Gurney Journey

Soulful Moment

2012-01-27T09:22:00.000-05:00

“For a picture to be alive, palpitating, we must recognize the moment chosen by the painter as one which sums up the souls of those depicted, with all their former experiences.”

—Ernest Meissonier (1815-1891)

Meissonier's painting Napoleon, Campaign of France, 1814 (click to enlarge) is from the Musee d'Orsay, whose website describes the scene: "The episode he has chosen, although it occurred after several victories, announces forthcoming defeats. There is no action or event, just an atmosphere of loneliness and despondency. The doubts and resignation felt by the officers and the troops are palpable and are opposed to the determination that emanates from the isolated figure of Napoleon. These feelings are accentuated by the color range: the whole scene uses brown and grey tones, subdued, deadened registers. The protagonists are not trampling virgin snow, but muddy ground."

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Quote from: Meissonier: His Life and Art by Vallery C.O. Gréard, 1897.

Book on Meissonier (good color repros)

Wikipedia on Meissonier

Lilac and Carnation

2012-01-26T15:24:00.000-05:00

Back when people did minuets dressed up as flowers. From the Magazine of Art, 1895

Digital Film Preservation

2012-01-25T16:48:00.004-05:00

In the January 20 issue of Daily Variety, David S. Cohen discusses the growing problem of preserving digital films.

(Above: Ironman2) While the film Hugo was a clarion call for preserving old analog films, it turns out that hanging onto digital film files may be an even bigger and more pressing problem.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences sounded the alarm in a new report called "The Digital Dilemma." The problem stems from the cost of preserving files, the fate of independent productions that haven't yet found distribution, the rapid changeover of file formats and software applications, and the sheer volume of data. According to the Academy, the total content associated with a single digital movie is well above three petabytes. (Each petabyte is a thousand terabytes or a million gigabytes).

Cohen writes: "Digital storage, be it on hard drives, DVDs or solid state memory, simply isn't on a par for anything close to the 100-plus-year lifespan of film. The life of digital media is measured in years, not decades, and file formats can go obsolete in months."

"The best archiving solution today," says Cohen, "is to print out to film, ideally with a three-color separation printed onto black and white archival film. That's a very expensive solution."

The content at risk is not just the final film and the outtakes, but also the test footage, commentaries, auditions, and concept art. They all might suffer the same fate as the lost plays of Aeschylus, the paintings of Apelles, or the sand paintings of the Navajo.

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David Cohen's article in Daily Variety

Library of Congress discussed Digital Preservation

Oscars.org's report "Digital Dilemma"

Ironman 2

Visual Effects on "Boardwalk Empire"

2012-01-25T09:26:00.001-05:00

Brainstorm Digital created this video of visual effects breakdowns to show all the layers of elements that go into reconstructing a historical world on film.

It's a good demonstration of the Emmy-award winning artistry of the people who work in compositing, an often-overlooked part of the visual effects industry that involves sophisticated judgments about edges, light, and color.

Direct link to video

Best Facial Hair Nominations

2012-01-24T08:47:00.000-05:00

Taking nominations for "Artists with best facial hair."

Please include link-URL in your comment. We'll do a poll of the top ten later in the week.
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Left: Fritz von Uhde; Right: Salvador Dali.

Fantasy World Map

2012-01-24T04:18:00.000-05:00

So that's why all the elves have been coming into Dinotopia. Cartographer: Danmeth.com

By the way, the current issue of ImagineFX magazine has a workshop that I wrote with 26 tips for making fantasy maps.

Still Time to Enter Spectrum

2012-01-23T14:32:00.000-05:00

For those of you who paint or sculpt fantasy, science fiction, concept art, comics, or gallery work, don't forget to enter your imaginative works in Spectrum, the annual juried collection of contemporary fantastic art. If you've never entered before, I recommend it.

It's the annual that most art buyers look at, and if you get your work in, you'll be in good company. Some students have gotten their work in and it has made a big difference in their careers.The entry fee is low and there's no "hanging" or "publication" fee -- and if your work is accepted, you get the gorgeous book, called Spectrum 18: The Best in Contemporary Fantastic Art.

It's a great jury this year:

Scott Gustafson – Artist
Peter de Sève – Artist and film designer
Jeremy Cranford – Senior Art Manager/Blizzard Entertainment
Jon Schindehette – Senior Creative Director/Wizards of the Coast
Dawn Rivera-Ernster – Director: Talent Development & Recruitment/Walt Disney Animation Studios

Entries must be postmarked on January 27, 2012. I just sent mine in today.
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LINKS
Book: Spectrum 18: The Best in Contemporary Fantastic Art

Entry information

Year of the Dragon

2012-01-23T10:16:00.001-05:00

Happy Chinese New Year. Since it's the year of the dragon, here is a dragon painting that I did.

The oil sketch and finish are for a story by Lucius Shepherd about a dragon the size of a mountain. The painting shows him in late day light, with a little alpine village clustering around his jaws.

Alaska Residency Opportunity

2012-01-22T04:37:00.003-05:00

The U.S. Forest Service will be hosting an artist residency in Alaska called "Voices of the Wilderness" for nine days this summer.

(Above: Previous resident Kathy Hodge painting at View Beach in front of the Harriman Glacier -- note mosquito protection.)

According to coordinator Barbara Lydon, it will be an “opportunity for artists to accompany a wilderness ranger in Alaska for up to nine days. Artists may travel by sea kayak, skiff, tour boat, foot, and airplane. They will be immersed in the wilderness in ways that few people experience. They will camp along intimate fiords, walk through towering rain forests, and have the opportunity to see whales, sea otters, bears and other wildlife.

More information Voices of the Wilderness

Postmark you application by April 20.

Posing Animals

2012-01-21T11:52:00.004-05:00

The best way to learn to draw and paint animals is observe them from life. But since they generally don’t pose, you’ve got to catch them sleeping, or hope they feel like standing still for a while.

Some of the great 19th century teachers organized schools that included painting animals, and they would often hire a farmhand to hold the animals steady. Heinrich von Zügel was photographed here with his students in Germany.

According to his account, they spent their time “drawing and painting in the daytime and discussing and drinking until midnight.” His students made precise studies indoors in the winter. In the summer they went outdoors and captured fleeting impressions of Nature. But thanks to those farmhands, the cows held fairly still.

Paul Meyerheim (1842-1915), another great German animal painter, had his master students set up in a courtyard of the Berlin academy, where they worked on oil studies of a mounted horseman.

When I taught my creature design class a couple of years ago, I brought my neighbor's goat Billy, who stood very patiently for my students as they drew studies of him. Billy seemed to enjoy posing. The farmer, Lenny, knew he would. "He'll love the attention," he said, as I lifted Billy into our van.
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Thanks my friends and blog readers Christoph Heuer and Christian Schierkamp, who are doing some terrific research on 19th century German realists.
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Previously:
Day 3: Goat Day
Heinrich von Zugel
Paul Meyerheim

Ghillie Suit

2012-01-20T07:05:00.000-05:00

A ghillie suit is a head-to-toe camouflage outfit used to disguise hunters, snipers, wildlife photographers, and paintball enthusiasts.

Also called a "wookie suit," "camo tent," or "yowie suit," typically they're a netlike base covered with scraps of frayed rope, mossy tendrils or leaves. They're far more effective than traditional patterned camouflage because they break up the outline of the form.

They're often used in forest or grassland environments, but they've also become popular for an amusement called "urban camouflage."

(Direct link to video) A German artist recently hung out in an IKEA store in Stockholm wearing a ghillie suit made to blend in with a big display of colored paper.
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Wikipedia on Ghillie Suit

Interview on WAMC

2012-01-19T17:06:00.001-05:00

This morning I was a guest of Joe Donahue on WAMC public radio to talk about the new Calla edition of the 20th anniversary edition of Dinotopia.

Here's the link to the WAMC page, where you can listen to the interview in their archives: WAMC: Dinotopia (2012-01-19)

Visually Similar

2012-01-19T02:45:00.008-05:00

For the last couple of years, Google has had an image search option called “visually similar.” This locates images that are related by their abstract qualities, rather than their associated keywords.

For example, here’s a painting from Dinotopia: Journey to Chandara called “Irish Elk,” showing an extinct giant deer in a high mountain landscape. The colors are yellow ochres and browns, along with pale blues. There are no greens and hardly any reds.

Google sifts through millions of images on the web searching for other pictures with related image attributes, and presents those that it finds "visually similar." In this case, the images all have the same basic color gamut, a cluster of warm colors combined with grays and blues.

Presumably it selects other attributes, such as gradation, complexity, texture, and shape. Other visually-similar programs such as Piximilar do the same thing.

In the previous example, what I found surprising was that, except for the helicopter and the dog, the results are all food ads. Why food ads? I'm guessing that the curving vignette shape surrounding the busy warm texture associated my picture with the curving shapes of plated food.

Here’s a sketch that I did with marker pens, a high contrast rendering of a man at a podium.

Google’s search program yielded results with dark silhouettes (not surprising) but the subjects are mostly clothes that are symmetrical and laid out flat. I find this surprising. Why clothes? Why symmetrical?

Here’s another Dinotopia painting, a stone monument at dusk, painted in brown tones, with a golden sky behind and a few cool or gray notes for contrast.

What does Google’s algorithm think is similar? A lot of interior scenes. Why interiors? Why so few outdoor scenes or so few paintings? Perhaps the particular color ranges I chose for my gamut happen to match those of indoor photos with white balance problems.

I find it fascinating that the results cluster around specific families of subject matter that are so different from the source image. Google explain exactly how their algorithm works, but it's fun to guess at it.

Anyway, searching for visually similar images is a great way to see our own color schemes from a fresh perspective. To use it, go to Images.Google.com and press the little camera button in the search window. You can upload any image from your computer, including one of your own paintings in progress, or drop in a URL address of an image you found on the web.

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LINKS

Images.Google.com

Piximilar's Algorithm

Both paintings from Dinotopia: Journey to Chandara

Reference Balls

2012-01-18T09:48:00.003-05:00

Here’s visual effects wizard Wesley Sewell holding up two lighting reference balls during live action plate photography for the movie “Kingdom of Heaven.”

The purpose of those balls is to record the sources and distribution of lighting in the scene so that later on, the visual effects team can match the virtual lighting of the CGI elements that will be added to the shot.

Why do they need those balls to know the lighting? Isn't it obvious by looking at the lighting on Sewell’s face? There’s a strong, warm, low light source from off to the left somewhere.

But the mirror ball (also called a “light probe”) shows more. You can see that there are some thin high clouds near the sun diffusing the light just a bit, and the ground is a warm dirt color. Those factors change the effect of light appreciably.

This shot is from the special effects company WETA Workshops’s model and miniature department. It’s a still frame from a test video sequence of a matte gray ball being “flown” through a miniature set of the catacombs of Orthanc in Lord of the Rings.

In the frame at left, the ball is lit by a blue light from above, and a weaker orange light from below. During the test video, the lighting changed throughout the course of the fly-through. If you wanted to animate a digital creature flying into those caverns, the forms of the creature would have to respond to the same lights that are lighting the gray ball. Digital lighters can unwrap the data from the gray ball or the mirror ball into a spherical environment map.

Although I don’t use digital tools in my work, I sometimes adopt this trick when I photograph maquettes, because it makes it easier for me to reconstruct the pattern of light later on when I’m compositing various elements in the studio. This silver ball (an upended Christmas tree ornament) sits on a piece of kneaded eraser. It shows the illuminated wall on the left, the skylights and fluorescent lights on the ceiling, the greenish window light, and the sharp low spotlight. All these lights affect the way the forms are lit.

Here's another studio shot. This time there's no sharp spotlight; just the skylights and window light, and now my hands are a warm source of light bouncing into the shadows.

The main point here is that lighting is more complicated than just "light and shadow." In every real-world situation, there are multiple light sources, each with different qualities of softness, directionality, color temperature, and intensity. Whether you use reference balls or not, the more aware you are of those light sources, the more convincingly you can paint or render each of the forms in your scene.

By the way, thanks for all your really helpful comments on yesterday's post about art instruction videos. I'll be reading all of them carefully --ALL of them-- before I put my video together.

LINKS FOR MORE INFO

Color and Light (signed from me) or (Amazon)

Kingdom of Heaven (movie)

Weta Workshop miniatures

Lord of the Rings fan site

Here's an in depth tutorial of how reference balls are used

Video in the Works

2012-01-17T09:53:00.005-05:00

I’m in the early stages of developing a full-length art instruction video, and I would love to have your input.

Please let me know in the poll at left what you’d most like to see in a Gurney art video. You can vote for more than one thing on the list.

And in the comments, please tell me in general what you like in art instruction videos (OK to mention favorites or share links to YouTube samples), and what are your pet peeves (without mentioning specific names).

What features should the video have? Do you like or hate background music? What’s the ideal running time? What makes you watch a video multiple times? What’s the most you’d be willing to pay? Would you rather have a paid download or a DVD?
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Addendum, January23:

There were 753 votes in the poll "What should a Gurney art video include?"

Here are the results:

Case history of 1 or 2 paintings--240 (31%)

Dinosaurs / Creatures--158 (20%)

Research-- 257 (34%)

Thumbnailing--259 (34%)

Watercolor technique--268 (35%)

Colored Pencil--124 (16%)

Oil technique--420 (55%)

Composition--429 (56%)

Making maquettes--238 (31%)

Lighting--377 (50%)

Photo reference--287 (38%)

Color / gamut mapping--312 (41%)

Brushes, paint, medium--286 (37%)

Time lapse--174 (23%)

Parakeet antics--171 (22%)

Oudoor plein air demo--251 (33%)

Really Rough Maquettes

2012-01-16T08:16:00.001-05:00

How quick and rough can a maquette be and still provide useful lighting information?

The Oviraptor maquette on the left is sketched in plasticine modeling clay, with a marble stuck in for the eye. It took me less than an hour to sculpt. I set it up with a strong rim light and a weaker frontal light source.

You can see those two sources reflected in the eyeball, both in the maquette and the final painting.

I was looking for how the two sources would interact with the form. I didn't choose to follow the reference exactly -- I didn't bring the edge light as far into the form.

A maquette like this is not a keeper. The clay goes back into the primordial mud for next time.
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More on maquettes in Imaginative Realism. (Amazon) (signed from my store)
The painting is from Dinotopia: Journey to Chandara (Amazon) or (signed from my store)

Joan of Arc Video

2012-01-15T08:23:00.008-05:00

Donato Giancola has released his second art instruction video, chronicling the creation of his recent painting of “Joan of Arc.”

The 4.5 hour production is the second by cameraman and editor Aaron Fagerstrom (previously they chronicled a science fiction painting called "The Mechanic."). It was shot over a ~~three~~ five day period in Donato’s Brooklyn studio, and unspools with Donato’s narration explaining his thinking each step of the way.

The project begins with the artist explaining his inspiration for the character, who captured his imagination when he visited France a few years ago. He reviews a few pages of sketches on tone paper, explaining the concept and composition.

He then reviews the results of his photography session with a model posing for Joan. As she gazes upward, a tight cluster of other figures, members of the clergy and nobility, tug at her and hold her down.

Donato puts the photos of his models in Photoshop to form a large photomontage printed out at the size of the finished painting, and then transfers it down onto the smooth gesso surface and seals the surface to prepare for the paint.

This part of the sequence takes up the first hour. The remaining three hours follow his painting procedure. He is inspired by Peter Paul Rubens and Anthony Van Dyck, and he applies layers of semi-opaque paint over contrasting colors laid down in acrylic over the pencil drawing.

(Video Link) This trailer shows some of the artistry of the video, but Donato's spoken commentary is muted here, so you don't get the sense of Donato's encouraging explanation of what he's doing. The vibe is relaxed, friendly, and unscripted, and the sound and images are well recorded.

If you play it in the background while you’re working in the studio, you end up feeling like you’ve spent a few days hanging out in the studio with a leading contemporary realist, who is reaching for great themes of history and imagination, and sharing the details of his process with the rest of us.
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Video trailer

Donato's website, explaining more about the video
Donato's blog post on Muddy Colors about it

Another look at the video by Matthew Innis on Underpaintings.

Donato's previous video - The Mechanic, also by Aaron Fagerstrom

Orchestrating Cloud Shadows

2012-01-14T10:00:00.002-05:00

Russian landscape painter Fyodor Vasilyev (1850-1873) lived to be only 23 years old. But in his short life he became one of the all-time masters of stormy light, especially by means of the effects of cloud shadows.

He knew the power of cloud shadows to create mood. In this painting, "After the Rain, Country Road," the foreground is in shadow, with a patch of light in the middle distance. Note that the puddles in the foreground, even though they're in shadow, reflect the bright light of the sky.

In this one, he lit the foreground with a fringe of light, and placed the cloud shadow immediately behind it.

In the new Feb/March issue International Artist magazine I explore the subject of cloud shadows. I include the "Three Rules of Cloud Shadows" and three different painting techniques for achieving them.

The issue also has a special on wildlife, with Aleksandar Alexov's brooding miniatures, and there's also a profile of fantasy painter Brom.

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Where to learn more
International Artist magazine
Wikipedia on Vasilyev
Biography and more samples at Olga's Gallery
The topic is also covered in Color and Light: A Guide for the Realist Painter(Amazon) Get a signed copy of Color and Light

Previously: Illuminated Foreground

Before the Judge

2012-01-13T08:29:00.009-05:00

A Roma, or traveler, makes a complaint to a local magistrate because a wealthy young man has broken his violin.

(Click to enlarge image) The violin is his only way of making a living. Other members of his orchestra stand to testify for him. One of them has a bandage on his head. Has a punch been thrown? The accused stands nearby with his face smugly composed, his hands clasped, and his jacket casually tossed on his shoulder. Apparently he is the son of a wealthy landowner.

The judge sits sidewise on his chair, giving a hearing but not his full sympathy. "Everyone is presumed innocent until proven guilty," he probably says. One of the women turns in disgust at what she's heard. Already one of the ragged company has become frustrated enough to throw down his hat. Will justice be done?

This is the riddle posed by Hungarian painter Sándor Bihari (1855-~~1966 --~~1906) Bihari trained in Vienna and then lived for a time in Paris, where he studied with Jean Paul Laurens and absorbed many of the ideas of Impressionism without losing his firm grasp on accurate drawing, characterization and storytelling.

There's no doubt about who is the protagonist in the scene, for the pleading man is a dark spot in the center of the composition with the background gradating up behind him. He's leaning forward, which catches our attention. Bihari skillfully downplays areas of the picture that a camera would render with unnecessary contrasting details, such as the map behind the judge's head and the rafters above.

Storytelling is one of the greatest aims in painting. But it is not like the kind of storytelling in movies or novels or comics. Painting is not a narrative form; one does not relate a series of events. A painting is a single moment, perfectly chosen and balanced, with a series of clues left for the viewer to untangle.

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The painting, called "Biró elött," dates from 1886. It's in the Hungarian National Gallery.
Brief bio on Bihari in English
Wikipedia page on Bihari

From the book “Genre Painting in the Hungarian National Gallery.”
Bihari is also mentioned in Beyond Impressionism: The Naturalist Impulse

Tabernacle Frame

2012-01-12T09:17:00.008-05:00

Blog reader Daroo asked about the frame in the previous post.

Troy Stafford of Stafford Framemakers in Maine recently built new frames for both Dinosaur Parade and Dinosaur Boulevard for the upcoming Woodson Art Museum exhibition and for the big exhibition of fantasy art in Pennsylvania this spring.

We decided that since the painting evokes the spirit of Lawrence Alma Tadema, John Godward, and other Victorian painters who used these architectural frames (also called "aedicula" frames), it might be fitting to create a new one along those lines. (Above: "Antony and Cleopatra" by Tadema in a vintage frame.)

Troy has specialized in the forgotten art of building tabernacle frames, and has mastered techniques used by frame builders over a hundred years ago. He has built similar frames for actual Tademas, and he was willing to take on the challenge. Above: another Tadema in a Stafford frame.

I began by drawing up a sketch for the frame using the Roman Corinthian order as the basis of the design. The painting itself actually quotes Roman architecture in the buildings behind the dinosaurs.

Troy ordered the pilaster capitals and the egg-and-dart moulding along the bottom from Decorator's Supply in Chicago. Founded in 1883, the company still has original moulds from the days of the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition. We were lucky to get workers at Decorator's Supply to cast the capitals for us because the company was working with a skeleton crew and was about to close up shop for the season.

Troy then constructed the parts of the frame from basswood, poplar, and pine. It’s lock-mitered together with mortise and tenon. He formulated the gesso and red bole undercoat by hand from raw ingredients. He finished it in an oil-gilt 23.5 carat gold leaf.

The Dinosaur Boulevard frame was decorated using the pastiglia process, a bas relief process used in the Renaissance. The detail in the design is a three-toed dinosaur footprint.

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The paintings--and frames--will be exhibited later this month at the Woodson Art Museum
Dinosaur Parade will also be at the Allentown Art Museum in Pennsylvania starting June 3, 2012.

Troy Stafford / Stafford Framemakers

Photos byArthur Evans of Williamstown, Massachusetts

Essay on Dinosaur Parade's connection to Tadema by Joyce Schiller, American Center for Visual Studies
More about Tabernacle frames on Bearded Roman blog

Dinotopia Exhibition in Wisconsin

2012-01-11T09:11:00.008-05:00

The biggest-ever exhibition of original Dinotopia artwork will open later this month at the Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum in Wausau, Wisconsin.

The exhibition features 61 original oil paintings that I created for the Dinotopia books. It will be on view from January 28-April 8, 2012.

The show includes paintings from three Dinotopia books, Dinotopia: A Land Apart From Time (1992), Dinotopia: The World Beneath (1995), and Dinotopia: Journey to Chandara (2007), along with a window into my creative process by means of preliminary sketches, plein air paintings, and handmade reference maquettes.

I'm also excited to be able to share two of the most important paintings in the Dinotopia series, Dinosaur Parade and Dinosaur Boulevard, which have not been publicly exhibited in more than 15 years.

There’s a full calendar of events and hands-on activities surrounding the show. February 9 and 10 will be DinoSNOWpia, as Team USA Snow Sculptors Mike Martino, Tom Queoff, and Mike Sponholtz will sculpt prehistoric creatures from snow and ice. (Below: a time lapse video showing them at work)

(Direct link to video) On February 22, there will be a special event inspired by journals and storytelling intended for individuals suffering from memory loss, assisted by their care partners. The following day is “Art Time for Tots,” where toddlers and their parents can tour the galleries and make some art right afterward.

On February 25, an educator from the Northwoods Wildlife Center will use live birds, fossils, and dinosaur fossil replicas to demonstrate the similarities between birds and dinosaurs.

I’ll be in attendance in early March. On Thursday, March 1 at 5:30, I’ll give a digital slide lecture that goes behind the scenes into the making of Dinotopia. On Saturday, March 3, I’ll offer a workshop for educators exploring how such a fantasy concept can integrate science, art, and writing. I’ll also be doing booksignings and gallery walk-throughs.

I look forward to meeting you if you can make it. And if you live far away, please put the suggestion to your local art museum or natural history museum to consider hosting a Dinotopia exhibition in the future.

Tomorrow I’ll tell you more about that frame on the “Dinosaur Parade” painting.

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Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum

They're at 700 North 12th St., Wausau, WI 54403. 715.845.7010.

Traveling exhibition organized by the Norman Rockwell Museum

Order a signed copy of Dinotopia

Previously: Norton Museum Video

Rapid-Fire Painting

2012-01-10T15:38:00.001-05:00

Chilean street artist Fabian Gaete Maureira can bang out a painting in a minute.

(Direct link to video) He blends gradations and knocks in forms with his fingers, and then saves the brush for birds and tiny details.

From Best of Youtube and BoingBoing

The Chinese artists who mass-produce couch art in Dafen, China, are almost as fast: They can produce 20-30 paintings in a day. More at Spiegel Online's article: "Van Gogh from the Sweatshop"
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Thanks, Roger

Gérôme's Pet Monkey

2012-01-10T07:54:00.006-05:00

Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824-1904) owned a colorful assortment of mementos that he collected during his travels: medieval armor, weapons, costumes, and animal skins.

He also kept a celebrated pet monkey, who kept him company in the studio and came to the dinner table wearing formal attire.

But from time to time the monkey would escape from its confinement, "turning the studio into a shambles and terrorizing the neighborhood."

Sources:

American Legacy Fine Arts newsletter

The Studios of Paris: The Capital of Art in the Late Nineteenth Century
Photo of Gerome

Wikipedia on Gerome

Previously: Gerome's Critics

BlueCanvas Interview

2012-01-09T08:00:00.005-05:00

BlueCanvas is an artists' community that finds expression in several forms: a print-magazine on the newsstands, a free online portfolio where you can show your work, live art exhibitions, and an internet shop where you can sell prints and cards. All these different manifestations of the network reinforce each other.

The organization started in Los Angeles, but it has quickly spread worldwide. It spans genres, ranging from realist painters, concept artists, photographers, sculptors, to tattoo artists.

The quarterly magazine is unusual among art journals because instead of being run by editors, it's partly crowd-sourced: members nominate their fellow artists to be featured in print.

Bluecanvas: The Artist Network from Bluecanvas Media on Vimeo.

Creative Director Justin Yun was kind enough to answer a few questions for GurneyJourney readers:

GJ: Bluecanvas is an innovative gathering place for artists, which includes a print magazine, an internet shop, a free website gallery/forum, and a series of art events. Do I have all the parts right, or am I missing something?

JY: You are missing one part of our business which is Section Studios. This is a design studio we started under the umbrella of Bluecanvas Inc. As you can see from our website we specialize in many different aspects of design.

GJ: Which of those parts came first, and how did Bluecanvas get started?

JY: Bluecanvas started as an artist networking website. Our CEO, Jimmy Yun, coming from a business background, came up with the idea, and Justin Yun, coming from a design background joined him to start Bluecanvas. Soon after, Scott Hitomi joined us as a partner and we launched the website. About a year after our launch we decided to publish the artists on our website and that's when the magazine was born. We launched our shop a few years after that. Cecil Kim joined us as we were launching our design studio (SECTION) and that's where we are now with our four owners.

GJ: How do the various parts of Bluecanvas reinforce each other?

JY: The beauty of our system is that each area of Bluecanvas is reliant on the other, and no one area of Bluecanvas can stand on its own. Bluecanvas.com is and will always be the heart of the network, with all other branches stemming from it. As long as the world finds Bluecanvas.com relevant, the magazine and shop will always have outstanding content.

GJ: How would you characterize the Bluecanvas art community? Obviously Bluecanvas attracts a wide variety of artists, but is there a "core demographic" or a typical BC artist?

JY: I think the uniqueness of our community is what's attractive to people. Our voice is that inspiration is not genre specific, and artists from all over the world with various disciplines in art can commune and inspire each other in ways they wouldn't be able to elsewhere. So we do attract a wide variety of artists and art lovers. Also, you don't have to be an artist to be a part of our community. We set up the profile so you're able to collect people's art in a folder on your profile and save images you might want to purchase later.

GJ: If the mechanism for nominating someone to the print magazine is truly crowd-sourced, how to you keep the forum from becoming a political exercise or a popularity contest?

JY: That is a good question. Seeing that we have hundreds of our members nominated per issue, and our publication only able to allow for about 20 features, ultimately, Bluecanvas has the final say to whom will make the final cut for publishing. However, we do choose from the list of nominated artists. We feel that it's a good thing for us to maintain some sort of say in the process [in order] to keep what you mentioned from happening. Some of it, however, is really out of our control… and we are fine with that.

GJ: What advice would you give to artists about presenting their work online?

JY: One advice that an instructor gave me about how I should present my work has stuck always with me. He said, "You're only as good as your worst piece." What he meant by that was more doesn't mean better. It's about quality not quantity and it works in your favor if you leave them wanting to see more. So when you present your work, whether it be online or at a job interview, only show your best work.

GJ: What general trends do you see in the art world in the last three years?

JY: One of the trends I've been seeing is how low brow/street art is becoming more accepted in the mainstream art world, as well as by many galleries and museums who, in the past, may not have embraced this style. Also, as a result of technology growing as fast as it is video games are becoming more sophisticated as an art form and a lot more of interactive art is becoming popular.

GJ: What new areas would you like Bluecanvas to be involved in?

JY: We are always looking for new ways to get involved in the art community. We are open to supporting organizations who are like-minded to us. As far as further development of our product line, we feel that we have covered the main areas we want to, and now want to improve upon them. As mentioned previously, if we are bringing more exposure to our artists and expanding Bluecanvas’ global reach… we are all for it.

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Thanks, Justin.
BlueCanvas website

The Color Blue in Toy Story 3

2012-01-08T10:15:00.001-05:00

The new book, “The Art of Pixar: The Complete Color Scripts” presents the color planning and concept art behind all of the Pixar features and shorts.

Pixar’s color stylists often associate certain colors with certain emotions. In Toy Story 3, the color blue has special significance.

The film’s director Lee Unkrich explains, ‘We came up with the concept of blue connoting safety and home. At the beginning of the film, Andy...his bedroom is blue, the sky is blue, his T-shirt is blue.

“He is in blue jeans, he’s got a blue car--these are not accidents. These are conscious choices. Everything in the movie is there for a reason.

We are making a commitment to say that blue will connote safety and trying to avoid that in situations where we don’t want the audience to feel safe.’”

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Digital color scripts by Dice Tsutsumi

Art copyright by Disney/ Pixar

The Art of Pixar: The Complete Color Scripts