Six Foot Chicken

It’s the 15th of October, and that means it's time for our group sketch game called "Art by Committee." The way it works is I share an excerpt from a science fiction story and you come up with a picture to go with it.

This month the quote was :

"I became immediately and irrationally angry. How dare this six foot chicken with a silly red crest on top of his narrow foolish head say that we humans were deficient in feii? I controlled...."

You all had fun with the story and the annoying chicken. Thanks to everyone who participated.

Michael Geissler.
Image

Patrick Waugh
Blog

Andy Wales
Blog (full panels)

Mei-Yi Chun
Website with Image

Rob Hummer
Image

Andrew Garrison
Blog

Susan Adsett
Website

Here's the drawing that appears in the original ABC book.

AND please check out this link for a whole lot more solutions to this ABC challenge by students in Mansfield University's "Intro to Drawing" class.

Now here’s the quote for next month:

“He is shorter than I remember, and thin. His fur is grayed to white in a fringe around his head, just below his ears. His coat is dull, thinning, and coarse. His eyes, so bright I…”

Have fun! Please scale your JPG to 400 pixels across and compress it as much as possible. Title it with your name, send it to: jgurneyart(at)yahoo.com, subject line ABC. Please let me know in your email the full URL of the link to a larger image or your blog or website so people can see your image at full size and learn more about your other work. Please have your entries in by the 12th of November. I'll post the results November 15.

Illustration Master Class Enrollment Opens

Rebecca Guay has just announced that enrollment for the Illustration Master Class 2010 is now open! The class will run for a full week, June 12-18th, 2010. This will be the third year of the IMC, which will be taught by a team of fantasy artists working right alongside the students, and I'll be privileged to join in the fun this time.

To register for enrollment, please visit the Illustration Master Class website.

Group photo courtesy Tor art director and blogger Irene Gallo, who will be covering the event.

Maiacetus, Part 1

The Maiacetus ("Good Mother Whale") is known from two fossils, and was first described in 2009. From the evidence, scientists have suggested that this four-legged whale ancestor gave birth on land, but lived most of its life in the water.

I wanted to show this land/water lifestyle by portraying the Maiacetus and its young wading in the shallows. Here's the sketch I presented to the art director of Ranger Rick magazine (the finished picture appears in this month's issue). Friday I'll show you the maquette and the finished picture.
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Wikipedia on Maiacetus.
More about Ranger Rick, with an interview about the process.

Cubist Dreams

Jeanette and I have been busy filling orders for the new book, and we've been enjoying reading all the nice notes and looking at all the doodles people put on their envelopes.

One of my favorites is this one, by concept artist John-Paul Balmet. It says "If only I could be more real...Alas, I can only dream."

Horror Vacui

Horror vacui describes a kind of art motivated by a fear of empty spaces—and a love of infinite detail.

The Book of Kells (ca. 800) glorifies God by infusing the page with layers of ornament.

Where’s Waldo (“Where’s Wally” in the UK) presents page after page crammed with figures.

In the back yard behind Tio’s Tacos in Riverside, California, the palm trees are festooned with small plastic toys or Barbie dolls.


The highly ornamented style is common among many outsider or lowbrow artists, such as S. Clay Wilson, Robert Crumb, and Robert Williams.
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Wikipedia on Horror Vacui and Book of Kells.

October International Artist

Check out the current October/November issue of International Artist magazine, which includes a little piece I wrote about seeing your composition in two values, adapted from Imaginative Realism.

There are also feature spotlights on Zhuo S. Liang, Randy Ford, Joseph Todorovitch, and Ann Manry Kenyon.

Old Books and New Students

Jeanette and I have returned home after our southern California book launch odyssey.

After I get caught up with orders and emails, I'll try to post about each of the schools and studios we visited: LAAFA, CalArts, Imagineering, Fullerton, Blizzard, Laguna, Inland Empire, and Baby Tattoo.

One of the joys was meeting art students, some of whom brought old tattered copies of Dinotopia for me to sign. Many of them told me about their parents who read to them when they were little, and who now support them in their brave quest to make art their life.

I salute them all: students, teachers, and parents. This is the best time ever to become an artist, especially an imaginative artist. The training is better than ever, and the combination of digital and traditional tools offers opportunities that no one could have imagined even 20 years ago.

I look forward to one day reading books and watching movies with their names on the credits.

Mega Rodent, Part 2

When Ranger Rick magazine asked me to paint a portrait of the giant extinct rodent for the current October issue, I started with this preliminary sketch in colored pencils. It looks a lot like the largest living rodent, the capybara.

I explored the forms of the full-bodied creature in this maquette, about five inches long. The warthog-like mane was made from the hairs of a red sable brush cut up and glued down with five minute epoxy. I guessed that a creature of that size in a warm climate wouldn’t need much body fur to keep it warm.

In the final oil painting (yesterday’s post), I used a low point of view to make the creature look bigger, and a shallow depth of field to give the appearance of a wildlife photo. The blurring effect was done with a white nylon flat brush over wet oil paint.

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Art Jam

Mega Rodent, Part 1

Here’s a painting of the largest rodent known to science. It’s something like a cross between a guinea pig and a rhinoceros. It would have stood about four feet high at the shoulder, weighing about 2,000 pounds.

Known as Josephoartigasia, the fossil skull was discovered in Uruguay and scientifically described in 2008. Tomorrow I’ll show you the steps that led from the skull to the final painting.

Wikipedia on Josephoartigasia.