Lines and Colors – Page 583

Lines and Colors is a blog about painting, drawing, sketching, illustration, comics, cartoons, webcomics, art history, concept art, gallery art, digital art, artist tools and techniques, motion graphics, animation, sci-fi and fantasy illustration, paleo art, storyboards, matte painting, 3d graphics and anything else I find visually interesting. If it has lines and/or colors, it’s fair game.

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Promoting some friends and some clients of my website design business

The Practice & Science of Drawing by Harold Speed

February 5, 2011

In my post on resources for Learning to Draw back in October, one of the books I mentioned for those on a dedicated path was Harold Speed’s The Practice and Science of Drawing.

Though illustrated, this book, like Speed’s well regarded book Oil Painting Techniques and Materials, is less “look and follow” instruction, and more “read and understand and then go practice”.

Speed, whose career spanned the late 19th and early 20th centuries, carried forward the traditions of academic teaching, tempered with an understanding of the new paths then being blazed by the Impressionists and others.

The knowledge Speed offers is supplemented by the illustrations, some by artists like Da Vinci, Rubens, Holbein, Degas and others, and many by Speed himself, a skilled academic draftsman with a loose rendering style that foreshadows the work of noted 20th Century teacher/draftsmen like Andrew Loomis, Walt Reed and Willy Pogany.

Unlike Oil Painting Techniques and Materials, which is available largely as a single edition, The Practice and Science of Drawing, which is also in the public domain, is available in a confusing array of editions, some good, some not so good, some minus the illustrations altogether.

The Dover edition is reliably inexpensive, and contains the illustrations, even if reproduction isn’t superb.

I have not personally seen this edition from General Books, released in January of 2010, or this one from Nabu Press that came out in July of 2010 and is described as a “facsimile edition”, so I can’t recommend either, but I would be interested in hearing from any readers who have seen them. (If I were to take a guess, I might try the General Books edition, but that’s just a guess.)

In the meanwhile, there is a complete online facsimile edition available on the Internet Archive.

Despite being hampered by one of these unendurably stupid “page-flipping” navigation widgets (Do we really need to pretend that our digital books have pages that flip? Really?), the book is presented in a format that allows for relatively large, well presented reproductions of the original illustrations by Speed and others.

There is also a PDF downloadable from the “i” for Information button in the upper right, which may be easier for offline reading, but the illustrations in that one, despite the 20mb download, are so small and over-compressed as to be almost useless.

The digital version is worth looking through and, with a bit of fuss, you can use the enlarge and scroll buttons to view the illustrations without the page-flippy widget driving you crazy.

Perhaps it’s just as well that the interface is a bit demanding of patience, since Speed’s method of study requires dedication and persistence to be of real value.

I’ll leave you with Speed’s own opening sentence from the preface of the book:

“Permit me in the first place to anticipate the disappointment of any student who opens this book with the idea of finding “wrinkles” on how to draw faces, trees, clouds, or what not, short cuts to excellence in drawing, or any of the tricks so popular with the drawing masters of our grandmothers and still dearly loved by a large number of people. No good can come of such methods, for there are no shortcuts to excellence.”

[Link via Robh Ruppel]

The Practice and Science of Drawing, electronic facsimile on the Internet Archive
Catalog page

Categories:
Drawing
Wikipedia Color Resources

February 3, 2011

There are lots of color resources on the web, for artists, designers and others, but an often overlooked one is Wikipedia, the venerable user-edited online encyclopedia.

Whatever you may say about the reliability of the information on Wikipedia (or from Britannica, or any other single resource, for that matter), I rarely consider a source like Wikipedia a place to end a search, but, like Google, a place to begin one.

Though not specifically an artist’s resource, Wikipedia’s color related articles are numerous and varied.

You might find it interesting to start with their “List of Colors“. The list includes a lot of non-artist colors, like “British Racing Green” and “Psychedelic Purple”, but the familiar artist pigments are there too. Links for those lead to articles with information about the pigment, including source materials, history, chemical composition, lightfastness, typical use, hazardous qualities, color system numbers and sometimes more.

Some are grouped; Cadmium Yellow, Cadmium Orange and Cadmium Red all lead to a single entry for “Cadmium pigments“, but some have more extensive and interesting listings, like the history behind Ultramarine.

There are articles about Color Theory, Color Vision, the Color Wheel, Complimentary Color, Primary Color, Hue, Saturation and many other related topics.

Though hardly an exhaustive resource on color for artists, it does seem a valuable resource to add to your virtual palette.

Wikipedia index of color related articles
List of Colors

Categories:
Color, Tools and Techniques, Vision and Optics
Google Art Project

February 2, 2011

Wow.

There are times I just want to hug the internet, and say “I love you Internet!“.

Google, that monolithic giant of search, advertising, maps, stats and online software, whose offerings and initiatives have ranged from the amazing (search, maps) to the not-so wonderful (privacy issues), has spun off a new initiative for which I will forgive most of their transgressions.

Google on Monday unveiled a new feature called Google Art Project that is nothing short of wonderful and amazing, and, if Google’s history is any indication, stands to become even more wonderful and amazing as time goes on.

The project is an online archive of ultra-high-resolution images of great works of art.

Google has applied their “Street View” technology, familiar for providing zoomable street-level images within the context of Google Maps, to the display of both the works and the galleries in which they reside.

Google Street View has been put to unofficial art related use before, notably with the Virtual Paintout (my post here) in which artists virtually “visit” a specified location by way of Google Street View, and use the images as reference for “on location” paintings.

Here, the technology is being put to much different use by Google, allowing some of the best views of great paintings available online.

At the moment they are working with 17 museums, each of which has contributed one or more gigapixel level images to the project; and an impressive start it is:

Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin – Germany
Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian, Washington DC – USA
The Frick Collection, NYC – USA
Gemäldegalerie, Berlin – Germany
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC – USA
MoMA, The Museum of Modern Art, NYC – USA
Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid – Spain
Museo Thyssen – Bornemisza, Madrid – Spain
Museum Kampa, Prague – Czech Republic
National Gallery, London – UK
Palace of Versailles – France
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam – The Netherlands
The State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg – Russia
State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow – Russia
Tate Britain, London – UK
Uffizi Gallery, Florence – Italy
Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam – The Netherlands

Starting from a list that appears on the project’s home page when you mouse over the initial image, you can choose a museum, then browse the museum’s corridors, or go right to an artwork.

Unlike the stingy feeling so many museums project with tiny preview images and zooming images that have to be scrolled in frustratingly small little windows, the artworks here are available in a full screen zooming interface, and when I say “zoom” I mean it really zooms, down to an astonishing level of detail.

This is like the Haltadefinizione project that I wrote about here, but with a better interface and without the annoyance of watermarking.

In the images above, I’ve chosen to visit the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam and zoom in to a nose-up-against-the-canvas view of Rembrandt’s The Shooting Company of Frans Banning Cocq, commonly known as The Night Watch.

Though the Flash drop-down for browsing museums and works is a bit glitchy, the interface’s provision for scrolling and zooming is wonderfully fluid, and the ability to get your eyeballs right up to Rembrandt’s textural brushwork is just delicious.

I’ve left the zooming control in my images just to demonstrate it, but it and other interface elements politely melt away when not in use. In the upper right is a Visitor Guide button, which provides a general introduction to the project (there is also a short introductory video here), and an info (“i”) button which gives access to an information panel with a menu of options for information about the painting, provided by the museum in which it hangs.

Of note in that menu are links to “More Works by this Artist” and “More Works in this Museum”, which can lead to a nice browsing experience.

There are some amazing images to be seen, including The Harvesters by Pieter Bruegel the Elder in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Van Gogh’s The Starry Night at the MoMA, Hans Holbein’s enigmatic The Ambassadors (my post here) in the National Gallery, London and (be still my beating heart) Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus in the Uffizi!

Wow.

I’ll give my Major Time Sink Warning and bid you enjoy!

All art on the internet should be like this.

[Via MetaFilter]

www.googleartproject.com
Introductory video (YouTube)

Categories:
Gallery and Museum Art, High-res Art Images, Museums, Online Museums
Lan Ying

January 31, 2011

Lan Ying was a Chinese painter active in the early 17th Century (late Ming dynasty). He was noted for his paintings of flowers, plants and landscapes. The latter were beautiful examples of a kind of Chinese landscape painting I particularly enjoy, with delicate, softly toned calligraphic linework and beautifully handled washes, evocative of mist, atmosphere and subtle suggestions of texture.

Lan Ying was also noted for his portrayals of fascinatingly complex rocks, of a kind often chosen for gardens as suggestive of miniature mountains (image above, bottom right, featured here).

He was considered representative of the Zhe School of Chinese painters. I’ve see a number of his works in which the title indicates that he is deliberately painting in the style of particular artists that preceded him whose work he greatly admired.

Metropolitan Museum of Art, also here
MFA Boston
Indianapolis Museum of Art
XABusiness, also here
Detroit Institute of Arts
Art Institute of Chicago
Walters Art Museum, and here
Wikimedia Commons
PEM
ArtNet, with bio
ArtCyclopedia

Categories:
Gallery and Museum Art
Super Bowl Art Bet

January 28, 2011

It’s long been a tradition for mayors and other representatives of rival American cities to make wagers on the outcomes of major, season-ending sporting events like the Baseball World Series and, in particular, the Super Bowl football game.

Last year, prompted by a dare from Modern Art Notes writer Tyler Green, two art museums from cities whose teams were in the Super Bowl made a bet of major art loans against the outcome of the game.

After the New Orleans Saints Beat the Indianapolis Colts in that game, the Indianapolis Museum of Art (see my recent post on the IMA) loaned a significant painting by JMW Turner, The Fifth Plague of Egypt (image above, third down), to the New Orleans Museum of Art, which had wagered the loan of Ideal View of Tivoli by Claude Lorrain (above, bottom).

The major museums of the rival cities involved in this year’s Super Bowl have taken this idea (and a terrific one it is) into its second year.

The Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittburgh has wagered the loan of Renoir’s Bathers with a Crab on a Pittsburgh Steelers win, while the Milwaukee Art Museum has put up Boating on the Yerres by Gustave Caillebotte, betting that the Green Bay Packers will take the trophy.

Personally, I think Pittsburgh stands to get the better end of the deal; though Renoir is considered to be the more “significant” painter, I’d take the Caillebotte any day. (A choice between the Claude and the Turner from last year would be harder.)

At any rate it’s great fun, and raises the visibility of the museums and their collections in the midst of an event usually far removed from the art scene; so both museums come out winners.

Here’s Tyler Green’s article about this year’s bet. I’ve included links to some other articles covering the wager below.

We have a Super Bowl bet!, Tyler Green, Modern Art Notes
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Flavorwire
Art Daily
NYT
Boston.com
Fox Sports

Categories:
Gallery and Museum Art
Olga Dugina & Andrej Dugin (update)

January 27, 2011

When I wrote about the intricate, richly textured and wonderfully idiosyncratic illustrations of Olga Dugina & Andrej Dugin back in 2006, they did not have a dedicated web presence.

Since then, Dugin has established a website, Duginart, that represents both artists (they are married).

The Gallery has sections devoted to illustration by each artist, as well as the more familiar work done jointly, along with paintings and graphics by Dugin.

Unfortunately, the reproductions on their site are frustratingly small and don’t give an adequate feeling for the texture and detail in the work.

I stumbled across this unofficial post of some of their work, another here, an unofficial gallery here (click through twice to larger image), and there is also a selection here.

For the best look at their work, of course, see it in print. You can find several of the books they have illustrated on Amazon.

For more, see my previous post about Olga Dugina & Andrej Dugin

http://duginart.com
unofficial post
igrateney.ru
Unofficial gallery
My previous post about Olga Dugina & Andrej Dugin

Categories:
Gallery and Museum Art