Lightning Sketch Artists, Part 3

We've been having a look at the Victorian form of parlour entertainment called the lightning sketch act. So far we've seen the work of J. Stuart Blackton and Winsor McCay, two of the most famous American practitioners.


Another of Blackton's tricks that Edison committed to film was "The Enchanted Drawing,"  (Video link) where Blackton draws a gentleman with a top hat and a bottle and glass of wine. By halting the camera and exchanging them for real objects, he turned the lightning sketch performance into a magical act of conjuring.


The French filmmaker Georges Méliès (1861-1938) was using the stopped camera trick right around the same time. In Le Livre Magique, drawings in a giant book become costumed characters.

Méliès also recorded on film his caricatures of Adolphe Thiers, Chamberlain, Queen Victoria, and Bismark, and most likely those early films were what inspired Blackton.

A good source on this topic is the book: Before Mickey: The Animated Film, 1898-1928

Previously on GurneyJourney:

Lightning Sketch Artists, Part 1

Lightning Sketch Artists, Part 2

Lightning Sketch Artists, Part 2

Winsor McCay (c. 1867-1934) was famous for his contributions to comics (Little Nemo) and animation (Gertie the Dinosaur), but those achievements were related to his other career as a lightning sketch artist on the vaudeville stage.

According to Wikipedia:

"Impresario F. F. Proctor approached McCay in April 1906 to perform chalk talks for the vaudeville circuit. For $500 per week he was to draw twenty-five sketches in fifteen minutes before live audiences, as a pit band played a piece called "Dream of the Rarebit Fiend". In his "The Seven Ages of Man" routine, he drew two faces and progressively aged them. His first performance was on June 11, 1906, in a show that also featured entertainer W. C. Fields. It was a success, and McCay toured with the show throughout 1907, while managing to complete his comic strip and illustration work on time, often working in hotel rooms or backstage."


In 1911, McCay animated his Little Nemo characters, in the context of a lightning sketch artist's show (Video link). After making a wager with the guys in the smoking club that he can make drawings move, he proceeds to draw his characters on a big pad, just as he would have done on stage, before he switches to smaller drawings for the animation. You can skip ahead to 8:24 to see the start of the animation.



When he presented his famous animated film of Gertie the Dinosaur, (shown here in its shorter version) McCay stood beside the screen and talked to the animated dinosaur, who seemed to respond to his commands and his scolding. Seeing a lightning sketch artist interact with a drawing which moved and even emoted at his command must have been astounding. Here's the longer version of the film, with the full setup intact.

Lightning Sketch Artists, Part 1

Lightning Sketch Artists, Part 1

A popular stage act around 1900 was the lightning sketch artist. These performers drew quickly in front of the audience, providing a lively patter as they brought the drawing through amusing or surprising transformations. 

Edwin Lutz thanks Michael Sporn Animation

Typically they worked in charcoal on a big piece of paper on an easel, but sometimes they used chalk and a chalkboard. The act often required strategically adding new lines that changed the drawing into something else. 

Sometimes the transformations involved turning the drawing upside down. Inspired by an old book called "The Art of Chalk Talk," I adapted a normal easel with a lazy susan swivel that allows me to turn drawings upside down, and I've tried similar gags in my lectures. Maybe some of you have seen my own act.

A few of the acts by the original performers were filmed, including a 1906 performance called "Humorous Phases of Funny Faces" by J. Stuart Blackton (1875-1941) (Video link). He stopped the camera between different phases of the action to add or subtract lines, or to replace them with paper cutouts. In this way, he inadvertently became one of the fathers of animation.

More examples of lightning sketchers tomorrow, including the legendary Winsor McCay.

Upcoming Workshops

A lot of people have been asking about upcoming workshops and lectures. In September I'll be in Wyoming as a guest instructor of the Susan Kathleen Black Foundation workshop. This weeklong event mixes informal lectures and demos with feasting and the great outdoor life. The all-inclusive fee for instruction, room, and food is only $775 for the whole week, an incredible deal. There are only about 150 spaces, and they're filling fast, with signups started just yesterday.


I'll also be one of the instructors at Illustration Master Class in June. This weeklong workshop takes place on the campus of Amherst College in Massachusetts and is geared to students, pros, and aspiring professionals in the fantasy art field. The faculty includes a roster of top artists, with special guests Brian and Wendy Froud. The signups are full, but you can get on the waitlist.

This coming April 24-27, I'll be one of the faculty at the Portrait Society Annual Conference in Washington, DC. I went last year as well as a speaker and a sketch-reporter. The portrait demos are fun to watch, and it's a great group for learning techniques and business strategies.

And I'll be returning to the Hartford Art School in Connecticut for a lecture on April 16. They've got an excellent illustration department there, thanks to Dennis Nolan (right) and his colleagues, and this lecture is open to the public. I'll be doing a book signing afterward.

Finally, I want to mention the Voice of the Wilderness, a unique art adventure opportunity in Alaska. I haven't been directly involved, but some GurneyJourneyers have, and they say it's a life-changing opportunity to kayak and hike into the wilderness with a sketchbook. Signups must be postmarked February 19.

Zhang Hong Nian

I drew this portrait of my friend Zhang Hong Nian at his home in Woodstock, New York.

Hong Nian grew up in China, studying academic realism at the Central Art Academy in Beijing. After the Cultural Revolution, he was sent for four years to a forced labor camp, where he was not allowed to create art. In the 1980s he came to the United States to study Western painting and to exhibit his work. Today he is one of the most celebrated Chinese-American painters and teachers, and is married to portrait artist Lois Woolley.
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Zhang Hong Nian's website

Lois and Hong Nian collaborated on a book called The Yin/Yang of Painting: A Contemporary Master Reveals the Secrets of Painting Found in Ancient Chinese Philosophy

Cyriak's Animations

Cyriak is an animator whose video Cows & Cows & Cows has logged more than 25 million views.
His videos typically show animals moving to a dance beat through increasingly surrealistic transformations. The results are cute, disturbing, and mesmerizing.



In this documentary, we meet the artist in his Brighton, England studio and visit his sources of inspiration: video games in the local arcade, pickled specimens in the museum, and animal antics on a local farm.

His process starts with digitally cut-out photos and stock videos, animated with Adobe Aftereffects. Cyriak's latest video is called Chimpnology

Scintillating Scotoma

A scintillating scotoma is an optical effect related to migraines, where a glowing aura forms in the visual field, like a shimmering ring or arc that lasts about 15 minutes. 


Here's an artist's depiction. In my experience, the ring expands slowly outward from the center, and it is composed of zigzag patterns that move around the ring, rather than little colored bubbles, as is indicated here. The aura creates a blind spot in the area of the shimmering ring. At the Wikipedia page on the subject, there are some animated gifs that people have created to simulate the effect.

Whenever I get one, I refer to it as the "Mystic Donut."


Here's another animated simulation (Thanks, Derek).

For me the effect is most often triggered by a cup of coffee and a sudden exposure to bright light. The phenomenon is caused by a spreading wave of neural firing called a cortical spreading depression in the optical cortex in the back of the brain. It doesn't happen on the retina, as in a retinal migraine, which has a monocular effect.

Unlike some other kinds of migraines, there's no pain associated with scintillating scotomas, and I find them kind of fun, as long as I'm not reading or driving.

Wikipedia on Scintillating Scotoma

Are we out of the Uncanny Valley?

Popular Science put together this video summary of the phenomenon of the uncanny valley in robotics, computer animation, and games. (Link to video)

The term "uncanny valley" was coined by Japanese roboticist Masahiro Mori in 1970. It refers to how artificial characters become more and more attractive as they become more realistic—up to a certain point, when they become creepy and repellant.

Another example is the rampaging baby in Pixar's early experiment "Tin Toy." (Video link)

A Scientific American article suggests some explanations for why these failed lookalikes put us on edge. The phenomenon might be related to the unconscious switchover that happens when we believe something to be truly human. Our rising empathy in what we believe to be human can be betrayed by a simple failure of eye contact or head movement, invoking our concern or disgust at seeing a fellow human who is ill.


A related dreadful feeling happens when we see a Madame Tussaud waxwork, only to discover that it is real. This video shows such a prank as fan girls pose with what they think is their favorite boy band. (video link).

Masahiro Mori's paradigm suggests that there's a way out of the valley on the far end, as we approach very accurate simulation. Are we there yet? Have you seen anything recently in the realm of robotics or CGI simulation that you feel is truly appealing? If so, please let me know in the comments.

Previously on GurneyJourney:
Activision reveals real-time face simulation
Bert Untooned

Book Review: Painting on Location

David Curtis is one of the leading plein-air painters, working in both watercolor and oil in the United Kingdom. He tackles complex scenes with admirable fluency and accuracy, and is one of the contemporary masters of contre-jour lighting.

For both dedicated fans and people new to his work, his newest book, Painting on Location: Secrets to Plein Air Painting, is an excellent presentation of his working methods, with many large reproductions of paintings that don't appear in previous books on Curtis's work.

His subject matter includes primarily coastal views, city scenes, and rural landscapes—no portraits or still lifes.


Curtis typically works fairly small in oil. Most of his paintings are around 8x10 or up to 12x16 inches. In his book he discusses how speed and confidence are affected by the scale of the work, and by other challenges such as limited time and changing light.

The book gives equal weight to his watercolors, which makes it valuable to specialists in either oil or watercolor, or to artists who want to branch out to a new medium. There are a few step-by-step sequences, photos taken of the motif for comparison, and photos of the painting rig.

Here's a video shot on location that shows some of the watercolor techniques in action. Curtis confidently drops color into wet washes in the early "ghost wash" stage. As he says, "Observe once, observe twice, and dive in."

(Video link) And here's another video trailer showing his oil techniques.

Book: Painting on Location: Secrets to Plein Air Painting

...also available from the North Light bookstore

DVD: Light in the Landscape with David Curtis

Drawing by Dean Cornwell

This figure study by Dean Cornwell (1892-1960), probably done from a live model, is a beautiful example of designing the forms, and not copying accidental details.


The forms are simplified with an attention of straight lines versus curved lines, and a geometric statement of the disk-shaped cuffs and neck ruff. He's careful to draw the centerline down the torso, and to think of the folds of the cape as strong columnar tubes. Cornwell often remarked about the difference between folds, which are structural, and wrinkles, which are accidental.

It was done as a study for the Sir Walter Raleigh murals in the Warwick Hotel in New York.