Memory and Imagination

N.C. Wyeth once said: “Every illustration or painting that I have made in the last thirty years has been done from the imagination or the memory.”

Wyeth quoted a teacher of his, Charles Reed of Boston in advising him: “The faculty of memory has become a lost function among American artists." He (Reed) blamed what he saw as the lack of mood and imagination in their work to this thought.

Concepts for Colossal Characters

Noah on Instagram said: "Imma need to see that Sonic the hedgehog one up close too."

Here you go, Noah. I painted Sonic in this baseball-card size preliminary sketch in casein before we started the Colossal Character event. Sonic is reaching over the City Hall building, lowering his hand to street level to give people a ride.

My preliminary sketch of Mario has him sitting in front of the building with his hands down by his sides. 

When I moved ahead to the finished stage, I shifted his head more in three quarters view and his hands where we could really see them. I switched from a vertical to a horizontal composition, and emphasized the converging verticals of the three-point upshot perspective.

Mario in Pasadena

Supreme Mario, 8x10 inches, gouache 

Leading up to Lightbox Expo this weekend, 250+ artists from all around the world got together to create plein-air imaginative art of Colossal Characters around Pasadena City Hall.

I imagined Super Mario giving people a ride in his hands. Watch out, though, because his nemesis Bowser is materializing behind him as a huge cloud.

Aaron Blaise was one of the orange-hatted mentors, and he animated a giant striding through town on the new Procreate Dreams app.

Kymba Plushner (LeCrone) and Gabriel Gonzalez of Blizzard Entertainment joined in, as did Wouter Tulp, Angela Sung, Marco Bucci, Gary Geraths, Michelle Lin, Airi Pan, and Jacki Li, plus loads of other pros, students and enthusiasts.

Thanks to everyone who took part, and if you missed it, maybe we can do something similar next year.

Super Duper Mario

Super Duper Mario made his appearance in southern California at a workshop I gave for Blizzard Entertainment artists in Irvine yesterday.

After a half hour chat on materials and setup, I did this demo painting using gouache over a brayer-applied sky gradient.

About 20 of the top artists for World of Warcraft and Diablo set up their paints and brushes and joined the fun, painting their visions of giant steampunk dragonflies, Mothmans, Bowsers, and huge pink kitties.

  

Here's Gabriel Gonzalez working on his picture. Each of us had a figurine or toy to help for reference.

It was a fun day out in the light for all of us, and good practice for today's Colossal Character event at City Hall in Pasadena.

 

Meeting at Fashion Island

 A random couple and sits at a table, perfect subject for a little gouache sketch.

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Albert Sterner

Albert Sterner (1863-1946) was a British/American painter, printmaker, and illustrator. He is best known for his portraits, figurative works, and illustrations for magazines and books.

Sterner was born in London and immigrated to the United States with his family at the age of nine. He showed an early interest in art and began studying at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia at the age of sixteen. In 1883, he moved to Paris to continue his studies at the Académie Julian and the École des Beaux-Arts. 

After returning to the United States in 1887, Sterner established himself as a portrait painter and illustrator. He created illustrations for numerous magazines, including Harper's Weekly, Scribner's Magazine, and Collier's Weekly. He also illustrated books by writers such as Mark Twain, Henry James, and Edith Wharton.


In addition to his illustrations, Sterner continued to paint portraits and figurative works throughout his career. He was a member of the National Academy of Design, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the National Institute of Arts and Letters. In 1929, he was elected president of the National Academy of Design.

Sterner continued to paint and illustrate well into his later years. He died in 1946 at the age of 83. Today, his work can be found in numerous museums and collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, and the Library of Congress.

How Shishkin Used Preliminary Drawings

Ivan Shishkin, a renowned Russian landscape painter, used preliminary drawings to develop his studio compositions. He typically established a grid for enlarging the drawing to the final canvas, and he used ink to clarify the outlines of the trees in his preliminary drawings.

Mast Tree Grove (Drawing) by Ivan Shishkin

Once the preliminary drawing was finished, he would proceed to do a tonal underpainting in monochrome before painting in full color.

"Before starting the painting, you have to do a sketch to clarify the idea and plan what you're going to be doing on a big canvas." Sometimes he would also do a color study to work out the plan for the painting.

Shishkin continues: "It's also important to do a preliminary drawing [on the canvas] with charcoal. Put a layer of charcoal on a clean canvas and wipe it with a dry tissue. You'll have a smooth base tone, and you can draw over that with more charcoal. You can erase off halftones and lights using an eraser made from a chunk of black bread. If you do that you will get the effect of lighting you need, and then you're ready to continue with the final painting."

Anime Documentary

This documentary about how they used to make anime shows how animated films were created in Japan before computer interfaces took over most of the production process.

The video also shows some of the stresses of the work culture on the artists. The video is advertised as relaxing ASMR, but there's considerable tension below the surface. 

Link to video on YouTube

Colossal Characters Coming Next Week

On Friday of next week, come watch as a dozen concept artists with orange caps draw and paint Colossal Characters arriving at City Hall in Pasadena.

Better yet, bring your own sketchbook and draw or paint your own giant-size character, and you'll receive a free button from Lightbox Expo to memorialize the event.

Are Light and Shadow Opposites?

There is a symbolic and even spiritual dimension to light and shadow. Several religious movements have dualistic cosmologies, conceiving of light in opposition to shadow or darkness.

Rembrandt, The Risen Christ

Some religious and philosophical traditions associate light with wisdom (literally 'enlightenment') and darkness with ignorance.

Others have revered light as positive and good, while regarding the dark side as evil. Judeo-Christian religions view light and darkness as opposing forces in the universe. 

There are lesser known religious traditions such as Manichaeism and Zoroastrianism that have developed this dualistic cosmology with stories of epic battles between heroes of light and enemies of darkness. Both religions emphasize the importance of choosing the path of light over darkness to achieve spiritual enlightenment.

Where do these ideas this come from? Well, if you’ve ever been outside in a forest on a moonless night, you know how the absolute darkness can overpower you and blind you. A candle or a lamp flickering in that darkness can seem like a victory over fear and vulnerability.

We rarely experience that kind of profound darkness in our modern life, especially in cities. There are only different degrees of dim illumination. And shadows in the daytime aren’t very dark at all.

When I consider the daytime world from a painter’s perspective I have to look beyond these ideas of shadows as a sinister force. I think instead of shadows as a partner or a friend of the light. Here are some of the takeaways:

Light becomes visible only with the help of shadows.

Daytime shadows aren’t the absence of light; they’re just just areas with weaker illumination.

You don’t increase the effect of light by driving out or eliminating shadows. You do it be surrounding and supporting the light with darkness.

If you want your picture to convey a feeling of light, the first step is to plan the shadows. 

Shadows surrounding an illuminated area enhance it and define it. My curiosity about the topic of light and shadow has led me to learn more about 

More at this YouTube video 

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