Art By Committee Results

We've been playing an occasional group sketch game called "Art By Committee," where I share an an actual excerpt taken out of context from a science fiction manuscript and we see how a few of us mad illustrators put a picture to it. Below is another example taken from the original sketchbook.


What follows are the zany, witty, and wonderful sketches that you all came up with for the line: "I never understood why you were with him in the first place," followed by the one that originally appeared in my book. Thanks again for contributing. Let's take a break for a week because I'm on the road, but I'll toss out another line in the future.

Austin Madison

Arthur Keegan
Topher Sipes

Sarah Stevenson

Michael Dambold
Matthew Kalamidas


Jen Zeller

Davis Ottoson
Dan Pinto

...and the Coffeeshop Clan--Jeanette, Me, and James Warhola

Tomorrow: Politics, Prose, and Painting

Skyholes

A tree presents a complex silhouette against the sky, but the silhouette is almost never completely solid. A few “skyholes” puncture the shape of the tree and let you see through to the light beyond.


In this detail of a Claude Lorrain, there are fewer than ten skyholes painted in the lower third of the main tree. I’ve noticed that the early landscapists were sparing with skyholes.


This detail by Corot shows skyholes nearer the top margin of the trees. Some appear as fairly active circular shapes, which draws attention to them.


Constant Troyon, as seen in this detail, painted skyholes of various sizes, and gave them a ragged character, to suggest that they were fringed with leaves.

One question that every painter in opaque media like oil, gouache, or acrylic faces: Should you paint a skyhole with the same exact color as the sky beyond?


If you compare a photograph to the paintings we’ve seen, it appears much more complex and full of infinite variety. In the center of the photo I’ve placed the number 1 next to a prominent skyhole, and the number 2 surrounded by a group of smaller skyholes.


An enlargement reveals that while the larger skyhole does present an uninterrupted view of the sky, the smaller skyholes contain a network of fine branches and tiny leaves that weren't apparent from a distance.

These tiny interruptions lessen the amount of light passing through from the sky. As a result, these skyholes should really be painted a little darker than the actual sky color beyond.

Images from ARC, Link.

Tomorrow: Your Art-by-Committee Sketches

Profile Portrait

Here's a quick portrait of an eight-year-old. He posed for me between rounds of a kickball game during an third grade picnic.

Warm Underpainting

Here’s a brief but important post for Color Sunday. If you prime your panels with a tint of venetian red or burnt sienna, you can get a good base for many kinds of paintings.


A warm underpainting is especially helpful for paintings of skies or foliage, or any painting with a blue or green tonality. The little bits of color that inevitably remain between your strokes will make blues or greens sparkle by complementary contrast.

An insistent warm underpainting also can act to force you to cover the background with opaques. This 6 by 4 inch painting of an elephant from the zoo is just partially finished. Normally I would cover the entire red-orange surface with opaque paint.

For plein air painting I use Gamblin oil priming, which I buy in a quart tin, and tint it using using a palette knife on a scrap of palette paper. A drop or two of cobalt drier will get the priming to set up overnight if you’re prepping for a painting trip.

For studio work I will more often prime with gesso tinted with acrylic, as this surface allows for a pencil preliminary drawing.

The Sinking of the Cumberland

One hundred and forty-six years ago today, an epic naval battle took place in Hampton Roads, Virginia. The central event on that day was the sinking of the USS Cumberland. I had the honor of commemorating the event in a 30 x 40 inch painting commissioned by the National Geographic Society. This is the first time I’ve shared the painting publicly.


In a future post, I’ll describe what went into the painting, which took well over a year to complete. I’ll also share more about the artwork in an illustrated lecture that I’ll be giving this Sunday, March 9 at the Allentown Art Museum in Pennsylvania, as well as on Thursday, March 13 at the Mariner’s Museum in Newport News, Virginia. The Mariner’s Museum currently has the original painting on exhibition.

“Give them a broadside, boys, as she goes!”

The USS Cumberland went down at 3:37 p.m. on March 8, 1862, the victim of the Virginia’s (also known as the Merrimac’s) 1500 pound iron ram and a relentless barrage that covered the deck with carnage. Lieutenant George U. Morris gave the command for all hands to save themselves, but he remained on deck to encourage the decimated pivot gun crew, who took a final shot even as the waves closed around them.

To Buchanan’s request for surrender, he defiantly replied, “Never! We will sink with our colors flying.” The destruction of the Cumberland was a decisive but short-lived victory for the Confederate Navy. The Virginia, which sustained only superficial damage, survived to challenge the Monitor the following day.
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Read the full series:

Sinking of the Cumberland, Part 1A: The Backstory
Sinking of the Cumberland, Part 1B: The Research
Sinking of the Cumberland, Part 2: Choosing the Scene
Sinking of the Cumberland, Part 3: Acting it Out
Sinking of the Cumberland, Part 4: Final Art

Mark O'Connor

I'm in Boston today with my wife Jeanette, and we'll be heading to Pennsylvania tonight.

On Thursday we enjoyed the music of the great violinist Mark O'Connor. Here's a sketch in watercolor that I did from the second row of his performance/lecture, arranged by the Harvard College American Music Association. I used a couple of hollow-handled brush pens and a very tiny watercolor set all balanced discreetly, but dangerously, in my lap.


I made this sketch yesterday during Mark's improvisation workshop, which our son attended with his accordion. I'm using watercolor again in the Moleskine drawing book. This paper has a heavy weight and a smooth texture, but it's really not made for watercolor, so the washes tended to bead up at first.

More on Mark O'Connor, Link.
Dan Gurney, Link
Moleskine sketchbook blog, Link.

Microraptor

NOVA recently aired a documentary about the flying dinosaur called Microraptor gui, which was discovered a few years ago in Liaoning, China.


I love this little four-winged wonder, and featured it in Dinotopia: Journey to Chandara. Here is Microraptor flying over the rooftops of Chandara, with its front wings up and its back “wings” or legs down.


Whether this creature was capable of flapping, and what position it held its arms and legs in flight are the subjects of lively debate among both scientists and artists.

What I’d like to show you here is a practical tip for making a quick reference maquette for a creature like this so that you can get the perspective right. I call it a “2D to 3D maquette.” This method would also work for insects, birds, and fish.

To begin with, I found the science article by the Chinese paleontologist Xu Xing, and printed out the dorsal view of the creature, with its arms and legs splayed out flat. The printout was on card stock.

Then I hot-glued some thin aluminum armature wire underneath the paper cutout. I tried to place the wire where the bones go. I then beefed up the volume of the head and chest with plasticene, or modeling clay.


I now had a fully poseable maquette in 3D, which allowed me to experiment with different wing positions. I placed a light source to see how the big planes would look in light and shadow.


This is the work of only an hour or two, but it helped me choose the angle and pose, and it gave me crucial information about the foreshortening of the wing shapes, the cast shadow on his left wing, and the appearance of the tail.

NOVA video on its website, Link.
New Scientist Article, Link.
Wikipedia article on Microraptor, Link.
Thanks, Mike Sheehan.

Tomorrow: The Sinking of the Cumberland

Costumed Model

Howard Pyle once said that painting a nude model is like painting a plucked bird.

As illustrators, comic artists, and animators, we’re most often called upon to portray the clothed figure. Why then don’t we spend more time in the studio drawing the figure fully feathered?

Below is a very hasty 20-minute oil sketch. It’s nothing to crow about, but I relished the chance to try something different.


Granted, there are plenty of good reasons to study the nude figure. It’s a good way to learn principles of light and shade on form. It’s essential to understand the structure of the human figure beneath the garment. And the nude is the Everest for artists, given its expressive potential and interpretive subtlety.

But there’s an anatomy of costume, too. Fabric follows different principles from bone and skin. How many art schools or ateliers teach about velvet vs. satin, halflock vs. spiral folds, and dolman vs. set-in sleeves?

Tomorrow: Microraptor Maquette

Your Khalian Sketches

Last Wednesday I introduced the “Art by Committee” sketchbook, where I take excerpts from an actual science fiction manuscripts, and then illustrate them with the help a coffee-shop committee of artist friends.

I then invited you to join in. The results follow, with the one from the official A.B.C. book the very end, along with another new challenge.

Austin Madison

Kevin Hedgepeth

Guillaume Decaux

Dan Root

Jon Hrubesch

Robert Sloan
Jen Zeller


Michael Dambold

Pat Dizon
Erik Bongers


Rick Carlsen

Rob Hummer
Sarah
Tidah Adipat
Weston Gaylord

…and the Committee: Jeanette Gurney, James Warhola, and me.

Thanks so much to all of you for contributing. Shall we try this once more? Here’s a new line:

“I never understood why you were with him in the first place.”

If you'd like to email me your sketch at jgurneyart@yahoo.com, I'll post those results next Wednesday.

Tomorrow: Costumed Model

Perspective Ink Drawing

You may recall the work of Atkinson Grimshaw, the Victorian moonlight specialist.

A typical finished Grimshaw dockside scene combines mysterious and atmospheric distances with the delicate tracery of rigging and other fine details.

What procedure did he follow to work out the perspective?


Fortunately there are a few unfinished Grimshaws which show his method. This one has a thin layer of brownish oil color scrubbed over the entire surface to establish the overall tonality and mood, but he has not yet moved on to the finished opaque rendering.


Here’s a detail of the same canvas. Grimshaw’s crisp preliminary line drawing shows right through the thin paint. I haven’t seen the original, but most likely the drawing was accomplished in India ink.


Grimshaw, like Bouguereau, Gerome, and many others in his day, preferred to have the foundational perspective work carefully completed in ink on the canvas before going on to the final painting. The drawing would eventually disappear under later opaque layers.

Gerome also used a perspective ink drawing on the canvas before he dove into his renderings of complex tilework.

Other painters like Sorolla, Sargent, Duveneck, and Zorn (and, more recently, Richard Estes and Frank McCarthy) took a more improvisatory approach, and “found it in the paint,” drawing loosely at first with the brush. Both methods are completely valid.

More about Atkinson Grimshaw at ARC.org
Previous posts on the color of moonlight, Link; on perspective grids, Link; and on a Dinotopia preliminary line drawing, Link.

Tomorrow: Your Khalian Sketches (Deadline noon today)