while.

Here are some takeaway quotes about the theory of sacrifices: 

“Nature instills sentiments in the spectator through the selective sacrifice of details in order to improve the overall effect.” 

--The Theory and Practice of Water Colour Painting: Elucidated in a Series of Letters

“Painters without experience often weaken the effect they wish to produce by a prodigality which multiplies uselessly the figures and accessories of a picture. It will not be long before they learn that, the greater the conciseness and simplicity with which a thought is interpreted, the more it gains in expressive force.” 

—Jules Breton, The Life of an Artist: An Autobiography, 1890

Influential Landscape Painters

When the Artists Magazine asked "Who's a painter that changed the course of landscape painting?" the first name that popped into my mind first was Ivan Shishkin (1832-1898).

I said that I don’t know whether he changed the course of landscape painting outside of Russia, but he sure inspired me. He tackled one of the most difficult landscape subjects—the forest interior. 

The technical challenges include wildly fluctuating light levels and infinitely deep spatial layers of complex detail. Shishkin was an enthusiastic advocate of photography as a reference tool, but his paintings were anything but photographic or technical. He knew his botany and loved the wild lands. He managed to capture the deep mystery of the forest like no one else.

This Q and A is coming up in the November / December issue of The Artists Magazine.

Of course there are so many other great landscape painters who have affected the course of art history. Who would you choose and why?

Outline vs. Tonal Shapes In Face Recognition

 Which is more important for face recognition: outline or tonal shapes?

Jim Carrey (left) and Kevin Costner.

According to vision scientists Pawan Sinha et al, "Images which contain exclusively contour information are very difficult to recognize, suggesting that high-spatial frequency information, by itself, is not an adequate cue for human face recognition processes." 

By contrast, the tonal shapes, even if they're out of focus, are relatively easy to recognize. The experts say: 

"Unlike current machine-based systems, human observers are able to handle significant degradations in face images." Shown here are Michael Jordan, Woody Allen, Elvis Presley, and Jay Leno.

That's why it's good to blur your eyes when you're capturing a likeness.

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Source: Face Recognition by Humans: Nineteen Results All Computer Vision Researchers Should Know About, Pawan Sinha, Benjamin Balas, Yuri Ostrovsky, and Richard Russell,

Tête d'expression

Tête d'expression was a traditional art-school exercise involving "a study of the face intended to evoke a particular state of mind: melancholy, for instance, obstinacy, shock, or boredom." (Source)

Greuze, Tête d'expression-Jeune fille suppliante 

(Expression of the face, young suppliant girl)

It was also the name for a competition held at the French Academy. 

Greek statues expressed emotion mainly with the pose of the body, but the officials of the Academy didn't want to neglect the expressive potential of the head itself. The exercise was carried out not only with drawings and engravings, but also with sculpture.

De 35 Têtes D'expression by Louis Leopold Boilly

Source of the initial quote was The Art of Rivalry: Four Friendships, Betrayals, and Breakthroughs in Modern Art

Vermeer Restoration Reveals Hidden Cupid

A Vermeer painting has restored to reveal a hidden painting within a painting. 

Cupid was painted over by another hand after Vermeer's death. Restorers revealed the underlayer in stages, and exhibited the painting half-restored to share the process with the public.

According to Smithsonian, "A recent bout of laboratory testing confirmed that a long-hidden Cupid found in the top right-hand corner of the canvas was painted over not by the Dutch Golden Age artist, but an unknown party who acted decades after Vermeer’s death."

The presence of Cupid adds meaning to the image, suggesting the letter may address matters of love.

--

Smithsonian: Restoration reveals long-lost cupid painted over after Vermeer's death.

Arthur Denison and the Sunstone

Arthur Denison powers up a strutter with a sunstone. On Instagram, Bo Thornchester (iheartboeboe) asks: "Was Arthur's design based on a real-life person?"

Arthur is not based on a single person, but he's got a little of my dad in him, and a bit from early explorers that I've read about, such as Sven Hedin and Heinrich Harrar. But it's hard to hold those diverse people in mind, so to define the specific character, I sculpted his head as a small maquette.

From Dinotopia: The World Beneath.

 

Abstracted Realism

Some call it "deconstructed realism," while others call it "disrupted realism" or "abstracted realism." 

Alex Kanevsky

The artwork suggests that the power of chaos rivals the power of order, or that the will to destroy equals the will to create.

John Wentz 

The painting contains both randomness and illusionism, signal and noise. 

Patrick Lee

Who are the inspiring progenitors of this movement? Beyond the abstract painters such as Franz Kline and Richard Diebenkorn, several realist painters can be identified as stylistic influencers: Andrew Wyeth, Richard Schmid, Antonio López García, and Gerhard Richter. 

Gerhard Richter

Richter, a painter with remarkable range and versatility, became known for taking a realistically painted face and smearing the oil paint with a squeegee.

Johanna Bath still II, Oil on Canvas, 19.7 W x 23.6 H x 0.8 D in

Gerhard Richter's influence can be felt in artists who use the rubbed out look, such as Johanna Bath.

Mia Bergeron

Seeing a painting created this way leaves no doubt that it's a painting, and it may remind the viewer of the struggle of creation or the fickleness of illusion.

Adam by Greg Manchess

When painters efface the surface of a portrait, they typically leave the eyes in a carefully finished state, both because of the psychological importance of the eyes, and to show that they're capable of painting realistically. 

But not always. Sometimes artists deliberately disrupt the mouth, eyes, or head. 

Artist Zack Zdrale says in the book Disrupted Realism, "I've taken passages of traditionally rendered figures and smashed them, breaking the illusion of form in space. I want to show the paint doing things that only paint can do."

Michelle Kohler

Michelle Kohler says: "Most of my years spent studying were focused on portraiture, as expressed through realism. As an artistic discipline, it has been a constant throughout my life. But it was only after a fortuitous departure into abstract painting that I was able to playfully and courageously combine two disciplines. Deconstructed Realism is my expression of artistic independence and creativity as it pertains to the depth and complexity of human portraiture."

(Link to YouTube) Mia Bergeron says that her approach to painting grew out of a frustration with the academic approaches to realism.

Jeremy Mann

The deconstructive approach includes not just figural work, but also landscapes and cityscapes. 

Other artists that you've suggested to check out in the comments: Julie T. Chapman, Patrick Kramer, Jenny Saville,

More info:

Book: Disrupted Realism: Paintings for a Distracted World