Sketchbook number twenty one.

Moleskine sketchbook 20

Refueling while in the air

Or more correctly, re-inking (the ink in the pen needed recharging) 

Lines and machinery

Sixteen minutes of drawing speeded up to four, the sounds are our dog barking (sorry about that)

Moleskine sketchbook 18

Just a short flip through of my latest (almost finished) sketchbook.

Art Out Loud Video

Trailer for Art Out Loud, Vol 3 from Kate Feirtag on Vimeo.

Here's a teaser video about the Art Out Loud event, which included Sam Weber, Charles Vess, Donato Giancola, Greg Manchess, and me at the Society of Illustrators doing art under the watchful eyes of some guests--and some cameras. A longer version is said to be forthcoming.

Previous GJ post on the event. Thanks, Irene, Brandon, Kate, Dan, Anelle, and Arkady!

Book Trailer Contest

Today is Friday the 13th, the lucky day for one of the four following videos. A while ago one of the blog readers suggested a book trailer contest for Imaginative Realism. You are the judges!

Please watch all four videos (they're only a minute long) and vote for your favorite in the poll at left. The videos are presented in the order I received them. It's OK to vote for more than one video. Poll closes Sunday morning.


"Imaginative Realism" by Room 9 Studios, Chana High School.



"If You Can See, You Can Imagine Too" by Emmanuel Laverde. (Link to website)



"It Begins With a Thought" by The Futuristic Flamingo.



"The James Gurney Show" By GooGoo Supreme (Click Here to see flash animation).

Note to contestants: Since there's a small number of entries, we can improve the prizes that I announced in the contest rules. Each contest entrant will get to choose one favorite signed and remarqued book, DVD, or audio from the selection in The Dinotopia Store, as well as an Imaginative Realism poster. The Grand Prize Winner will get the choice of two books from the Store selection.

Thank you all for entering and working so hard! I'm glad I'm not the judge. I'd never be able to decide!
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Addendum:
The votes are in! Thanks for all who voted, and thanks to the four contestants for creating those incredible videos.

Emmanuel Laverde, you were the winner with 113 votes, followed the Futuristic Flamingo with 94, Room 9 Studios with 59, and GooGoo Supreme with 27.

Would all four contestants please email me at jgurneyart (at) yahoo (dot) com? Please let me know your choice of book, DVD, or CD set, along with your mailing address. Mr. Laverde, please choose two items. Congratulations to all.

Storybox

Don't think outside the box. Think INSIDE the box.

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This spoof of movie trailers brings Video Week to a close. I hope you enjoyed these little commercials. Tomorrow we return to regular programming.

Special Delivery

Yesterday morning our shipment of Imaginative Realism arrived, and we packaged up all the orders so far. Here's a look behind the scenes at our high-tech operation.

Amazon says they won't ship until October 20, so it's not too late for you U.S. customers to switch your order to the Dinotopia Store. Where else can you get a signed book, plus service from a parakeet and a puppet, and our unique C.R.U.D. service (Custom Rural Unicycle Delivery)?


Tomorrow: Don't miss the last installment of Video Week.

Loose Ball

A ball falls off a homemade toy and takes a trip through the studio.

Parakeet Artist

I'm proud of Mr. Kooks, my budgie. But I didn't expect him to upstage me.

Square Puppet

Hiram may be a blockhead, but he loves to draw.

Gallery Flambeau Video

Because not all paintings were meant to live forever.
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More about the Gallery Flambeau on GJ.

Unicycle Painter

Plein-air painting meets extreme sports.

Read more about unicycle painting, link.

Rocks and Shallows

Oil study on location, 9 x 12 inches on oil-primed masonite panel.

Previous GJ post: Color in Mountain Streams

Lehigh River Video

Here's a short video showing steps in a plein air oil study two days ago.

The early stages show the subject drawn with a brush, large tones scrubbed in, and the details of foam saved for last.


The oil painting is 9 x 12 inches, and took about six hours.


Here's a shot of the final painting.

Utopiales Poster, Part 7: The Painting

During the last week, I've been posting a blow-by-blow account of the progress on a single painting, the poster for the Utopiales Festival, which will take place later this year in Nantes, France.


Here's a video showing how the painting developed from the line drawing to the final image. I put the last strokes on the painting today.



The painting took twelve days in all: two days for thumbnails, two days for the maquette, two more days for the line drawing, and six days for the final oil painting. In cast you missed the previous stages of the artwork, check out the earlier posts in the series, listed in the blogroll at left.

Here's the full composition, called Décollage nocturne (Nighttime Liftoff) showing the Lepidopter taking off during moonlight from the Place Royale.

On the cockpit of the Lepidopter, I added the coat of arms of the city of Nantes. The passenger cabin says "Nantes - Dinotopia Express."

Was there a transport between Nantes and Dinotopia? Did Jules Verne have something to do with this? Was he more than just a witness to the liftoff of the Lepidopter? The gentlemen behind him are interviewing a farmer about strange sightings of giant reptiles on a farm in Clisson. Perhaps one day the mystery will be solved....
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More information about the Utopiales International Festival of Science Fiction on its official website.

More about the music of the Hay Brigade and Dan Gurney's current travel adventures in France.

Tomorrow Jeanette and I head for Newcastle for the Dinotopia exhibit there.


Part 1: Initial Sketches
Part 2: Researching Insect Flight
Part 3: Maquette

Part 4: Lighting

Part 5: Pencil Drawing

Part 6: Washin

Part 7: The Painting

Line Drawing

We’re continuing a daily progress report on the poster for the Utopiales Festival in Nantes, France.

During the preliminary drawing stage, the studio fills with clutter.
Near the maquette of the flying machine are model horses, photos of Nantes, books about insects, coffee cups, and audio cassettes with recordings I’ve made of steam engines and street noises.

I love this photo of the square called Place Royale in Nantes. This is the period I’m trying to evoke. My dream is that a little over a hundred years ago, Nantes had strange visitors who arrived and departed by moonlight in this incredible flying machine. It flew very gently and majestically like a sailing ship, creaking and hissing steam.

Here’s the line drawing. This jpeg is a pretty large file, so if you click on it, you can see most of the details. Even though it’s just a line drawing, I’m thinking ahead to tone and color, which is coming up next.

Here’s a 40-second video showing a little about perspective and how to seal the drawing before painting.
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More about the Utopiales Festival
Previous posts on Perspective Grid, Sealing the Surface

Part 1: Initial Sketches
Part 2: Researching Insect Flight
Part 3: Maquette

Part 4: Lighting

Part 5: Pencil Drawing

Part 6: Washin

Part 7: The Painting

Utopiales Poster, Part 3: Maquette

When it comes to building a maquette, there’s always a little voice inside me that says, “You can skip this step. You’ve got a good enough idea where you’re going. You can pull it off.”

Sometimes I struggle to overcome that voice, especially with a pressing deadline. But I once I start sculpting, I always have fun, and later I’m always glad I did it. In the end it saves time and yields better results.

For this “Lepidopter” maquette (thanks for the name, Sean and Moai!) I had to decide between glue gun-and-cardboard or sculpted polymer clay. The former would have given it a more flat geometric look, but I wanted to get that organic insect look.

Here’s the armature, twisted together out of thin aluminum wire. It doesn’t look like anything yet, but actually all the lengths are carefully measured against the elevation drawing I showed you at the end of yesterday’s post.


Those four loops will hold the wings and allow them to be poseable. I start blobbing on regular white Sculpey until I bulk out the body.

As I get to the outer layer and the thin parts, like the tail and the legs, I switch to Effect Fimo. When this special kind of polymer clay cures, it become slightly translucent and flexible, about as flexible as a fingernail. That way a delicate part won’t break if you drop the thing (which I do often).

The window details are built up with little slivers of Fimo, using a toothpick and an Xacto knife as sculpting tools. The maquette is only detailed on the side I’ll see; the far side is not finished at all. I cured the fuselage in the oven before painting and assembling the wings.

Then I drew the wings on tracing paper and made two sets Xerox copies, forward and reversed, on card stock. I used a waxer on both sides and laminated the layers together so that the veining pattern lined up. With the intermediate layer of beeswax between the card stock sandwich, the wing will hold any airfoil camber.

Then I epoxied the wings onto the wing struts and painted the fuselage with craft acrylics—the cheap liquid kind you get at the big box craft stores. I actually like the opacity and flow of this stuff more than artist acrylics.

Here it is. The wings look too much like an actual butterfly right now, but I’ll change them a little to look like they were fabricated by the same mind that built the rest of the aircraft.

Tomorrow I’ll talk about lighting and photographing the maquette.

Part 1: Initial Sketches
Part 2: Researching Insect Flight

Part 3: Maquette

Part 4: Lighting

Part 5: Pencil Drawing

Part 6: Washin

Part 7: The Painting

Abe in Two