Jim Lawlor's 'Remember When'

Jim Lawlor ran the "Remember When" shop and soda parlor in Germantown, NY. It was full of memorabilia of the grand old days of soda parlors: old radios, metal signs, and Coca-Cola painted trays. He put cellophane over the shelves to discourage collectors from asking if they could buy the stuff.

Jim had one corner of the shop still functioning, and he loved to play the role of soda jerk. He would use his still-functioning soda machine to make you a cream soda or a root beer float. 

If he really liked you he'd invite you to sit with him in his classic 1950s car (I forget the model) with big tail fins and soft tires that was forever parked next to the building.

Sarah Bernhardt's Inkwell

Sarah Bernhardt (1845-1923) was not just an actress. She was also a sculptor. In 1879 she created this bronze inkwell in the form of a self-portrait. The inkwell traveled with her on her American tour, and was shown in the lobbies of theaters where she had starring performances.

Her head is tipped forward, and she appears in chimera form as a rare and ominous mythological creature, with bat wings and griffin feet clutching the ink vessel. 

According to the Clark Art Institute, which acquired the piece in 2020, "As one of the first celebrities in the age of photography, she was no stranger to having her likeness reproduced, which gave her a deep understanding of the power of public image as a tool for self-promotion and creative expression."

Previous posts about Sarah Bernhardt

Norchia in Perspective

Norchia is the site of a necropolis created by the ancient Etruscans in Italy, with fake buildings carved out of volcanic tuff. On the bluff above they conducted funerary games. 

I painted this aerial view in oil for the National Geographic magazine, and planned the scene with a perspective drawing.

If you have a question about perspective — (it could be a basic, practical question, or a more obscure one) —please ask me on this Speakpipe link. The website lets you record and review a brief voice message that I might incorporate in a future video.

 

Enchanted Goes Next to Tennessee

  

"Enchanted: A History of Fantasy Illustration" will travel next to Tennessee in May 20, 2022 through September 5, 2022  

"Skeleton Pirate" and "Garden of Hope" 

Two of my paintings were part of the big fantasy exhibition, which happened summer 2021 at the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Massachusetts.

 

Artists also include Arthur Rackham, William-Adolphe Bouguereau, Gustave Doré, NC Wyeth, Herbert Draper, Howard Pyle, Maxfield Parrish, Frank Frazetta, Winsor McCay, Jessie Willcox Smith, Joseph Clement Coll,  Willy Pogany, J. Allen St. John, Dean Cornwell, Virgil Finlay, Hal Foster, and many more.

The catalog produced by Abbeville, includes 180 images, mostly in color, with essays by Alice Carter, Stephanie Plunkett, and others.

After it goes to the Hunter Museum of America Art in Chattanooga, the exhibition "Enchanted: A History of Fantasy Illustration" will travel to the Flint Institute of Arts, Flint, MI -- September 23, 2022 through January 8, 2023

Ask Your Question About Perspective

The thing I found the most challenging on this one was the perspective drawing. 

Scart Road, Bantry, watercolor, 9 x 12 inches.

I knew all those buildings have different vanishing points from each other. And the road has its own set of vanishing points below eye level. And I expected I would be tricked by those building fronts, which were extremely foreshortened.

But even knowing all that, I still had to erase and redraw the pencil drawing three times until I was convinced I had it right.

You can ask me your question about perspective on the SpeakPipe website. I might use your question in a future video.

Vladimir Orlovsky

Vladimir Orlovsky (1842-1914) was a Ukranian painter who used dramatic lighting to create a spacious feeling.

The main subject of the horses and people on the frozen road is not dramatically lit, but instead held in a soft shadow. The brighter light is in the foreground and in the far sky.

The wide open basin of the Dniepr river stretches out peacefully in the far distance.

This one uses the opposite regime of light, with an illuminated foreground and a road leading back into a soft cloud shadow.

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Vladimir Orlovsky on Wikipedia

Book: Vladimir Orlovsky: Selected Paintings

Painting a Beaver Dam in Winter

 In this new YouTube video, I do a plein-air gouache painting of a beaver dam in winter, with a light coating of snow.

There was a lot of detail to capture. Since I couldn't paint every twig, I had to invent a way to suggest the detail using wet-into-wet passages and drybrush.

Here are the colors I used:

Titanium white (gouache) 

Terra rosa (watercolor) 

Raw umber (gouache) 

Cobalt blue (gouache)

Cadmium red (gouache) 

Magenta (gouache)

Cadmium yellow light (gouache)

Painting tutorial:
Gouache in the Wild Gumroad download
Give Me Gouache!

Inside the Dinotopia Pop-Up Book

The Dinotopia Pop-Up book brought to life scenes from the hatchery, a convoy facing off with T. rex, the hanging baskets of Treetown, and the dinosaur olympics, complete with a wonderful wobble-run. 

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by James Gurney (@jamesgurneyart)

Paper engineering was by Intervisual, and the art was by Michael Welply, with craftspeople in Bolivia doing all the assembly work.

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Dinotopia Pop-Up book on Amazon

Designing the Dinotopia Pop-Up Book

I've always loved pop-up books, so when we decided to make a Dinotopia pop-up book with Waldo Hunt (1920-2009), I was pretty jazzed. Wally was the man responsible for the revival of pop-up books between the 1960s and 1990s, with classics like Haunted House by Jan Pieńkowski.

He sent me a bunch of examples, and taught me about the history of novelty and movable toy books by Lothar Meggendorfer and other pioneers.

To get the ball rolling, I brainstormed a bunch of ideas for "dimensionalizing" Dinotopia in terms of basic pop-up mechanics, such as the stage set, v-fold, box and cylinder, and floating layers. 

Their engineers came back with more fun ideas. Tomorrow I'll show you what we came up with.

Lothar Meggendorfer

Dinotopia Pop-Up Book

Dinotopia Pop-up Book

 

Tomorrow I’ll share some of the planning that went into the Dinotopia pop-up book.