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THE HOBO HERO with Piccolo Pete / Les Elton - 1935
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Saturday, July 19, 2014
THE HOBO HERO with Piccolo Pete / Les Elton - 1935 [feedly]
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THE HOBO HERO with Piccolo Pete / Les Elton - 1935
// 13
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fuckyeahmobydick: “Moby Dick” for Penguin Audio Books by Jared... [feedly]
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fuckyeahmobydick: "Moby Dick" for Penguin Audio Books by Jared...
// space in text
"Moby Dick" for Penguin Audio Books by Jared Muralt
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Thursday, July 10, 2014
Tweet from Freelancers Union (@freelancersu)
 | Freelancers Union (@freelancersu) |
Best free image resources online: bit.ly/1oByG5D pic.twitter.com/r0FU0trY6s | |
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Saturday, July 5, 2014
sosuperawesome: Ceramic sculptures by Katharine Morling [feedly]
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sosuperawesome: Ceramic sculptures by Katharine Morling
// space in text
Ceramic sculptures by Katharine Morling
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Using Shape And Value For Better Compositions [feedly]
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Using Shape And Value For Better Compositions
// Muddy Colors
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| "A good cover has a distinct silhouette" - J.C. Leyendecker |
David Palumbo
Creating images with punch is almost universally important for illustrators as our work must constantly compete for the audiences' attention in a sea of distraction. As Leyendecker stated in the above quote, one of the best methods of grabbing that attention is drawing the viewer in with an interesting silhouette. Even if the story is not clear from that silhouette, even if the content isn't quite clear, the abstract shape of it should be interesting enough to invite closer examination. In Leyendeckers case, his use of the silhouette was frequently very literal with figures posed over simple or nonexistent backgrounds, yet even in complex environmental scenes the philosophy holds true. Every image can be broken down into basic shapes and value and understanding how to control these core compositional elements means creating more solid and powerful paintings.
If you are careful in your use of shape and make sure that your image still works when streamlined to three values, you are off on the right foot. Images that succeed in these qualities will be immediately engaging as well as work at any scale from postage stamp to mural. For this reason, I employ a sketch development process which forces thinking in big value shapes fairly early on. As early as thumbnails (which, by their nature, tend to be somewhat abstract) these are among my chief concerns. Sometimes I may just add shapes for balance or flow without any idea what they represent knowing that I can figure the details out later.
After monkeying with thumbs a bit, I'll start sketching roughs. These are essentially linear diagrams of shapes which, once I find one that pops, I'll then scan into photoshop and build up with value layers. To start, I often drop the paper value to a midtone. On top of this I will add a 50% opacity layer and begin adding the shadows with solid black. To create more midtones in between, I just duplicate the layer and keep refining. Above this, I can now add another layer of white highlights. This will give a fast rough value plan that should make sense before I start further developing the details and subtleties. Actually, this is in many ways a direct parallel to how I execute the actual painting: midtone/structure (the order these happen can work either way), add the darks and lights, refine where needed.
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| Adding layers of value in large shapes and adjusting some details after the final step |
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| Developing the rough value plan into a more presentable sketch. |
Along these same lines, I also find it very instructive to examine my favorite paintings using certain photoshop filters which simplify values and shapes. By breaking finished works down in this way, I can easier identify some of what may have been early planning and thought process. One method is the "Cut out" filter, which will simulate the effect of having the image made of paper cutouts. These can be hit or miss, but often with a low Number Of Levels (2-4) and a high Edge Simplicity (5/6), I can arrive at a nice minimalist deconstruction.
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| Ilya Repin reduced to simple abstract that still maintains interesting shape and balance. |
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| Paul Delaroche throws an obvious spotlight on the woman in white, but what might be overlooked is his ability to keep the very interesting supporting cast present, described, and yet they remain peripheral. |
Another tool which I find useful is the Threshold adjustment layer. This will let you slide to a point on the histogram and all values above this point are rendered flat white while all values below are flat black. I've found this very useful in studying the illusion of values which appear brighter or darker due to adjacent relative values, but actually exist in a very controlled value shape. Figures with internal detail but which read as silhouette because their highlights are darker than the darkest surrounding value for example, or peripheral details which are controlled by compressing their value range so as not to compete with the focal areas.
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| Sam Weber never fails to deliver subtle and riveting value structures. This piece is one of my favorite examples of localized value shapes because it functions almost as three distinct silhouettes. When we eliminate all but the darkest values, we see form in the boy and rock. At mid value however, this information is lost and the image is a very bold silhouette. None of the interior values are as bright as the background, and yet we can still read both. When we lose all but the highest values, the silhouette changes again and we now see just the boy silhouetted against a sun or moon. Looking from the midtone threshold and the high key threshold, it is like was see the same scene at day and at night. Of course, all of these layers fit together into a beautifully understated final image. |
And so I'll close with a side by side of one of my own value roughs with the finished piece. Keeping all of these things in mind, I aimed for an image which would present a bold silhouette while still having depth. An image which landed an immediate punch of shape as well as containing a slower reveal of internal form. Thinking abstract and minimal in planning representational work can lead around some interesting corners and the more I explore it, the more fascinated I become.
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Friday, July 4, 2014
Check out this item at Amazon.com
10b pencil?
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 | Uni-ball Hi-Uni Wooden Pencil - 10B - Box of 12 (japan import) Mitsubishi Pencil Co., Ltd. $24.00 |
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Wednesday, July 2, 2014
Picasso on Intuition, How Creativity Works, and Where Ideas Come From [feedly]
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Picasso on Intuition, How Creativity Works, and Where Ideas Come From
// Brain Pickings
"To know what you're going to draw, you have to begin drawing."
Picasso having lunch at the Brasserie Lipp, chatting with Pierre Matisse, Henri Matisse's son. Photograph by Brassaï.
This was one of the questions the famed Hungarian photographer Brassaï posed to Pablo Picasso over the course of their 30-year-long interview series, collected in Conversations with Picasso (public library) — the same superb 1964 volume that gave us Picasso on success and why you should never compromise creatively. When Brassaï asks whether the painter's ideas come to him "by chance or by design," Picasso slips in some sidewise wisdom on the tyranny of "creative block" and responds:
I don't have a clue. Ideas are simply starting points. I can rarely set them down as they come to my mind. As soon as I start to work, others well up in my pen. To know what you're going to draw, you have to begin drawing… When I find myself facing a blank page, that's always going through my head. What I capture in spite of myself interests me more than my own ideas.
The chalk portrait of Picasso that Henri Matisse drew blindfolded. Photograph by Brassaï.
To further illustrate this notion that the best creative work happens when the rational, self-editing mind gets out of the way of the intuitive inclination — something Ray Bradbury articulated beautifully in a 1974 interview — Picasso offers an illustrative example. Despite being both a professional admirer and a personal friend of Matisse's, he cites the painter's notoriously methodical creative process as a betrayal of this notion that an artist should honor his or her initial creative intuition:
Matisse does a drawing, then he recopies it. He recopies it five times, ten times, each time with cleaner lines. He is persuaded that the last one, the most spare, is the best, the purest, the definitive one; and yet, usually it's the first. When it comes to drawing, nothing is better than the first sketch.
Making Picasso's point visible: In 2010, MoMA curators used X-ray technology to reveal the many iterations behind Henri Matisse's painting 'Bathers by a River,' on which the painter worked for eight years between 1909 and 1917.
Conversations with Picasso is an enormously rewarding read in its entirety. Complement this particular extract with a five-step "technique for producing ideas" from 1939, then revisit David Lynch on where ideas come from and some thoughts on the subject from Neil Gaiman.
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Drawing Flowers: A Helpful Hint for Beautiful Florals [feedly]
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Drawing Flowers: A Helpful Hint for Beautiful Florals
// Artist's Network
Drawing flowers in one of my all time favorite subjects. It doesn't matter what type of flower it is, or whether I create them in color or black and white. Drawing flowers simply makes me happy! Because I'm also a photographer, the studio is filled with reference photos I've taken over the years. My favorite pastime, when not in the studio, is visiting botanical gardens so I can take more photos. An artist can never have enough. Many of my students share the same passion, so I allow them to use my photos. Every class I teach has at least one or two students creating beautiful floral masterpieces!
Look at all of the lights and darks created by the edges of this plant. The edges are the most important part of drawing flowers and plants.
So what makes a good floral drawing? Composition, and how the subject is placed on the page, and contrast are essential for creating depth and realism. But when it comes to flowers in particular, I personally believe that the single most important element is the ability of the artist to create realistic looking edges.
Flowers are made up of many, many edges, due to the overlapping surfaces created by the petals and the leaves. It's important that the edges of all these surfaces look believable. When teaching, I find that students often struggle with this, for their edges often turn into outlines. The realism is lost due to this. It can be very frustrating.
A rose by any other name is…"Drawing Good Edges!"
Here is a helpful hint that may make drawing flowers easier for you. Memorize this theory, and use it with everything you draw.
We all know that the preliminary sketch you create is made up of lines. (I call this an accurate line drawing.) It's the foundation of your piece on which you build your rendering. But, each of those lines needs to be turned into an edge, so it doesn't look outlined like a cartoon. To do this, remember what a line really is: merely a separation of two different surfaces. The line you drew is telling you that these surfaces are either touching or overlapping. To make the line you drew turn into an edge, there's a pretty simple solution:
First, analyze your reference and look for the five elements of shading. This will tell you where the light source is and the cast shadows are.
Even in graphite, you can see the theory of "light over dark" and "dark over light" at work in the edges of these flower petals.
Second, identify in your reference which surfaces are dark and which are light. Now look at the darkness of the line you drew in your sketch. Which surface does the darkness of that line belong to? Is it part of a shadow below the surface? If so, you must blend out the darkness of that line into that area. Is the surface you're drawing darker than the background? Then blend the darkness of the line into that surface.
As you work, analyze all of the edges in your photo reference, and ask yourself: Is it light over dark or is it dark over light? Then, blend the darkness of your drawn line into whichever surface it belongs. Make sure it fades out gradually and completely. Voila! It's an edge, not an outline!
Studying your edges is critical, especially since they can change. Don't let them fool you. The edge of a single flower petal may appear light against dark in one area, and then switch suddenly to dark over light. Don't try to draw edges without close observation, or you may miss some very important tonal changes.
I know this may sound difficult, but practice, practice and practice some more. Soon it'll become second nature to analyze every line drawn. Study my examples here, and look for the beauty of edges in these florals. I think you'll find that drawing flowers will make you happy too!
Have a wonderful week everyone!
Lee
Edited by Cherie Haas, online editor of ArtistsNetwork.com
Lee Hammond has been called the Queen of Drawing. That may not be fair these days, since in addition to providing the best drawing lessons, she has also created fantastic books and videos filled with the same easy to follow acrylic painting techniques, colored pencil techniques and more. Click here to see all of the instructional books and DVDs that Lee Hammond has to offer!
• Free download! Easy Acrylic Painting Techniques by Lee Hammond
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Curiosity and Wonder Are My Religion: Henry Miller on Growing Old, the Perils of Success, and the Secret of Remaining Young at Heart [feedly]
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Curiosity and Wonder Are My Religion: Henry Miller on Growing Old, the Perils of Success, and the Secret of Remaining Young at Heart
// Brain Pickings
"If you can fall in love again and again… if you can forgive as well as forget, if you can keep from growing sour, surly, bitter and cynical… you've got it half licked."
More than three decades later, shortly after his eightieth birthday, Miller wrote a beautiful essay on the subject of aging and the key to living a full life. It was published in 1972 in an ultra-limited-edition chapbook titled On Turning Eighty (public library), alongside two other essays. Only 200 copies were printed, numbered and signed by the author.
Miller begins by considering the true measure of youthfulness:
If at eighty you're not a cripple or an invalid, if you have your health, if you still enjoy a good walk, a good meal (with all the trimmings), if you can sleep without first taking a pill, if birds and flowers, mountains and sea still inspire you, you are a most fortunate individual and you should get down on your knees morning and night and thank the good Lord for his savin' and keepin' power. If you are young in years but already weary in spirit, already on the way to becoming an automaton, it may do you good to say to your boss — under your breath, of course — "Fuck you, Jack! You don't own me!" … If you can fall in love again and again, if you can forgive your parents for the crime of bringing you into the world, if you are content to get nowhere, just take each day as it comes, if you can forgive as well as forget, if you can keep from growing sour, surly, bitter and cynical, man you've got it half licked.
He later adds:
I have very few friends or acquaintances my own age or near it. Though I am usually ill at ease in the company of elderly people I have the greatest respect and admiration for two very old men who seem to remain eternally young and creative. I mean [the Catalan cellist and conductor] Pablo Casals and Pablo Picasso, both over ninety now. Such youthful nonagenarians put the young to shame. Those who are truly decrepit, living corpses, so to speak, are the middle-aged, middleclass men and women who are stuck in their comfortable grooves and imagine that the status quo will last forever or else are so frightened it won't that they have retreated into their mental bomb shelters to wait it out.
Miller considers the downside of success — not the private kind, per Thoreau's timeless definition, but the public kind, rooted in the false deity of prestige:
If you have had a successful career, as presumably I have had, the late years may not be the happiest time of your life. (Unless you've learned to swallow your own shit.) Success, from the worldly standpoint, is like the plague for a writer who still has something to say. Now, when he should be enjoying a little leisure, he finds himself more occupied than ever. Now he is the victim of his fans and well wishers, of all those who desire to exploit his name. Now it is a different kind of struggle that one has to wage. The problem now is how to keep free, how to do only what one wants to do.
He goes on to reflect on how success affects people's quintessence:
One thing seems more and more evident to me now — people's basic character does not change over the years… Far from improving them, success usually accentuates their faults or short-comings. The brilliant guys at school often turn out to be not so brilliant once they are out in the world. If you disliked or despised certain lads in your class you will dislike them even more when they become financiers, statesmen or five star generals. Life forces us to learn a few lessons, but not necessarily to grow.
Somewhat ironically, Anaïs Nin — Miller's onetime lover and lifelong friend — once argued beautifully for the exact opposite, the notion that our personalities are fundamentally fluid and ever-growing, something that psychologists have since corroborated.
Miller returns to youth and the young as a kind of rearview mirror for one's own journey:
You observe your children or your children's children, making the same absurd mistakes, heart-rending mistakes often, which you made at their age. And there is nothing you can say or do to prevent it. It's by observing the young, indeed, that you eventually understand the sort of idiot you yourself were once upon a time — and perhaps still are.
Like George Eliot, who so poignantly observed the trajectory of happiness over the course of human life, Miller extols the essential psychoemotional supremacy of old age:
At eighty I believe I am a far more cheerful person than I was at twenty or thirty. I most definitely would not want to be a teenager again. Youth may be glorious, but it is also painful to endure…
I was cursed or blessed with a prolonged adolescence; I arrived at some seeming maturity when I was past thirty. It was only in my forties that I really began to feel young. By then I was ready for it. (Picasso once said: "One starts to get young at the age of sixty, and then it's too late.") By this time I had lost many illusions, but fortunately not my enthusiasm, nor the joy of living, nor my unquenchable curiosity.
And therein lies Miller's spiritual center — the life-force that stoked his ageless inner engine:
Perhaps it is curiosity — about anything and everything — that made me the writer I am. It has never left me…
With this attribute goes another which I prize above everything else, and that is the sense of wonder. No matter how restricted my world may become I cannot imagine it leaving me void of wonder. In a sense I suppose it might be called my religion. I do not ask how it came about, this creation in which we swim, but only to enjoy and appreciate it.
Two years later, Miller would come to articulate this with even more exquisite clarity in contemplating the meaning of life, but here he contradicts Henry James's assertion that seriousness preserves one's youth and turns to his other saving grace — the capacity for light-heartedness as an antidote to life's often stifling solemnity:
Perhaps the most comforting thing about growing old gracefully is the increasing ability not to take things too seriously. One of the big differences between a genuine sage and a preacher is gaiety. When the sage laughs it is a belly laugh; when the preacher laughs, which is all too seldom, it is on the wrong side of the face.
Equally important, Miller argues, is countering the human compulsion for self-righteousness. In a sentiment Malcolm Gladwell would come to complement nearly half a century later in advocating for the importance of changing one's mind regularly, Miller writes:
With advancing age my ideals, which I usually deny possessing, have definitely altered. My ideal is to be free of ideals, free of principles, free of isms and ideologies. I want to take to the ocean of life like a fish takes to the sea…
I no longer try to convert people to my view of things, nor to heal them. Neither do I feel superior because they appear to be lacking in intelligence.
Miller goes on to consider the brute ways in which we often behave out of self-righteousness and deformed idealism:
One can fight evil but against stupidity one is helpless… I have accepted the fact, hard as it may be, that human beings are inclined to behave in ways that would make animals blush. The ironic, the tragic thing is that we often behave in ignoble fashion from what we consider the highest motives. The animal makes no excuse for killing his prey; the human animal, on the other hand, can invoke God's blessing when massacring his fellow men. He forgets that God is not on his side but at his side.
But despite observing these lamentable human tendencies, Miller remains an optimist at heart. He concludes by returning to the vital merriment at the root of his life-force:
My motto has always been: "Always merry and bright." Perhaps that is why I never tire of quoting Rabelais: "For all your ills I give you laughter." As I look back on my life, which has been full of tragic moments, I see it more as a comedy than a tragedy. One of those comedies in which while laughing your guts out you feel your inner heart breaking. What better comedy could there be? The man who takes himself seriously is doomed…
There is nothing wrong with life itself. It is the ocean in which we swim and we either adapt to it or sink to the bottom. But it is in our power as human beings not to pollute the waters of life, not to destroy the spirit which animates us.
The most difficult thing for a creative individual is to refrain from the effort to make the world to his liking and to accept his fellow man for what he is, whether good, bad or indifferent.
The entire On Turning Eighty chapbook, which includes two other essays, is a sublime read. Complement it with Miller on writing, altruism, the meaning of life, what creative death means, and his 11 commandments of writing.
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Nico Marlet [feedly]
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Nico Marlet
// lines and colors
Nicolas "Nico" Marlet is a character designer, visual development and animation artist best known for his work on animated features like How to Train Your Dragon, How to Train Your Dragon 2, Kung Fu Panda, Monsters, Inc., Bee Movie, The Road to El Dorado and others.
Marlet's character design drawings just about jump off the page with their springy energy. His model sheets show a wild and abundantly creative imagination.
His work has been featured in books like The Art of How to Train Your Dragon, The Art of How to Train Your Dragon 2, The Art of Kung Fu Panda 2, and others, as well as a published replica of one of his sketchbooks.
Marlets' work is part of the Art of How to Train Your Dragon 2 exhibit currently at Gallery Nucleus in Alhambra, CA (to July 6). There is a preview of his Sketchbook on their site as well.
Marlet apparently does not have a dedicated web presence, so we'll have to make do with a scattering of unofficial resources.
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wwnorton: If the short documentary posted earlier on Joe... [feedly]
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wwnorton: If the short documentary posted earlier on Joe...
// space in text
If the short documentary posted earlier on Joe Sacco's The Great War, a 24-foot panorama of the first day of the Battle of the Somme, was somehow not epic enough for you, the Paris Metro has an installation of Sacco's wordless depiction on an even grander scale currently on display at the Montparnasse-Bienvenüe station, the fourth busiest station in the system.
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Only Human [feedly]
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Only Human
// Artist Daily
Last night, as I began teaching another painting workshop, I wondered again what motivates people to put up hard earned cash and move their bodies across town (sometimes across the country) to take a painting workshop. For the most part, these are not aspiring professionals wanting to hone their skills, but folks with careers in other lines of work. I used to think that painting was just a hobby for them and a group class was a safe bet for some entertainment and relaxation. Now I'm not so sure. I have given it some thought and I believe that there is a deeper, more fundamental motivation that drives us to want to learn how to paint.
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| Artists Sketching in the White Mountains by Winslow Homer, 1868. |
We have written before about creativity and the new scientific studies investigating the human impulse to create. It is a fascinating subject precisely because it isn't well understood, and because in some ways artistic creativity has no practical advantage (that we can see) for our immediate survival. For instance, it takes time and resources to make an object such as an essential tool. To then devote additional time to decorate that tool instead of using it immediately for hunting or preparing food, doesn't make much sense when food is the priority. In a tribal context, everyone must contribute to the welfare of the whole for the tribe to prosper. So why do we find elaborate and extensive cave paintings made by Neolithic hunters from 40,000 years ago? These tribes would have had to support those early artists - feed them - while they worked perhaps hundreds of hours to make these large, extensive paintings. Recently, archaeologists have found carved and decorated tools made by our primitive ancestors which are over 300,000 years old. The impulse to express something from within seems to be a very ancient need.
When I think about what motivates my students to be present, I now believe that it is related to that ancient need to create, apart from the other activities in their lives. There is something essential in the act of creation, or in simply learning to create, that answers this need. I can teach them all sorts of useful and necessary techniques which are helpful in the long run. But in the moment, which is all we really have, I try to keep in mind that if I fail to connect to the real reason they are present, then I probably have failed to connect with them at the most universal, fundamental level. It is love of creation that brings us together at these moments, and in that, we are all one big tribe.
Join us on The Artist's Road for more informative articles and interesting discussions. The Artist's Road Store also features unique tools for the artist.
--John and Ann
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Wednesday, June 11, 2014
Tuesday, June 10, 2014
Sketches by Guillermo del Toro Take You Inside the Director's Wildly Creative Imagination « Open Culture
www.openculture.com/2014/03/frightening-sketches-by-guillermo-del-toro.html
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Friday, June 6, 2014
Tuesday, June 3, 2014
Tweet from Cult Pens (@cultpens)
 | Cult Pens (@cultpens) |
The @STABILOUK Woody is a coloured pencil, watercolor and wax crayon all in one! See more at: bit.ly/1m7BGnV pic.twitter.com/Q1DxdaPREv | |
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