Book Review: Sorolla and the Paris Years

On July 14, The musée des impressionnismes in Giverny will open an exhibition called "Sorolla and the Paris Years" which focuses on Joaquín Sorolla's rise to fame and international success.

Valencian Fishermen, 1895, 26 x 34 in. Collection Broere Charitable Foundation

The exhibition brings together around 100 paintings, including many of the major landscapes, portraits and beach subjects. Like his contemporaries Anders Zorn, John Singer Sargent, and Peder Krøyer, Joaquín Sorolla was remarkable for bridging the gap between academic and impressionist painting. 

He creating images informed by outdoor studies yet accurately drawn and thoughtfully composed. 

For many of us who can't make it to see the exhibition, there's an excellent catalogue published by Skira/Rizzoli that puts Sorolla's work in context. Sorolla and the Paris Years is 248 pages long, with essays by Blanca Pons-Sorolla, Maria López Fernández and other scholars. 

The cover shows a woman swathed in white, holding a camera.

Sorolla, Self Portrait

Sorolla came to Paris at age 23, with a keen interest in studying the work of Bastien Lepage and Adolph Menzel. He referred to Menzel as "the greatest painter in every regard," and even "the greatest painter in the world!" Sorolla was insistent on complete sincerity and truth in his painting, and he said "truth is supreme to me, the only thing in art."

The text emphasizes Sorolla's path to fame and commercial success. It was a remarkable achievement for an unknown Spanish artist to dominate the attention of collectors and museums in the art capitals of Paris and New York. 

Sorolla, Sewing the Sail, 1896, oil, 87 x 118 inches,
Fontazione Musei Civici di Venezia

Unfortunately there's not much discussion of Sorolla's working methods or exactly how he used photography. This is something I've always wondered about, since many of his dynamic figural subjects would have been nearly impossible to paint entirely from observation on location.

The book and the exhibition contain many of Sorolla's famous large canvases. If you have other books on Sorolla, those images will repeat. The reproductions are excellent in this book, large, colorful and sharp, with some close-up details. The book's dimensions are 9.8 x 1 x 11.3 inches.

Sorolla, Surroundings of Paris, 1889, Oil on panel,
5 3/8 x 7 5/8 inches, Museo Sorolla

What sets this book apart from others on Sorolla is a fine collection of his tiny plein-air studies, such as the one above, where you can clearly study the way he used a warm priming color.

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Exhibition catalogue: Sorolla and the Paris Years

The exhibition in Giverny will be on view through November 6, after which it will continue to the Museuo Sorolla in Madrid from November 24 - March 19, 2017.

Comparing Opaque and Transparent Painting

Yesterday I painted two vintage bisque porcelains in Mel Birnkrant's collection, a leering match holder and an exuberant baby waving a flag. 

Schafer and Vater porcelains, casein (left), and watercolor (right)

The study on the left is painted with casein (an opaque water-based medium a lot like gouache), and the one on the right is painted in transparent watercolor. Opaque and transparent painting require a rather different mindset and approach.

To paint this head in casein, I had to mix each of the values separately, keeping in mind the slight value shift as the paint dries.  The advantage of casein or gouache is that it's possible to achieve absolutely flat, smooth passages and control their relationship. The challenge is to blend edges and to achieve softness and variety of tone. The pitfall is the tendency to lose sparkle and lightness.

I painted the baby in transparent watercolor. The advantage of watercolor is that it's fast and direct. Gradations and soft edges (such as the round forehead) are achievable, but they take deliberate and rapid action. The challenge is 1) to achieve accuracy and smoothness of value, and 2) to paint around the light accents. The pitfall is the tendency to get everything too light. The first washes on the forehead looked incredibly dark when I first put them down.

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About the collection:
Vintage porcelains in Mel Birnkrant's collection
Previous posts about Mel:
The Weenies
Mel Birnkrant's Cartoon Toy Collection
Paper Burlesque Dancers
Painting the Outer Space Men
Casein sets from Amazon:
Casein 6 Pack with Brush Set

Casein set of 12
Gumroad tutorials:
Watercolor in the Wild 
Gouache in the Wild

My Days Doing Atari Box Art

When I was starting out as a freelance illustrator, I did a few cover designs for Activision and Atari. 

Here's what the screen graphics looked like for a game called River Raid, where you fly a jet up a river and shoot at helicopters and ships.

The whole idea with the package art was to develop the 3D fantasy in the player's imagination. I painted the original in oil.

Galaga and Galaxians had arrays of bug-like monsters swarming overhead and dropping bombs on you. 

Although there were home versions of the game, you had to play the arcade version to see the latest levels. I wasn't very good at playing the game, so I went to the arcade and offered quarters to the kids who were good at it. I said all I wanted to do was watch them play and sketch the monsters. When I came back the next day there was a whole line of kids with their hands out. Don't know if I would do that now.

Here's one of the oil paintings I did for Galaga. I'm not sure where this turned up in print, but it was fun to paint.

I believe this one was for Galaxians. The painting is in oil, about 16 x 20. Since there was a lot of room for imaginative elaboration, I chose a more comic book look.

A new book is about to be released called Art of Atari.

New Challenge: Food Trucks

We had such an enthusiastic response to our last Weed Painting Challenge that many of you asked for another opportunity. This time it's food trucks! I invite you to paint a mobile food vendor on location with a limited palette.

Photo by Paul Bartunek from Serious Eats

You can paint any wheeled conveyance that sells prepared food, such as taco trucks,  hot dog stands, pretzel carts, ice cream trikes, waffle vans, or burrito trailers. Here's a Wikipedia page on Mobile Catering.

On Location

It must be painted on location and it must be a new painting done for this challenge. In addition to a scan of the final painting, your entry must include a photo of your painting in progress in front of the motif.

All painting media are acceptable: casein, gouache, acryla-gouache, oil, acrylic or watercolor.

The Limited Palette

The limited palette is just three colors of your choice plus white. The reason for the limited palette is to keep your painting harmonious, which can be difficult with such a kaleidoscopic subject.


(here's a video showing some owners cooking in their mobile kitchens)

Scrumptious Prize

If you want, you can make a video (1 minute or less) of the owner doing a pitch for their food, or you can do a sketch of the serving. I'll give a special award to the most mouth-watering pitch.

Deadline
It's free to enter. You can enter as soon as you finish the piece, but no later than the deadline: Monday, August 15 at midnight New York time. Winners will be announced on the blog on Wednesday August 17. 

What and How to Enter
Just shoot two image files: 1. Your finished painting and 2. A photo of the painting on the easel in front of the subject. Your face doesn't have to be in the photo unless you want to.

Upload the images to this Facebook Event page (This way I don't have to deal with email, and you present your images your way). If you don't have a Facebook account, please ask a friend with an account to help you. Please include in the FB post the list of the colors you used, and if you want, a word about your inspiration or design strategy, or a description of the food.

If you upload to Instagram or Twitter, please use the hashtag #paintafoodtruck

Prizes
I'll pick one Grand Prize, five Finalists, and one Scrumptious Winner. They will be published on GurneyJourney. All the winners will receive an exclusive "Department of Art" embroidered patch. In addition, all the winners will receive a video (DVD or download) of their choice. Everybody who participates will have their work on the Facebook page, too.

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Resources and Links
• Facebook Event page on Food Truck Painting Challenge
• Wikipedia on Mobile Catering
•If you want to try out casein, I've asked Jack Richeson to put together a basic set called Gurney's Casein 6 Packor Gurney's Casein Explorers Pack (12)
• Own the 72-minute feature "Gouache in the Wild"
• HD MP4 Download at Gumroad $14.95
• or HD MP4 Download at Sellfy (for Paypal customers) $14.95
• DVD at Purchase at Kunaki.com (Region 1 encoded NTSC video) $24.50

Bridge at Lac Spruce

We hike up the mountain to Lac Spruce in southern Quebec. There isn't much time before it gets dark, and it's a rough trail back, so I allow just a half hour for a sketch.



Using transparent watercolor, my first consideration is what's lightest in the scene. In this case it's the top planes of the bridge—the top of the rails and the planks of the bridge.


They're a very light cool color. To capture the feeling of the deciduous and coniferous foliage in indirect light, I paint greenish tones across the whole area and then bring out individual tips of branches by painting the darks around them.

Speed Photoshop Battle

One of the evening events at the concept art masterclass in Montréal was a speed painting battle. 

Two artists sitting at large computers, their work projected on the screen to an energized audience of peers, attempted to illustrate an assigned theme within a 15 minute limit using Photoshop. No command Z, no history, no photos or photobashing. The loser of each round had to drink a tumbler of rum.

One of the competitors was  Jeff Simpson, an artist at Ubisoft. He painted the theme "gravedigger."
I sat over to the side and painted him using watercolor. Although I wasn't competing in the battle, I stayed within the 15 minute limit also.

Syn Studio Gathering of Masters

Teaching Concepting in the Wild

 
The assignment for my workshop students was to bring an action figure and a sketchbook and to meet in Parc du Canada.

They brought everything from hippos to solar powered robot dogs.

They did a brilliant job of enlarging them, making them flying or climbing buildings. 

Mayhem in Montreal, gouache and watercolor, 5 x 7 inches.

Here's my demo, done in watercolor and gouache. We all had a great time, and I'm really excited by the creativity and enthusiasm of all the students.

Wing's Noodles

On the way to lunch in Montréal's Chinatown, I stopped to paint this old neon sign for Wing's Noodles. 

Even though it's a small sign on a nondescript building, it represents a major manufacturer of Chinese noodles, egg roll covers, and won ton covers. 

Oleg's Portrait

Sometimes when I sketch a fellow artist at a restaurant, they return the favor.

This is Oleg Dergachov. He's a cartoonist, animator, illustrator, and gallery artist who was trained by the Ukrainian Academy. He teaches head drawing and analytical sketching at Syn Studio on Montréal.

I am sitting across from him at a sushi place. It is one of those restaurants where everyone is shouting so loud that you can't talk to the person across the table.

But that's OK, because artists can talk with their pens and brushes. I love it, thank you, Oleg!
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Oleg's Gallery

Montréal Has Monsters!

I saw this guy at the corner of Rue Notre Dame and Rue St. Vincent. I only had time for a quick sepia sketch before he jogged off toward the Jazz Fest.

Actually, this is what we'll be doing for my workshop tomorrow, "Concepting from Real Life." 

I'll be leading 100 video game design students outdoors where we will be using our sketchbooks to composite a toy dinosaur, robot, or creature into a real scene.