Since I first wrote about illustrator Patrick Arrasmith back in 2008, he has become best known as the illustrator of the Last Apprentice series by Joseph Delaney.

Arrasmith works in the difficult but rewarding medium of scratchboard, in which line and tone are created by scratching black ink from the surface of clay-coated board on which it has been applied, leaving white areas or lines where the ink has been scratched away (in Arrasmith’s case, with a #16 X-acto blade).

His technique allows him to create appropriately spooky imagery for the series, not only in working from black to white, but also because it produces that wonderfully textural line and tone quality, somewhere between pen and ink and wood engraving, that is unique to scratchboard.

In a number of the chapter headings, Arrasmith has carried forward the older tradition of allowing areas with the illustration for the incorporation of the initial block of text that starts the chapter, sometimes knockout text in white against a block background, sometimes in white areas, often with an inventive take on how the text is blended into the art.

For color work, such as the series covers, Arrasmith scans the scratchboard drawings and applies color digitally in Photoshop.

Since my initial post, Arrasmith has updated his website with a new design and nice large images that allow you to see some of the detail and textural characteristics of his approach. When viewing his online portfolio, be aware that there are several sections, accessed from small text links at the bottom right of the main Portfolio page.

There are a couple of videos on YouTube of Arrasmith discussing his work for the series, in one he talks briefly about his process, in the other he highlights some of his favorites among the illustrations.

There is also a brief interview with Arrasmith from 2008 on Irene Gallo’s The Art Department, and a gallery of his work in Tor.com.

[For more background on scratchboard, a Lines and Colors search for scratchboard will bring up other posts in which the medium is discussed.]

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Portrait of the Artist’s Mother and Sister, Berthe Morisot

An intimate family portrait by an underappreciated member of the Impressionist circle.

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Cayce Zavaglia creates her portraits in a novel variation on the time honored traditions of tapestry, using crewel embroidery wool in a method in which the direction of the threads are not blended into a uniform pattern, but given direction within the creation of the form — like brushstrokes, producing a much more “painterly” (“threaderly”?) surface.

Zavaglia was trained as a painter and in her statement indicates that she still thinks of herself as a painter, simply working with a different medium.

The images on her site, once you click through to the individual works, are supplemented with close up crops in which you can better see the directional and dimensional qualities of the threadwork.

In addition, some of the works are displayed as they look from the reverse of the surface, with a feeling of abstracted underlying form and a decidedly different direction and texture to the threads.

[Via High-Fructose by way of Dan van Bentheuysen: @vanbenth]

www.caycezavaglia.com

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John Singer Sargent, long dismissed by the art establishment as a facile painter of society portraits, has finally in recent years been getting something of his due as a painter.

Beyond the technical mastery and delicious painterly flourish of his formal work in oil, Sargent was one of the great masters of the medium of watercolor; and it was in his watercolors, often painted while vacationing or traveling, that he found his greatest joy as an artist.

The Brooklyn Museum and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston have put together an exhibition that draws on the Sargent watercolors in the collection of both museums.

Titled simply John Singer Sargent Watercolors, it consists of ninety-three works in watercolor with mixtures of opaque watercolor, bodycolor, graphite and whatever else Sargent could find to achieve his goals. To these they have added nine of Sargent’s oils — just in case the watercolors aren’t enough to leave you completely dazzled.

I consider this a must-see show if I can possibly make it, and hope to give you a subsequent first-hand report.

In the meanwhile, there is a catalog from the exhibition, John Singer Sargent Watercolors, that James Gurney reviews here.

I can also recommend an older book, The Watercolors of John Singer Singer Sargent by Carl Little, but judging from Gurney’s review, I would go for the new catalog first.

The exhibition will be at the Brooklyn Museum until July 28, 2013. (Incidentally, the Brooklyn Museum, as I write here, is a terrific museum in general, often unfairly overshadowed by its more famous counterparts in Manhattan.)

The exhibition then moves to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, where it will be on display from October 13, 2013 to January 20, 2014. The last stop will be at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, for which dates have not yet been set.

There is a small slideshow on the Brooklyn Museum page for the exhibit, but with a bit of clicking you can search their collections for John Singer Sargent Watercolors and access more works. Use the blue arrow at right of the top section of thumbnails to access more objects (their search interface needs work). On the page for an individual work, click on “Download” and choose a large size for larger images.

The MFA has an easier to navigate search; click on “Zoom” for larger images.

[Via Gurney Journey]

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The Gates of Hell was an ambitious and astonishing work by the French sculptor Auguste Rodin that was never realized in his lifetime.

The sculpture exists in two versions, one of which was cast in bronze posthumously from reconstructed plaster casts. The work stands almost 30 feet (6m) high and 12 feet (4m) wide, with over 180 figures representing themes from Dante Alighieri’s Devine Comedy.

The sculpture contains many figures and sets of figures that were eventually developed into independent works by Rodin, including his famous The Thinker. Rodin worked on the doors off and on for 37 years, never actually finishing the work.

There is a video here that discusses the the work and the two different versions created by Rodin.

There are three original bronze casts, at the Musée Rodin in Paris, the Rodin Museum here in Philadelphia and the National Museum of Western Art in Tokyo.

Three more were subsequently cast by the Musée Rodin, and are in Zurich, Seoul, Korea and Stanford University in California.

Microbiologist and photographer J.W. Kern has taken a rather remarkable high-resolution (112 megapixel) photograph of the Stanford casting and made it available on Flickr (click on “Original” for the high-res version, which is 18mb). Here is Kern’s article about the sculpture and the photo.

[Via MetaFilter]

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“Cartoon Kevin” is a project by Kevin McShane in which he has over a period of two years drawn cartoon self portraits in the style of 100 different animation artists, from Winsor McCay to this year’s fascinating Disney short, Paperman (my post here).

When viewing the images, hover for the style, click for the larger version.

[Via Cartoon Brew]

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While the Mauritshuis, The Royal Picture Gallery in The Hague, Netherlands, is undergoing renovations, some 35 wonderful examples of their extraordinary collection of paintings are touring the US.

The group includes Vermeer’s Girl With a Pearl Earring, as well as treasures by Rembrandt, Frans Hals, Carel Fabritius, Rachel Ruysch, Jan Steen, Jacob von Ryisdael and others.

The show is currently at the de Young Museum in San Francisco, where it will be on display until June 2, 2013.

It then moves to the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, where it will be on display from June 23 to September 29, 2013.

A smaller subset of 15 works, titled Vermeer, Rembrandt, and Hals: Masterpieces of Dutch Painting from the Mauritshuis, including Girl with a Pearl Earring as well as works by Rembrandt, Hals, van Ruisdael, Steen and Fabritius, will be on display at the Frick Collection in New York from October 22, 2013 to January 19, 2014, which is when I hope to see them.

(Images above: Johnannes Vermeer, Carel Fabritius, Abraham van Beyeren, Jacob van Ruisdael, Reambrandt van Rijn)

[Addendum: Reader Ælle points to an interesting interview with Mauritshuis Director Emilie Gordenker on ArtsATL]

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Andrew Bosley is a concept artist and illustrator currently working with Red Storm Entertainment in North Carolina.

I first encountered Bosley back in 2007, when he had just graduated from the Illustration program at San Jose state University, and was kind enough to write and share with us a blog he had posted called A Little Bit of J.C. Leyendecker Greatness (my post here) in which he had scanned and posted 30 some Leyendecker covers and made them available to illustration lovers everywhere.

At the time, Bosley was just beginning to post his own work, but not much was available. Since then, I’m happy to say, Bosley has not only continued his blog, but has put up a website with a portfolio of his work, which is just a delight.

A mixture of professional and personal projects, the portfolio showcases Bosley’s stylistic range, from rendered cartoony illustration to retro fantasy to straight ahead concept characters and environments. All of them, though, demonstrate a comfortable and unforced approach to composition, color and execution.

His cover illustration for the new novel by Mike Resnick, The Doctor and the Dinosaur, (above, second from bottom) makes me want to pick up the story just to see if it carries the same paleo-steampunk feeling as the cover.

In addition to his site and blog, there is a portfolio of Bosley’s work on Concept Art World.

There is also an interesting additional feature on Bosley’s website — The Brainstormer. This is a codified version of a tried and true creativity jumpstarting process usually practiced by desperate artists and writers in the dead of night with scribbled lists of words on scraps of paper.

Bosley, with help from John Mitchell, created a wheel based version done in Flash for the website, in which three lists of words can be randomly or systematically aligned against one another, forming three word juxtapositions to spark creative imagery.

Better yet, there is now a Brainstormer iPhone/iPad app (above, bottom), created with the help of Joel Davis (article here) that takes the concept to another level, and offers additional add-on wheels of subjects specifically for characters, world building and imaginary animals.

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