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.
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.
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.
I love your Dinotopian Parade scene here. I did a chestnut character parade with the last littlest nut representing the American Chestnut tree, and he's drooping his shoulders as he feels he should be the leader, as he's representing the oldest of this type of tree. Wish I could show it to you. It was fun.
This touches on a question I’ve been struggling with for a while: How do you pick which aspects of a story (like Dinotopia) to illustrate?
Naturally some scenes have an innately cinematic quality that almost beg to be painted (such as a parade), but there’s also the smaller moments. Why, for example, might you decide to do a vignetted portrait of Bix or Crabb, vs showing them in situ like Enit and Nallab in the library? Is it an instinctive choice—what feels right or needed or fun—or are there logical considerations to be weighed, a list of criteria to be compared against? Or, most likely, some combination thereof?
In short, when you could illustrate every scene and character in your book, what makes you pick the ones you end up doing, and which are close details vs expansive vistas?
3 comments:
I love your Dinotopian Parade scene here. I did a chestnut character parade with the last littlest nut representing the American Chestnut tree, and he's drooping his shoulders as he feels he should be the leader, as he's representing the oldest of this type of tree. Wish I could show it to you. It was fun.
Virginia Rinkel
This touches on a question I’ve been struggling with for a while: How do you pick which aspects of a story (like Dinotopia) to illustrate?
Naturally some scenes have an innately cinematic quality that almost beg to be painted (such as a parade), but there’s also the smaller moments. Why, for example, might you decide to do a vignetted portrait of Bix or Crabb, vs showing them in situ like Enit and Nallab in the library? Is it an instinctive choice—what feels right or needed or fun—or are there logical considerations to be weighed, a list of criteria to be compared against? Or, most likely, some combination thereof?
In short, when you could illustrate every scene and character in your book, what makes you pick the ones you end up doing, and which are close details vs expansive vistas?
Timothy, great question. I'll try to answer it in a Substack post.
Virginia: Chestnut Parade. What a fun idea.
Post a Comment