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The Bath, (Ba ñ o or Jávea), 1905 by  Joaquín Sorolla y Bastida (Spanish, 1863–1923) This ebullient painting by Joaquín Sorolla is an example of the common principle: In the shadow, up-facing planes are cool and down-facing planes are warm. The shift from warm to cool occurs both in the figure in the foreground and in the rocks in the background. The reason for the shift in color temperature is that the up-facing planes pick up more of the sky color and the down-facing planes receive more of the ground color. The actual color mixture is a combination of the surface color of the skin and the color of the light striking it. One last thing to note is that the warm/cool shifts in the shadow planes can occur at nearly equal value, and it's often very effective to paint them that way. ------ Oil on canvas; 35 1/2 x 50 1/2 in. (90.2 x 128.3 cm) The painting is in the Metropolitan Museum collection, though not on view now. High res file available from Wikimedia Commons Sorolla book: Sorol

The practice of drawing landscapes in graphite pencil was probably more common in the 19th century than it is now, as most people nowadays think of plein-air work in terms of full-on painting.  William Trost Richards painted in oil, watercolor, and gouache, but he also did many graphite drawings, often in very small pocket-sized books. Trying to represent such things as complex tree silhouettes faithfully with pencil is good practice for painting them later. Here he sorts out the light and dark puzzle of the plank railing on a log bridge. The Metropolitan Museum has a large sampling of William Trost Richards' pencil, watercolor, and oil landscapes in their collection , which is available online. Here's a well-illustrated survey of his work, based on a recent museum show: William Trost Richards: True To Nature: Drawings, Watercolors and Oil Sketches

Courtroom Sketch Artist on Vimeo . The New York Times produced this video profile of Texas courtroom sketch artist Gary Myrick. The survival of the profession depends on the prohibition of cameras in the courtroom. As cameras get less obtrusive, those prohibitions are eroding. Defense witness in the Cullen Davis Trial, 1977. Art by Gary Myrick This woman was part of the defense in a trial. Myrick got in trouble for referring to her as the "1957 Cadillac." With the gradual disappearance of courtroom art, something else is lost. "Illustration is storytelling," Myrick says. "The difference between a camera in the courtroom and an artist might be the difference between just a cold, dry factual transcript, as opposed to a novel." ( Direct link to video ) via BoingBoing Previously on GurneyJourney: Jury Duty

Storyboard artist Marty Cooper , also known as Hombre McSteez, had a viral hit on his hands this week with his compilation of short videos that he made for Instagram . In each one, he holds up drawings made on transparent cels in front of a background environment. The apparent interaction makes them hilarious. Marty works for ReelFX and is a member of the ShrunkenHeadman Club of San Jose State University. Thanks to everyone who recommended this. ( Direct link to video )

 There are no doors on my studio. It's adjacent to my son's desk and the kitchen... a hop, skip and jump from my daughter doing her homework or making art. Sometimes I've wished for doors, but really having an "open studio" as a mom is ideal. It keeps me accessible and in the midst of the action, but with some room to breathe and surfaces to claim as my own! I'm continually thinking about how we create spaces for all of the shared and individual needs a family has.  I'm grateful for this flowing floor plan that invites my children to hang out together... and with me, instead of retreating behind doors. I hear that's what many big kids/teens do... hide in their rooms. Creating a welcoming environment is a key to keeping your kids close. Maybe taking some doors off hinges is a good idea too!  As you can imagine, I don't have very much time to myself these days... but when I do, it's my mission to hunt down the sometimes elusive maya*made... Insta

  A new graphic novel by the cousin team Jillian Tamaki and Marika Tamaki, This One Summer follows the friendship of two girls, Rosie and Windy during a summer they spend together at a lake house. Against the backdrop of family dramas and neighborhood crises, they go swimming, watch movies, dance, eat, and talk, trying to make sense the adult world from their perspective of preadolescence. Both the writing and the drawing are natural and well-observed, and the close pairing of word and pictures leads to moments of real poetry. Between 1964 and 2007, Life magazine editor Richard Meryman visited Andrew Wyeth and let him talk —with the tape recorder running. The resulting 400 hours of material were boiled down to a 126 page book called Andrew Wyeth: A Spoken Self-Portrait Wyeth's musings, together with a peppering of quotes from family, friends, and critics, gives a powerful insight into Wyeth's unconventional thinking. There are quite a few photos, paintings, and sketches includ

Here's a false motion illusion, caused by the cognitive effects of interacting color boundaries. It looks to me like the tentacles of a colorful creature. The tentacle you're not looking at is the one that slithers forward. Or you might see it as the feet of an Oopsidoofus as he slides his feet into his knitted socks. The effect usually happens best in the periphery of the retina. In this  peripheral drift illusion , the wheels seem to rotate when the eye scans text. Thanks, Christopher!

In recognition of this day for remembering people who died in war, I offer my painting " Sinking of the Cumberland " from the American Civil War.  I painted the image for  National Geographic  after reading many first hand accounts of the Battle of Hampton Roads, studying ship plans, and sketching artifacts remaining from the event.  The original painting currently hangs at the Mariners' Museum in Newport News, Virginia, where it's on long-term loan. Read about the making of the painting at the previous post  Sinking of the Cumberland Wikipedia on Hampton Roads  

People often distinguish hand-drawn animation from CG animation by referring to them as "2D" and "3D." This distinction leads naturally to the thought that hand-drawn animation is primarily concerned with shapes, silhouettes, and other flat graphic qualities. But really during the Golden Age of Animation in the 1930s and '40s, animators had to be very aware of 3D forms. When Disney animator T. Hee developed the caricatures for the short "Mother Goose Goes Hollywood," he thought of them in terms of dimensional volumes, based on spheroids, and seen from different angles. The mouth on the Katherine Hepburn model took a lot of special care because it's not just a flat downward crescent; it also goes back into the head, and he notes how far back it should go as seen in profile.  Here's the Silly Symphony from 1938, where you can see the caricatures in action. Look for Katherine Hepburn, The Marx Brothers, W. C. Fields, Charles Laughton, Spencer Tra

Here's a small spot illustration called "Strategy Session" that I did for the back cover of a  science fiction paperback  in the late 1980s, showing a group of interplanetary military types planning their next move. Here's the first concept sketch from imagination, drawn with a pen and markers. I did four or five of these sketches, and the art director and I chose this one with a red dot. The next step was to work out each of the creatures. I did this charcoal study of "Hammerhead" while wearing an old costume and looking in the mirror. Yeah, that's me posing. That's pretty much how I look when I try to pull an all-nighter. Here's another study on tone paper. I put on the costume, took the pose, and used two mirrors so that I could see myself in side view. The little planar study helped me focus on the big simple forms of the head. I like doing studies instead of taking photo reference not because I want to be low-tech and classical, but because

Viewer's Choice in the Spring 2014 Blogger’s Quilt Festival begins today! Amy would like to know which quilt is your absolute favourite from the entire show! Of course you could nominate your own, but it’s even more fun to nominate your favourite quilt made by someone else.  Find the url of your top pick, and add your favourite to the linky here .  When voting opens tomorrow, she will make the top 25 nominations visible. While you are there, leave a comment on that post to be entered to WIN a Baby Lock Melody sewing machine! Then tomorrow the Official Voting for your favorite quilts in the Spring 2014 Blogger’s Quilt Festival begins! Here are my entries: Modern Charm is in the Home Machine Quilted category and Kona Fox Kits is listed in the Small Quilts category.  You can vote for one quilt in each category.  There are 11 categories in which to vote. Modern Charm by Lorna McMahon of Sew Fresh Quilts To nominate for Viewers Choice, please copy this url to make your link. http

View of New Market Square, Dresden, Bernardo Bellotto, 1750 A veduta  (Italian for "view) is a classic panorama of a famous motif. Such view paintings acted as important records in an age before photography. People returning from the Grand Tour might want to buy a veduta of the Roman Forum or Venice. Vedute  paintings also served as tokens of civic pride to be displayed by the wealthy class, who also bought them in the form of engravings. Here's a painting from 1747 of "The River Thames from Richmond House" by Canaletto . Another example is the View of Delft by Vermeer. A subcategory of this genre was called the  veduta esatta – a view that's meant to be exact or accurate. Another subcategory is the veduta ideata  or capriccio, an idealized view with liberties taken from the actual scene. In this capriccio of Rome by  Giovanni Paolo Panini  from 1735, famous monuments have been shuffled around to fit the main attractions of Rome onto a single canvas.

Karen Quinn, a curator at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, suggests the possibility that Fitz Hugh Lane used a camera lucida in recording the topography of one of his seascape paintings. ( Direct link to video ) The hypothesis hinges on the presumed mechanical appearance of the drawing, and its alignment with the final painting (seen here in a superimposed image). In fact the images don't line up that closely, and the drawing has more of a searching than a tracing look to me. This example doesn't seem like a really solid case to me, but I wouldn't be surprised to see other examples that make a surer demonstration. ( Video link )

Scientists demonstrate a powerful new X-ray system that visualizes details beneath the surface in an Archaeopteryx fossil. ( Direct link to article ) (Thanks, Joanne)

 Berries will be returning soon. Any still left in the fridge are being added to the blender for this or that. Above is a favorite... frozen raspberries in lemonade! What a perfect way to celebrate these warmer days!  Yesterday I made a bunch of recycled paper flowers... another return of an old favorite! I forgot how fast and fun they are. They're always nice sprinkled around my Squam table, but I tend to give them away... I'm all stocked up again!