Heading Out to Pennsylvania and Ohio

Today we leave for another junket, starting with the elementary school of Andy Wales, frequent blog commentator and Art-By-Committe contributor. He has been teaching his students how to draw dinosaurs and design fantasy worlds. Link for his art teaching blog.

On Monday, April 6 I'll give a digital slide presentation "Dinotopia: Behind the Scenes" at the Columbus College of Art and Design. The event is open to the public is sponsored by the illustration department, and it runs from 11:00 a.m. to 12:30 pm in the Joseph Canzani Auditorium. Link for more info.

Unicorns

Unicorns have been spotted in Toronto.

Coming to Philadelphia PA and Rockville MD

Saturday, February 14, Paleopalooza Event, Philadelphia
I'm thrilled to be part of the program this weekend for Paleopalooza, a family event at the Academy of Natural Sciences, which will include live reptile shows, screenings of dinosaur movies, dinosaur drawing workshops, and me, talking about how I came up with Dinotopia and what goes into making the pictures. The event goes on all weekend, but my illustrated talk in the auditorium starts at 1 pm and is called Dinotopia: Fact and Fantasy. A Dinotopia book signing will follow the talk.



Monday, February 16, Rockville, Maryland
The Montgomery College Arts Institute in Rockville, Maryland will be hosting me on Monday, February 16 at 12:00 noon in the Theatre Arts Building, Arena. I'll give a digital slide lecture showing how to make a realistic picture of something that doesn't exist, like a fantasy subject or a historical scene. I'll cover topics like research, maquettes, perspective, color keying, and costumes. The talk is open to the public, and there will be a book signing and some original paintings to look at afterward. For more information, contact Ed Ahlstrom in the Art Department at 240.567.7639.

The little listing on the left called "Upcoming Appearances" has some of the other events this spring. I'm sorry, the botanical illustration workshop in Denver in March is sold out. I'm tentatively coming to Toronto later in March. If you live nearby, I hope to meet you at one of them.

Return Flight

I'm back from Malta, Tunisia, Morocco, and Gibraltar. Here's the reaction of my Yorkshire airline seatmates to my three-week old unwashed clothes, scraggly beard, and monkey urine aroma.

I'll explain the monkey urine tomorrow. Happy Thanksgiving holiday to all, Americans or not, and thanks to Jeanette for keeping the blog going during my rambling.

North Africa Trek

Today I’m leaving for a month-long sketching expedition to North Africa. My traveling companion is the writer/adventurer Alan Dean Foster. I first got to know Alan over 20 years ago when I painted covers for his science fiction novels. Later he wrote two novels in the Dinotopia universe.

Over the years Alan has sent me postcards from places like Timbuktu, Pitcairn Island, Great Barrier Reef, Papua New Guinea (above) and Oouagadougou. This time I’m thrilled to be joining him. I’ll be researching a couple of different projects and sketching in watercolor and gouache. We’re going first to Malta, and then Tunisia and Morocco.

I’m leaving the laptop home with my wife Jeanette, who will be posting regularly to the blog, using content that I worked up in advance. Maybe she will share a few of her own sketches. If I can figure out the tech, I’ll try to send home some pictures from Internet cafes along the way before returning on November 26.

Postcards from Paris

Dinotopia: Un Voyage a Chandara, published by Editions Fleurus, was spotlighted by Jean-Philippe Lefèvre for the program called "Un Monde de Bulles," on the Public Senat channel. The makeup lady had to do a lot of work to cut down on the glare from my head.

The program was about fully illustrated fantasy stories in the context of "bande dessinees," the uniquely French version of comics, usually presented in oversize, full-color books. They're a huge market here, and hard to find in America. The program will air in November or December.

The program is hosted inside the magnificent Senate building, next to the Luxembourg gardens. Imagine an American national TV program on comics originating from inside the U.S. Capitol! Afterward Mr. Lefèvre toured us through the Senate chambers, including the inner sanctum where laws are made, surrounded by ornate sculpture and decoration.

We visited the purveyor of comics and fantasy art Galerie Daniel Maghen with our friend Olivier Souille, who works there. Olivier and his brother Laurent are also the authors of the recently published L' Univers of Dragons.

Two more average tourists on the Ponte des Arts.

We met Marc Bourgne creator and illustrator of Frank Lincoln, Voyageur, and Barbe Rouge.

I had fun at a booksigning at the science fiction specialty bookshop Labyrinthes in Rambouillet, outside of Paris. I also signed at the FNAC Les Halles. The French edition will be officially available on 10 October.

Maison d'Ailleur's Opening Fête

The tall shaggy creatures of Yuocland arrived from their high pastures to attend the opening of the Verne/Dinotopia exhibition.

Also there were performances by the eccentric troupe Gramoulinophone.

A few regular visitor/commentators to Gurney Journey made the trip. At left: Jeanette, me, "Dragonladych," "cegebe," Dragonlady's mom, and Jerome. Later I met John Howe for the first time, and I greatly admire his work.

The new passageway between the two museum spaces was opened with speeches and giant balloons, which were kept aloft by many hands until they popped with dull booms.

Inside Maison d'Ailleurs was the exhibition "Retour à Dinotopia," with 53 new paintings from Journey to Chandara. (Photo above by Olivier Allenspach). The exhibit filled three floors of the museum, with maps blown up to gigantic size on the floors, and with films, miniatures, and behind-the-scenes panels. The show will be on view until March 8, 2009.

But the really big event was the opening of the new Espace Jules Verne, the preeminent museum collection of Verniana. When you cross the new passageway, you enter the adjoining building in what looks like a large library, with thousands of rare editions of Jules Verne and his followers, as well as American pulp magazines and posters.

Museum director Patrick Gyger shows me one of the glass cases of model vehicles from the various Verne novels.

The collection was generously donated by the Jean-Michel Margot, originally from Switzerland, and now living in North Carolina. I had the privilege of sitting with him for a supper of stag stew, and did this quick portrait.

I also made this on-the-spot sketch in the style of an old poster of Maison d'Ailleurs, the world's most wonderful departure point for extraordinary journeys.

Tunnel and Sabot

Here are two last sketches from Boucoiran, France. The image that really stuck with me as I explored the town was the way the train tunnel was cut directly beneath the old medieval village.

The problem was that there was no place to really see the view that was in the mind's eye. You'd have to sit directly on the tracks—not a good idea with 100-mile-per-hour trains whizzing through every hour or so. I was able to find a spot in a park off to the left, and had to imagine the view from this angle.

This idea of sketching from an angle that's different from what you actually see is an interesting challenge for a figure sketch group. We had a teacher at Art Center who had us look at a model and draw her from 90 degrees to the side.

Finally, here's a quick study of a sabot with the old colored pencil technique. Tomorrow: back to Switzerland.

Kitchen Table Portraits

One of the first people I met in Bourcoiran was Diego, a neighbor who helps to fix things around the house for our host Eliane. When he came in and sat at the kitchen table, I was so struck by his interesting sun-weathered face, that I asked his permission draw his portrait.

I knew I only had about 15 minutes to work with, and I asked him just to keep talking, not to pose. In a situation like this you don’t want to haul out a lot of oil paints or watercolor equipment, so it’s convenient to have a set of watercolor pencils and a water brush. I used the Caran d’Ache Supracolor II pencils because they work nicely both with and without water.

The four colors you need for portraits are umber, russet, black and brown. I use two water brushes, one with plain water and one with a pre-mixed sepia color.

The paper is a Derwent sketchbook, like a Moleskine drawing book, with thick, smooth paper. It’s not really made for water, but it holds up OK.

Here’s another portrait, drawn the next day from a gentleman named Bluc Fouchaud, while he and his wife prepared supper for us.

You have to practice a lot with these pencils first to get used to what happens when you run water over your pencil work. Normally you’ll want to get the portrait half finished first to establish some tone before starting in with the water.

If you brush water over a full-toned drawing, it will get too dark right away. In the portrait of Mr Fouchaud, I established the light skin tone across the face quite early, and saved small details and accents for last.

Swiss Air

We boarded Flight 23 through gate SB30, the one you get to by riding down the luggage conveyors.

Not many people know about the subterranean hangars. The steam dirigible took us into the clouds. It was a strange crowd on board—many unintelligible languages.

The coffee on board was dark and chocolaty, with a wood-fire taste, served by flight attendants who were mountain trolls, a bit grumpy.

In Geneva our dwarf guide took us down the back alleys, where you can still see the occasional “granchat.” They block traffic until they wake up.

A goat man brought us firewood on this brouette, which was parked at the base of the stairs of our stone house.

West Thumb Caldera

Here's a quick watercolor of the West Thumb of Yellowstone Lake, a giant caldera ringed with bubbling pots of water. The pool in the foreground is about twenty feet across, with colonies of orange-colored algae fringing the edges.