Before I go too far, I’ll point out that although this is essentially an instructional book, it also works well simply as an art book; and fans of fantastic art in general, and Gurney’s work in particular, will quickly find it a “must-have”. (See my previous posts on James Gurney, also here and here. As a side note, Gurney is part of the Enchantment Artist’s Symposium and Exhibition at the University of Hartford’s Joseloff Gallery, 6 November 2009 to 17 January 2010.)

First, this book is unusual because of its topic. Most art instruction books concern themselves with drawing and painting aspects of the real world, and this is certainly the most fundamental and important factor in representational art. But for those in working in areas that demand the creation of images of things that do not exist, whether of real but extinct animals, scenes form the historic past or visionary imaginings of undiscovered worlds, the challenge is to take those fundamentals of drawing and painting from life and extend them into the realm of the imagined.

This is increasingly important for contemporary illustrators, movie and gaming concept artists, animators and comic book artists. Figures, faces, animals, creatures, scenes and entire worlds need to be conjured from the the artist’s imagination and made visually manifest.

Gurney tackles the skills needed in this kind of art head-on. He goes through an extensive array of topics, from generating ideas to initial sketches to models and maquettes, through materials, mediums, techniques, perspective, composition and finishing. In the process he covers elements like imagined architecture and landscapes, vehicles, dinosaurs, history painting, characters, creatures and aliens. The topics are arranged in short, but densely informative two-page topics and sub-topics, lavishly illustrated with Gurney’s own work and occasional nods to the masters.

Steeped in the traditions of classic representational art and the firm artistic foundations of 19th Century academic art in particular, Gurney starts from his interest in those traditions and opens with a brief look at the history and origins of imaginative art, with an acknowledgement of the value of studying the work of artists that have defined the field.

The topics are at once wide ranging and surprisingly consistent. I say that because of the other, perhaps most important, stand out characteristic of this book, its rather unique origin.

There are several approaches to the creation of art instruction books. We can eliminate those that are mediocre or downright terrible and concentrate only on books we would consider valuable.

Among these there are books that are proposed by editors in publishing houses, and fulfilled in a perfunctory, but capable manner by artists and writers chosen for the task. There are books that are proposed by the artists themselves in an effort to leverage their knowledge into financial stability beyond its application in their own work. There are books that are created from the artist’s inclination to take on the role of a teacher.

Rarest of all, there are art instruction books that are born out of the artist’s sheer enthusiasm for what they have learned and the desire to share it with any who are inclined to benefit from that knowledge. Imaginative Realism is one of those rare gems.

The contents of this book didn’t originate as a book project, but were gleaned from posts to Gurney’s superb blog, Gurney Journey, in which they have been offered up for free over the course of the last few years.

Over the extent of it’s run, Gurney’s blog has evolved from chronicling a book tour into a personal journey of artistic exploration and discovery; in the course of which Gurney has shared his insights into painting, composition, color, light and a variety of keen observations about the nature of creating art. As you can imagine, in the course of writing Lines and Colors I have occasion to visit hundreds and hundreds of artists’ web sites and blogs. Gurney Journey is one of the exceptional few that I return to on an almost daily basis.

The book started as an idea in a blog post, and further posts followed it’s creation and eventual publication. In this one, Gurney explains his intention in creating the book.

The resulting book is beautiful. It’s printed in a nicely oversize format on heavy stock, with printing values that make the hundreds of illustrations jump off the pages. The reproduction standards follow in the tradition of the superb reproductions and excellent printing evident in Gurney’s popular Dinotopia books (particularly the most recent one, Journey to Chandara), and his refined use of color is vibrantly present.

I also haven’t seen many art instruction books as information dense as this one. Not that the book feels visually cramped in any way, the book design is clear and elegant, but every one of its 200+ pages can be mined for nuggets of art technique gold. This is likely due to the origin of the book in blog posts collected over a long time, rather than a book project that had to be filled out from its inception. Instead of having to put together enough material to create a substantial book, Gurney probably had a job sifting through that wealth of material and deciding what to leave out.

Gurney even goes the extra mile and gives an insightful overview of art careers based on the techniques he outlines in the book, including paperback covers, film design, storyboards, concept art, video game design, toy design and even theme park design.

The one glaring omission is comics, perhaps because it’s an art form in which Gurney doesn’t personally work, and, though he pays plenty of attention to drawing, his emphasis is on painting. I do work in comics, however, so I’ll take in on myself to point out that virtually all of the concepts in the book can be applied to the creation of comics in addition to the other areas mentioned.

The last way in which Imaginative Realism is different from most other art instruction books is the feeling it carries of a start-to-finish labor of love; from its origin in the artist’s enthusiasm for the subject, to the fulfillment from a lifetime of experience, observation and work, to it’s refined finish, crafted like one of Gurney’s own paintings. It is instructive not only in how to draw and paint from the imagination, but in how to create an outstanding art instruction book.

In short, an absolute treat.

The event will be held on Saturday December 19th from 5 to 10pm at the CCAA Museum of Art in Rancho Cucamonga.

The auction features work by a long list of concept artists, character designers and illustrators from the film and gaming fields, as well as children’s book illustrators and other artists.

There is a blog devoted to the event that shows some of the art that will be up for auction, and will be adding more as the event approaches.

The list of participating artists includes a number of artists that I have featured on Lines and Colors. Here are some links to my posts: Alina Chau, Bill Perkins, Chris Appelhans, Iain McCaig, James Paick, Justin Gerard, Khang Le, Mike Hernandez, Peter de Séve, Robh Ruppel and Shaun Tan.

The Gifted Artist blog lists all of the artists, with links to their web sites or blogs in the sidebar. There are also posts of a flyer (front and back) that gives more details about the auction and event.

(Images above: Erik D. Martin, Uwe Heidschoetter, Pascal Campion, Martin Hsu)

Spirin is the author and illustrator of a number of children’s books for which his illustrations have garnered awards in Europe and the U.S.

Spirin blends imagery and painting styles from the Renaissance with a modern design sensibility, and, to my eye, seasons it with influences from great turn of the 20th Century illustrators like Arthur Rackham, Edmund Dulac, Walter Crane, Kay Neilsen and Howard Pyle.

His meticulously detailed images are muted in color, rich with texture and marvelously evocative of other times and places. They often combine pictorial and decorative elements, in a way suggestive of both the Renaissance and Art Nouveau artists like Alphonse Mucha (also bringing to mind Russian illustrator Ivan Bilibin). There is a quality of finesse and attention to pictorial unity that gives Spirin’s paintings a quiet strength, drawing you in and guiding your eye through through the composition.

His work can have a feeling of timelessness, as though it was situated outside the stream of time and plucking elements from it at will.

(As a side note, it occurs to me that contemporary illustrators like Olga Dugina and Andrej Dugan may have been influenced by Spirin.)

Unfortunately I don’t know of a definitive repository of Spirin’s work on the web, or an official site, but I’ve gathered what resources I could find for you below.

[Suggestion courtesy of Don Green]

Addendum: another good resource was added to the list in the form of this blog post, with several of Spirin’s illustrations; which was found for us by Tat, who searched for Spirin’s name in Russian. (See this post’s comments.)

The children’s book is The Duchess of Whimsey, written by his wife, Randall de Séve, the blog is called A Sketchy Past, the Art of Peter de Séve, and the monograph is titled the same, A Sketchy Past, the Art of Peter de Séve (look for the link to download a beautiful PDF preview of the book under the images in the right hand column; Amazon link here).

More Hoorays: there is an audio interview with De Séve on Sidebar (look for “Click Here” link at bottom of post), a video interview (conducted by Bobby Chiu) on Imaginism Studios; and word has it that there is a tutorial DVD in the works at Massive Black (no direct info yet).

There is also a nice selection of original art for sale on the Arludik Gallery. The site is unfortunately in frames so I can give you a direct link. Click on his image at top left an follow through the work, drawings first, then color works.

De Séve has a sharp, lively style, springy with confident draftsmanship and sparkling with whimsey. He wields it with aplomb across the range of his endeavors. He deftly captures light, movement, expression and energy in his pen and watercolor pieces, and somehow makes it look easy. His solid background in traditional drawing technique serves him well in his imaginative expressions of wild characters and delightfully loopy animals.

The new book, which I haven’t had the chance to pick up yet, has over 200 pages of full color art, and promises to be a first class treat.

Hooray!

Addendum: Parka, of the always enlightening blog Parka Blogs, was kind enough to point out in this post’s comments the that new monograph is currently available from the publisher, Stuart Ng and Amazon France, and will soon be available from Amazon Canada, but is listed on the U.S. Amazon site with a release date of May, 1010 (go figure).

Personally, I remember being struck by his cover illustrations for the Avon editions of Isaac Asimov’s Foundation trilogy.

Punchatz had a versatile range, a solid command of painting technique, and a wild imagination. He particularly excelled at conceptual metaphor, carrying complex ideas through in images that had more than one layer of meaning.

Ray Bradbury said of him: “His ability to touch men with acrylic and melt them into beasts, or touch beasts with oil and ink – and: voila! they are senators or brokers – is endlessly stunning. Metaphor, after all, is the universal language. He could teach at Berlitz!”

In addition to his work as an illustrator, Punchatz was influential on other illustrators in a more direct way. He was one of the few to move away from the New York publishing center, and established a studio in Texas that became the model for several others.

Due to the detailed nature of his style, and the difficulty of creating images on deadline, he hired several assistants, and, according to illustrator and comics artist Gary Panter, who was one of them, ran his studio like a Renaissance workshop. As was also the case with Renaissance workshops, many of his assistants went on to become accomplished artists in their own right.

Punchatz taught illustration and graphic design at Texas Christian University and was a guest instructor at Syracuse University. He was also recognized outside of the illustration field, and his work in in the collections of the Dallas Art Museum and the Smithsonian Portrait Gallery.

Don Ivan Punchatz died of cardiac arrest on October 22nd. Unfortunately, I can’t find a major collection of his work online, but I’ve gathered a few sites below that either have bios or examples of his work.

Many are familiar with Punchatz primarily for his famous cover for the hugely popular game Doom, for which he unfortunately turned down royalties, opting instead for a flat fee. Like many freelance artists, Punchatz was not as strong at business as he might have been.

Also like many freelance illustrators and artists, Punchatz was without medical insurance, and his widow is now facing a mountain of medical bills from his hospitalization. Donations can be made to Sandra Punchatz, c/o Lewis Glaser, TCU School of Art, TCU, Box 298000, Fort Worth TX 76129.

[Suggestion and donation address courtesy of Larry Roibal]

(Any of you Republicans out there want to tell me again why you’re conducting this embarrassingly shameful fight to prevent health care reform in the U.S.?)

Addendum: Despite my comment above, I have suspended comments on this post. I simply don’t have time to admin a continuing political debate, as valuable as lively discussion may be. The original post is about Don Ivan Punchatz, and I have let his son Greg close out the discussion in the comments section. -Charley

It is simultaneously wonderful and frustrating. It’s wonderful, of course, because it features even more of Foster’s elegant, painterly, and superbly accomplished illustrations, old and new; and now includes a terrific section of sketches.

It’s frustrating because it simply doesn’t do justice to how good his paintings are. Size and resolution, as they often are in web galleries, are the limitation here. You can certainly get a taste by browsing through the site, but I have to emphasize that it’s worth seeking out his work in print, as I pointed out before.

Unfortunately, both collections of his work are out of print and commanding high prices used, but if you have copies of the Spectrum collections of fantastic art, you may find some Foster treasures in them (I don’t have a list of the particular volumes).

There is a gallery on the Tor.com site that is much more limited than Foster’s site, but has slightly larger images. There is an audio interview with Foster on Sidebar, part 1 and part 2.

[Via The Art Department]

In a fashion Chris Ware fans have come to expect, the hilarious but subtle cover leads seamlessly into the story, a poignant look at generational and family relations, told in his sublime graphic style.

Ware constructs comics in the way a fine woodworker might construct an inlaid box, crafting each element with refined precision, interlocking elements that might seem unrelated to form a unified whole. Notice the parallels between panels in the second two-page spread, the interweaving of the panel designs with the exterior and interior of the masks and the repeated theme of the phone, carried forward form the cover. Also take note of Ware’s superb control of color and his interesting abandonment of perspective for isometric projection in many panels.

Also note that Ware manages to tell a complete short story in four pages, something many contemporary comics writers can’t seem to do in 6 or more 24-page issues.

Beautiful work.

[Via Daring Fireball]

Williamson occupies a unique place in the history of comics, acting as a kind of bridge between the dazzling full page newspaper adventure comics of the early 20th Century (and the traditions of the great 19th Century pen and ink illustrators that they embodied) and the modern comics upheaval and revolutions of the late 20th Century.

At the early stages of his career, Williamson fell smack in the middle, going to work for the notorious EC comics in 1952, where he was the youngster amid legendary comics greats like Frank Frazetta, Roy Krenkel, Wally Wood and others. His striking science fiction work graced the pages and covers of EC titles like Weird Science and Weird Fantasy, and influenced the generations of comic artists who were growing up at the time, goggle-eyed with flashlights under the covers, reading his lavishly illustrated tales of outer space adventures and outlandish monsters.

Prior to his work with EC, Williamson studied with Burne Hogarth, and assisted him on pages for his Tarzan Sunday newspaper strip. Newspaper adventure comics were dying at the time, however, under pressure from other forms of entertainment and economic squeezing from newspaper editors, and what would have seemed Williamson’s natural place became something of a dead end.

Though he worked within the increasingly restrictive format of small daily adventure news paper strips off and on for years, he also moved into comic books, where adventure comics went and morphed into something different in the middle of the century, and he followed them into the latter half of the century, working for the Warren comics magazines (image above, 2nd from top) and Marvel Comics in its heyday, where he was known in particular for his work on a series of Star Wars comics.

All the while he carried forward his love for the great adventure comics, and especially his admiration for the work of Alex Raymond, creator of Flash Gordon, and one of the all time greats of comics art (more on Alex Raymond in a future post).

Williamson had a chance to step into Raymond’s considerably large shoes on several occasions, taking over his spy adventure newspaper strip Secret Agent X-9, which became Secret Agent Corrigan and moved from film-noir to James Bond style adventures (image above, bottom and detail), ably scripted by Archie Goodwin. He also assisted John Prentice, who took the reins of Raymond’s Rip Kirby strip.

Williamson worked on several versions of Raymond’s star character Flash Gordon (image above, top), the strip that had obviously been such and influence on him, from the amazing King Comics version in the 1960’s to the Marvel Comics version in the ’90s (more on Williamson’s Flash Gordon work in a subsequent post).

Unfortunately, though there are scattered resources, I can’t find a major repository of Williamson’s work in the web, so it’s hard to convey the grace of his figures, the elegance of his pen lines, the chiaroscuro drama of his spotted blacks, the dynamics of his compositions or the ground breaking inventiveness of his storytelling and panel layouts. I also can’t lead you directly to great examples of his astonishingly rendered details, applied with a delicate finesse that never leaves the impression of gratuitous unnecessary fiddling, unlike so many lesser artists whose grasp of the use of pen and ink textures will never approach Williamson’s.

The only thing I can supply, apart from those resources I can list, is a hearty recommendation that those of you with any appreciation for great adventure comics art, or graphic stories told with superb draftsmanship and a subtle command of the visual language of the great pen and ink illustrators, who are not yet familiar with Williamson, treat yourself to one of the many printed collections available that feature his work.

There is a recent book collecting some of his short story work, titled Al Williamson Adventures, from Insight Studios (more here). The limited edition hardcover has apparently come and gone, and I’m unsure of the status of the softcover edition (if it’s out, Insight needs to promote it better, I couldn’t even find mention of it on their web site.)

Fortunately, there is a great new collection from Flesk Publications, Al Williamson’s Flash Gordon: A Lifelong Vision of the Heroic. This book is so terrific I’m going to make it the topic of a separate post.

Often collectors will commission drawings by a number of artists on a single theme, and create over time a collection of themed works by an extensive and diverse list of creators.

Such is the case with the collection displayed on a site titled Hey Oscar Wilde! It’s Clobberin’ Time!, by a collector whose name I don’t know (email address suggests “sgettis”, presumably S. Gettis).

The collection is centered on the theme of asking each artist to portray a favorite literary figure, author or character. This collection has been in progress since 1998, and has been displayed on the web in several forms. I wrote about it in one of its previous incarnations back in 2005 as Artistic interpretations of Literary Figures.

Since then the collection has continued to grow and now includes an impressive list of artists and a fascinatingly diverse list of literary figures. You can browse the collection by either from lists in the right sidebar.

The collection includes a number of comics artists and illustrators I’ve featured previously on Lines and Colors. In the list below, the first link is to the original drawing on the Hey Oscar Wilde! site, second is to my post about the artist.

Images above: Oscar Wilde by Stephen Silver, Alan Moore by Frazer Irving, Captain Nemo by Chris Sprouse, Jim Harrison by Tommy Lee Edwards, Alice in Wonderland by Steve Rude (in Gibson Girl style), Hayao Miyazaki by Kazu Kibuishi (see my post on Hayao Miyazaki), Frankenstein’s Monster by William Stout, Raymond Chandler by Adam Hughes and George Orwell by Kevin Nowlan.

Addendum: the collector’s name is Steven Gettis. [Thanks to Dennis van Zwieten for the tip.]

Wragg is a member of Pixar Studios, and worked on the cartoon Pursuit. He also was an illustrator for the children’s book Too Many Cooks (Ratatouille), as well as being the author/illustrator of several other books, which you can find listed and linked on the right column of his blog.

The blog has posts about his illustrations, commissioned art and work in progress. He also has prints and art for sale on his own site and on Gallery Nucleus.

Wragg works, at least in some pieces, in acrylic, gouache and paper collage. His wonderfully snappy, angular style shows the pedigree of his work in animation; as does his knack for creating lively, offbeat characters. There is an interview on the Character Design blog.

Wragg also uses a controlled palette to great advantage, with many pieces that are are almost monochromatic or duotone, in which a few carefully chosen color passages make the entire image pop.