'You should be sketching always, always'

 

Abbey wrote to an art student: "You should be sketching always, always. Draw anything. Draw the dishes on the table while you are waiting for your breakfast. Draw the people in the station while you are waiting for your train. Look at everything. It is all part of your world. You are going to be one of a profession to which everything on this earth means something." More on Substack

Is the Computer a "Bicycle for the Mind?"

Steve Jobs wanted the personal computer to be like a “bicycle for the mind.” Has it worked out that way for you?

More on my Substack.

Cesare Tallone's Sight-Size Paintings

Cesare Tallone was an Italian painter born on August 11, 1853, in Savona, Italy. After losing his father at a young age, he moved to Alessandria, where he began his artistic training under decorative artist Pietro Sassi, and then he continued his study at the Brera Academy in Milan.

During his time at the academy, he gained access to Francesco Hayez's studio. Tallone's career flourished as he won several awards, including the triennial combined schools of painting competition at the Brera exhibition in 1879. 

Cesare Tallone (1853–1919) working on a portrait of Alessandro Pirovano, about 1911.

Like his friend Mancini, he practiced sight-size painting. He became well-known for his portraiture, gaining commissions from intellectual, bourgeois, and aristocratic circles. 

Tallone's artistic legacy was further cemented through his teaching positions at the Carrara Academy in Bergamo and later at the Brera Academy in Milan, where he passed away on June 21, 1919.

Reflecting on My Dad

I was never sure what my dad did for a living, because I never got to visit his workplace. He was in mechanical engineering jobs that were either highly technical or top secret.

Once he mentioned that he was in “high vacuum technology.” To my grade-school imagination, that meant he drove around in a giant Hoover vacuum cleaner.

He came home at 5:30 every day. I would wait for him on my red bicycle and ride alongside his car for the last block to our house.

Dad read widely, and he must have had a lot of deep thoughts. But he kept those them mostly locked up inside his head. Maybe I didn’t have enough wit to ask him the right questions to unlock those thoughts.

But also, American dads were probably more remote to their kids in those days than they are now.

He’s been gone now for almost 25 years, and I still think fondly about him. When I clear my throat, I realize I sound exactly like him. I can’t help imagining him riding around on that giant vacuum cleaner.

Painting a Monkey Skull

The Akin Free Library in Pawling, New York is like a time machine that takes you back to a different way of organizing and presenting knowledge about nature.

It's worth a visit, but it's only open Saturdays and Sundays 1:00-4:00d, May - October. Ask to make sure, but it's usually OK to bring stools neat sketch supplies, such as pencil or watercolors.

LWatch this painting bbeing made Here's a link to video

Remote Control Models

When I was a teenager I was obsessed with remote-control airplanes and boats.

 
This is high-school-age me with a Hobie Hawk, a two-servo glider with elliptical dihedral. The kit was invented by Hobart Alter, same guy who created the Hobie catamaran.

It had heavy wing loading, so was a fast flier. But I didn’t fly it much because I lost it in a forest of poison oak while slope soaring in Pescadero.

I also designed and built a flying-wing glider. No tail assembly, just wings. The airfoil changed from a lifting airfoil at the root of the wing to a reverse airfoil at the tips of the swept-back wings. That held the lifting surface at a good angle of incidence. The rudder and elevator controls went through a mechanical mixer on the servo brick that activated the elevons.

This is the kind of thing I thought about in high school during my free time. I’d be standing on the ground, with my imagination soaring 300 feet above me, dreaming what it would feel like to be a red-tail hawk.
My dad was a mechanical engineer, and he would occasionally give me pointers on tools and build techniques.

I also made a tugboat out of pine planks stacked and glued, carved to a hull shape, and fiberglassed over. This one took me all summer to build. The motor was powered by a motorcycle battery. It took some perilous voyages across the chop of the Palo Alto duck pond. It had lights inside and looked pretty realistic at night.

I didn’t know this at the time, but my fascination with scratch-built, remote-controlled airplanes and boats set me up for building the fantasy world of Dinotopia. Making these models helped project my imagination into places. Working for months on a single project gave me an instinct for delayed gratification.

 
There was real peril for the gliders. I once handed the stick to another pilot, inviting him to try flying the wing inverted, and he snapped off both wings by half-looping out of it. Poor guy, he felt so bad. But no problem. I went home, fixed it, and flew on.

 
My dad built his own glider and put a strand of piano wire in the leading edge of the wing “in case of a midair collision.” That day arrived: CRASH! Down went the other guy's plane. But Dad's plane survived. He kind of grinned, but didn't tell the other guy about the piano wire.

Flower Pastels of Laura Coombs Hills

Laura Coombs Hills (1852-1952)

On Substack today, a look at the Life and work of Laura Coombs Hills.

Laura Coombs Hills (1852-1952)

On Substack today, a look at the Life and work of Laura Coombs Hills.

Wikipedia  Laura Coombs Hills

Dark Mirrors

For centuries artist have used darkened mirrors and smoked lenses to help them view a real landscape in simplified tonal values. More on Substack

You're Not Allowed To Imagine Thaat

What are the implications of an AI model that refuses to cooperate? What happens when it tells me that I’m not supposed to imagine something? What if it becomes illegal to imagine something without using a safe-certified AI? More on Substack
 

Drawing Moving Objects

Drawing moving objects is a whole different challenge compared to drawing things that hold still.  Sometimes I like to analyze a common motion such as putting on a jacket by drawing different stages of the action.

Here I'm looking for the long curving lines describing the forms. I draw these with simple, graceful strokes of the sable brush. (from The Artist's Guide to Sketching)

Gilbert Gaul's 'Return Home'

Gilbert Gaul was born in Jersey City, New Jersey in 1855. He studied art at the National Academy of Design in New York and worked as an illustrator for multiple newspapers including the New York Daily Graphic and the New York Herald. 

A young soldier returns to find his boyhood home and hearth in ruins.

Oil painting by Gilbert Gaul in the Birmingham Museum of Art 

Later, he took formal art lessons in Germany and France, where he learned how to paint in the academic method. Gaul is known for his realistic illustrations and paintings of American history, especially military scenes.

Special Delivery

Hope everyone is enjoying the new book. 

I'm curious: What are you working on in your own sketching practice? 

Crash of the Florist Van

This florist van crashed into something jagged, which sliced through it from under the headlight to the side door panel. (Ballpoint pen and gray markers, around 1980.)

This was one of the sketches we couldn't fit into the expanded and remastered edition of "The Artist's Guide to Sketching."

The Color Black

Art: Coles Phillips

Your questions about the color black. More on Substack

Freeway Overpass

FREEWAY OVERPASS, markers and charcoal, 11” x 17”.
Why do thumbnails? It's a low-risk way of thinking visually.

My goal here is to capture a feeling of speed and drama. I want to convey the headlong race of forms stretching across the landscape

.

I try a few different compositions, but they don't work. The first thumbnail on the left is too cluttered with trees and poles. The overpass dips out of the picture, rather than surging out.

In the final art at the top of this post, I allow the eye to follow the movement of the overpass into the middle ground space. I accent this area with strong value contrast, hard edges, and very small shapes.

From The Artist's Guide to Sketching)

Sketching at a Police Helipad. What Could Go Wrong?

PATROL HELICOPTER, 1981, gouache on illustration board, 9½” x 13”.

Here's the story:
A field in Glendale, California, contains what I’m told is the world’s largest collection of police helicopters. It’s a calm, sunny day, ideal for trying out gouache paint. But I’m not expecting what’s about to hit me.

I pass through a gate in the chain-link fence and approach a building. Inside, two women with headphone radios are communicating with police helicopters around LA. One looks up, adjusts her headphones, and asks, "What can I do for you?"

"I'm an art student," I say. "I wonder if I could set up outside and paint a picture of that helicopter." I point through the large windows. "Is that one going to stay there for a while?"

She pauses for a moment, seemingly surprised by the request. "Sure, I guess so," she replies. "That one's not going anywhere for a while. Just stay on the grass and off the airfield." She resumes her work as a call comes in.

Outside, I unfold my stool near the landing area and lay out my paper towels, sketch paper, and extra panels.

I paint the sky gradient and distant mountains. Soon, I hear the faint sound of a helicopter. Like a speck, it grows bigger, approaching until it’s overhead.

Then it hits me—the downforce from the rotors knocks off my hat. Loose papers fly up and disappear behind me. The hot wind dries the paint instantly, and dust and gravel get in my eyes. I clutch onto the painting.

As the chopper shuts down, I pick the loose papers off the fence and pack my things. The pilot gets out and smiles as he walks by. "Sorry about that," he says. "I wondered what you were doing there."

[This painting is reproduced in color in the new edition of The Artist's Guide to Sketching. available in the USA from my little family web store.]

Step-by-Step of the Underdrawing

The Artist's Guide to Sketching isn't really a "how-to" book, but we do have a chapter with a with a step-by-step sequence explaining a method for achieving accurate measurements and perspective.

Here's how you do it: first rough in the big shapes, check measurements and slopes, draw perspective guidelines, then refine the detailed underdrawing.

Chris (CF) Payne says: "While all three of James’ books are profound and valuable, The Artist’s Guide to Sketching may be the best, if not the most important. The lessons are supremely important, and each presented with visual samples and clearly written text. I wish I had this book when I was young and hungry to learn. A perfect book for high school students just beginning their art education, and an absolute must for first year college art students regardless of their art major.”

 

Gang Members as Models

Gang members may look intimidating, but if you catch them in public places, they make great models.

Two Young Gang Members, published in The Artist's Guide to Sketching

This idea applies to goths, bikers, punkers, ravers, metalheads & bodybuilders.
In my experience they’re keenly aware of the effect their appearance has on ordinary, mundane people. They know it’s a costume, either temporary or permanent (as in the case of body modifications).

More on Substack   

Carmel Event March 15

Join me in Carmel, CA on Saturday, March 15 from 12:00-2:00 for a presentation and book signing.

I'll be talking about my friendship with Tom Kinkade and how it led to the book "The Artist's Guide to Sketching."

This will be the only public event in the Bay Area for this book (the other events are at art schools and animation studios), and the first time I've done an event at a Thomas Kinkade gallery, which should be an interesting experience for all of us.

Meanwhile in the Shipping Department

The new edition of The Artist's Guide to Sketching releases today, and I want to thank everyone for your enthusiasm and kind words.

We offered copies for sale in our little web store (sorry, USA only) and so many of you wanted signed copies that we had to enlist the help of the whole family to help us pack and ship.

We have already sent out over 800 copies, and many of you have received them, or you will soon.

If you ordered a copy and haven't gotten it yet, here's the update—we're almost caught up and hope to have every order that we receive by today in the mail by the end of this weekend. 

So please hang in there; it will be worth the wait.

WAMC Radio Interview

Northeast Public Radio's Joe Donahue wanted to know this about sketching:

"Do you do it to relax?"
"What do you see that catches your eye?"
"When does a sketch become a painting?"
"How long can you focus on a subject?"
"What do you consider your main work these days?

This is why authors love to be interviewed by Joe Donahue.
He asks questions you can’t prepare for, which makes you think about your topic in a new way.
Link to Interview

Hopping Freight Trains

 New post about riding the rails.

Sargent Wanted his Models to Talk to Him

John S. Sargent, like most portrait artists of his time, insisted that models moved and spoke while they posed, unlike the contemporary practice of having subjects hold dead still. More here. 

Sketch Carpet

Nathalia says: "I wish you could have captured a quick, cheap digital image of all of the drawing you made and SOLD. Just to have a record. Ya know?"

Hi, Nathalia, this is the closest we've got: a photo of some of the sketches we did around 1980-1981. Most of them ended up on the cutting room floor. We probably had three sketches for every one that made it in the book, and many that have never been seen.

We had no way to sell them at the time, and I'm glad we didn't because it allowed us to rescan them for a much better printing of the new book compared to the first edition.

Sketching Book Reviewed

I’m grateful to Zoungy Kligge for the insightful review of The Artist’s Guide to Sketching by me and Thomas Kinkade.

Zoungy’s coverage includes side by sides of how the art looked in the 1982 edition compared to the way it looks in the new expanded and remastered edition. Here’s a link to his full review on Substack.

Las Vegas After a Fire by Thomas Kinkade, watercolor

If you are waiting for a pre-ordered copy, thanks for your patience. We’re working our way through a huge stack, signing each copy and including a few extra goodies in every shipment. You should receive a notification soon that yours is on the way, too.

Meanwhile here’s what folks are saying about the new edition:

“Every urban sketcher should own a copy of The Artist’s Guide to Sketching. In fact, if I could only have one drawing book on my shelf, it would be this one. It’s packed with that many insights about drawing on location, about everything from perspective to people sketching to nature and animals. But for me, the most brilliant section is about learning to capture motion by training your eye to freeze a gesture so you can record it in your sketchbook.”
—Shari Blaukopf, co-founder of Urban Sketchers Montreal and author of The Urban Sketching Handbook: Working with Color

“This is a marvelous book, filled with the kind of wisdom you’ll never find in a classroom or library. Two artists paid their dues and learned valuable lessons on their cross-country sketching safari. They’ve passed those lessons on to us in a classic book, now expanded and remastered. Their practical pointers about drawing materials and techniques are important, but equally important is the inspiration we get from the story of the two travelers hopping freight trains and sleeping on rooftops, earning their way by the sheer love of drawing. Profusely illustrated, beautifully written.”
—David Apatoff, Art Critic, The Saturday Evening Post

Get your signed copy of The Artist’s Guide to Sketching

What Should Art Schools Teach?

R. Ives Gammell, one of the keepers of the academic flames, makes an interesting point about art teaching:

“A painter’s training does not consist primarily in instruction as to the handling of his materials. Such knowledge is extremely important, of course, but it is not the main thing. The essential purpose of a painter’s training should be to equip him with the means of solving any problem suggested to him by his creative impulse.” 

Do you agree? What should art schools teach, and what should they not teach? Let me know in the comments.

On Substack; Gammell on Art Teaching