If you live in Colorado, I hope you can come to the event tonight.
From the Denver Botanic Gardens blog: "Denver Botanic Gardens’ Botanical Illustration program brings James Gurney here for “Dinotopia: Behind the Scenes” on Thursday, March 5 at 6:30 p.m. Registration is $10 for members and $13 for non-members." More information here.
Thứ Tư, 4 tháng 3, 2009
Montgomery College
Painting teacher Ed Ahlstrom of Montgomery College in Rockville, Maryland had to solve a problem: How do you manage a workroom full of more than 20 student easels?
People were tripping on them, and the heavy easels were falling over and hitting other students on the head.
He invested in a number of aluminum Stanrite easels, which are light enough to pick up with one hand. He attached a hook to the top of each easel. Then he built a storage frame in the corner of the room with a long bar where all the easels could hang together out of the way. The rack is visible behind us.
Palettes were also a problem. How do you store dozens of fully-loaded palettes? He built a special storage cabinet with slots for the rectangular plate-glass palettes. Each student writes his or her name on a piece of tape on the edge of their palette, which then slides into a numbered slot.
Taped beneath each glass palette was a gray piece of paper with a pre-printed gray scale and circles to guide the placement of the paints.
A fireproof cabinet houses the brush washers, another invention of Professor Ahlstrom. The students make the brush washers themselves out of coffee cans with lids.
At the bottom of each coffee can is a brush-scrubber made out of a 5-inch-square piece of ¼ inch gauge hardware cloth. A 1.25 inch notch is cut out of each corner so that the flaps can be folded down.
During the warm weather months, Mr. Ahlberg takes his students outdoors to paint en plein air. “We go from sunny greens to the dusty tones of autumn,” he said. Mr. Ahlstrom himself paints outdoors nearly year round (below), enjoying the colors of December in this work "Strawberry Field."
The art department has a fully-equipped jewelry shop and a graphic arts lab. “We’re one of the few schools that teaches stone lithography,” he said.
A separate building houses the communications arts department. Illustration department chairperson Martha Vaughan showed us the gallery, the computer rooms, and a room full of drawing tables.
Montgomery is a community college art program, with many hard-working commuter students who often hold down other jobs. It’s a two-year program; the students move on to many of the other art schools that have been profiled on GurneyJourney.
Montgomery College gives them a good grounding in traditional skills, and vital contact with art mentors who equip them with practical knowledge that they can use in their life work.
----------
Ed Ahlstrom’s website, link.
Art Department – Rockville, link.
Martha Vaughan's Communications Arts Technologies Department, Rockville, link.
People were tripping on them, and the heavy easels were falling over and hitting other students on the head.
He invested in a number of aluminum Stanrite easels, which are light enough to pick up with one hand. He attached a hook to the top of each easel. Then he built a storage frame in the corner of the room with a long bar where all the easels could hang together out of the way. The rack is visible behind us.Palettes were also a problem. How do you store dozens of fully-loaded palettes? He built a special storage cabinet with slots for the rectangular plate-glass palettes. Each student writes his or her name on a piece of tape on the edge of their palette, which then slides into a numbered slot.
Taped beneath each glass palette was a gray piece of paper with a pre-printed gray scale and circles to guide the placement of the paints. 
A fireproof cabinet houses the brush washers, another invention of Professor Ahlstrom. The students make the brush washers themselves out of coffee cans with lids. At the bottom of each coffee can is a brush-scrubber made out of a 5-inch-square piece of ¼ inch gauge hardware cloth. A 1.25 inch notch is cut out of each corner so that the flaps can be folded down.
During the warm weather months, Mr. Ahlberg takes his students outdoors to paint en plein air. “We go from sunny greens to the dusty tones of autumn,” he said. Mr. Ahlstrom himself paints outdoors nearly year round (below), enjoying the colors of December in this work "Strawberry Field."
The art department has a fully-equipped jewelry shop and a graphic arts lab. “We’re one of the few schools that teaches stone lithography,” he said. A separate building houses the communications arts department. Illustration department chairperson Martha Vaughan showed us the gallery, the computer rooms, and a room full of drawing tables.
Montgomery is a community college art program, with many hard-working commuter students who often hold down other jobs. It’s a two-year program; the students move on to many of the other art schools that have been profiled on GurneyJourney.
Montgomery College gives them a good grounding in traditional skills, and vital contact with art mentors who equip them with practical knowledge that they can use in their life work.
----------
Ed Ahlstrom’s website, link.
Art Department – Rockville, link.
Martha Vaughan's Communications Arts Technologies Department, Rockville, link.
Behind the Scenes at Gurney Journey
Several of you have asked what goes into the making of this blog. How is it possible to do all those groundbreaking, authoritative posts on a daily basis?
Of course it would be impossible without the help of my production staff, so I thought I’d introduce them to you.
Here’s Clifton, our Art Historian and Image Sleuth. He is an expert on obsolete traditions and hot new trends, which in the art field are one in the same.
Jonathan is our Writer. I keep telling him to keep it brief, cut out adjectives, and eschew obfuscation.
Donna, on the right, is Manager of Comments and Analytics. She tracks reader response and compiles the weekly Boredom Index to remind me which posts fell flat.
Margie, on the left is in charge of Blog Revenue. Or I should say "was in charge." Because of the economic downturn, I had to let her go last week, so she's sniffing around for a new job.
That’s about it. I don’t do much on this blog, just let it run itself.
Of course it would be impossible without the help of my production staff, so I thought I’d introduce them to you.
Here’s Clifton, our Art Historian and Image Sleuth. He is an expert on obsolete traditions and hot new trends, which in the art field are one in the same. 
Jonathan is our Writer. I keep telling him to keep it brief, cut out adjectives, and eschew obfuscation.Donna, on the right, is Manager of Comments and Analytics. She tracks reader response and compiles the weekly Boredom Index to remind me which posts fell flat.
Margie, on the left is in charge of Blog Revenue. Or I should say "was in charge." Because of the economic downturn, I had to let her go last week, so she's sniffing around for a new job. That’s about it. I don’t do much on this blog, just let it run itself.
Thứ Ba, 3 tháng 3, 2009
Beaux-Arts Architecture
Architecture students at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris studied the proportions and the ornament of Greek and Roman buildings, and they became masters at rendering them in ink and watercolor.
The winners of of the Prix de Rome competition were sent to Rome at government expense to do extensive studies of famous monuments. They periodically sent back drawings showing ornamental details, reconstructed facades, or perspective scenes of famous vistas, like the Forum or the Acropolis.
Artists adhered to particular conventions for representing architectural forms. The light had to come from the left at a 45-degree angle. Values lightened systematically as they went back in space. (Above: Constant Moyaux, Below: Normand, 1852)
Students developed concepts in relatively loose sketches. Then they began the presentation drawings in line, usually in grayed-down India ink, with a series of very light washes of tone to build up the modeling gradually so that the tones seemed to reside in the paper rather than being superimposed over it.
------------
There’s an affordable book from Dover that reprints in black and white a famous set of prints assembled by Hector d’Espouy, link.
Wikipedia on Beaux-Arts Architecture, link.
The winners of of the Prix de Rome competition were sent to Rome at government expense to do extensive studies of famous monuments. They periodically sent back drawings showing ornamental details, reconstructed facades, or perspective scenes of famous vistas, like the Forum or the Acropolis.
Artists adhered to particular conventions for representing architectural forms. The light had to come from the left at a 45-degree angle. Values lightened systematically as they went back in space. (Above: Constant Moyaux, Below: Normand, 1852)
Students developed concepts in relatively loose sketches. Then they began the presentation drawings in line, usually in grayed-down India ink, with a series of very light washes of tone to build up the modeling gradually so that the tones seemed to reside in the paper rather than being superimposed over it.------------
There’s an affordable book from Dover that reprints in black and white a famous set of prints assembled by Hector d’Espouy, link.
Wikipedia on Beaux-Arts Architecture, link.
Thứ Hai, 2 tháng 3, 2009
Giant Spider in Liverpool
The people who brought us the street theater marvel of the Sultan's Elephant recently unveiled a new miracle: a giant spider that visited Liverpool. The response was not fear, but love. (Thanks, Jason!)
More about artistic director François Delarozière and his theatrical machines here.
Winter 2009
Today we're being hit with another winter storm. The north wind is rattling the windchimes and spinning the anemometers in wild orbits. New snow is whitewashing the ground, covering the gray remnants of the last few snowfalls.
It has been a long winter. But I'm not complaining; in fact I thrive on the austerity of winter as a foundation for my creative life. Winter scrapes the palette clean before springtime unscrews the caps from the tubes of colors and squeezes out the reds and yellows and greens.
It has been a long winter. But I'm not complaining; in fact I thrive on the austerity of winter as a foundation for my creative life. Winter scrapes the palette clean before springtime unscrews the caps from the tubes of colors and squeezes out the reds and yellows and greens.
Chủ Nhật, 1 tháng 3, 2009
Model to Mermaid
How do you get a mermaid to pose? Like unicorns and dragons, they are fantastical creatures, not entirely of this world. I wanted my mermaid painting to look real but not in a literal or material sense.
Although in previous posts (here, here, and here and here) I’ve suggested using photography for figure reference, when it comes to mythological or storybook beings I prefer to use life studies rather than photos because I feel freer to be guided by my imagination.
I did two studies, one in charcoal and one in paint, both directly from the model. In the charcoal study I concentrated on the basic linear gestures and on the soft lighting of the form. I also started thinking how to join the human form with a fishlike tail and how to bend the tail so that she could ride “sidesaddle” on a tamed sea creature.
I recalled from my experience snorkeling that skin tones appear cooler in water than they do in the air, and the side planes of the figure fall away to a bluish hue, lit from all directions by scattered light in the water. The color study above, made with the model in front of a blue cloth, allowed me to start exploring this unusual and magical color quality.
In both studies I took the first step toward my mental image, making changes in what I was seeing and not copying the model literally.
Although in previous posts (here, here, and here and here) I’ve suggested using photography for figure reference, when it comes to mythological or storybook beings I prefer to use life studies rather than photos because I feel freer to be guided by my imagination. 
I did two studies, one in charcoal and one in paint, both directly from the model. In the charcoal study I concentrated on the basic linear gestures and on the soft lighting of the form. I also started thinking how to join the human form with a fishlike tail and how to bend the tail so that she could ride “sidesaddle” on a tamed sea creature.
I recalled from my experience snorkeling that skin tones appear cooler in water than they do in the air, and the side planes of the figure fall away to a bluish hue, lit from all directions by scattered light in the water. The color study above, made with the model in front of a blue cloth, allowed me to start exploring this unusual and magical color quality.In both studies I took the first step toward my mental image, making changes in what I was seeing and not copying the model literally.
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