XVIVO Blog

The vocabulary of art

Posted August 16th, 2010 by Michael

Thank you for all the online and offline compliments on my previous posting.  It is my hope that I can shed some light on the realist tradition that so many artistic hopefuls lack… to give an appreciation for the vocabulary of art.

I receive dozens of portfolios a month from recent grads and honestly, most of them stink. It is very sad to realize that these students go through four year programs and many even get advanced two year degrees and somehow they never learn basic art technique.  At the end of all that study a large percentage of students still can’t paint, either in pigment or with pixels, a faithful representation of reality.

The residual effects of modernism is still alive and well in many art programs and that trend is doing a great disservice to many art students and visualizers alike. I recognize that there are many excellent schools that produce extremely talented artists, but there are far too many programs that ignore basic art training. This is particularly harmful In the world of 3d animation where students need to have a strong foundation in realism. Understanding the vocabulary of art…light, shadow, value, chroma, edge, line, shape, composition, etc is essential to excel in their career. But all too often, students today only learn to paint what they feel and thus technique becomes irrelevant.

This “paint what you feel” teaching method might inspire the latest modern art trend…but it will never properly develop a realist artist.

So if you want to be a 3d artist, and your teacher is asking you to paint what you feel…run as fast as you can to a real art school.

Art vocabulary can be learned.  Through training and practice, students can develop an artist’s eye.

This artist’s eye is similar to a musicians ear. Where a musician has the ability to hear a chord and know the notes, major or minor, diminished and so on…The artist’s eye can discern hue, value, chroma, form, plane, edge, etc.  Understanding and putting into practice this vocabulary of art is the necessary first step to becoming a competent artist.

-mike

Posted by Michael in Inspiration, Stuff & Nonsense

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Airbrushed portraits using a controlled palette

Posted August 10th, 2010 by Michael

Just got back from a week in Portland Oregon, where I visited family and participated in the annual AMI (Association of Medical Illustrators) meeting. I was so impressed with the fun, bright and creative people who make up the AMI.

It was really interesting to learn how many of you came to where you are now…it’s certainly a varied route we all take.

My own path, that everyone seemed to find unusual (in a good way) …was via: Airbrush T-shirt artist -to- traditional artist -to- a medical artist

While still airbrushing I studied classical technique. At this time, I modified the typical neon T-shirt airbrush palette to a “controlled palette” consisting mostly of opaque flesh tones and a few transparent colors for glazing. This odd technique gave me a bit of notoriety in the airbrush world…

And since you were all so nice sharing your techniques and ideas, I wanted to give something back…

In this “how to” video i use a controlled palette to paint a portrait of Sir Patrick Stewart (Jean Luc Picard.)

Don’t be fooled by medium of the T-shirt…there is some real art knowledge in this video.

BTW, this was done in 1997 so please ignore the big glasses!

Enjoy!

-mike

Posted by Michael in Inspiration, Stuff & Nonsense, Visualization Resources

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The artist’s mind

Posted October 22nd, 2009 by Michael

Portrait of My Father

Steven, an old friend and I made facebook contact after 30 years, he was surprised I became an artist. Perhaps he forgot that I was doodling constantly in school but more likely he was surprised because he thinks, as many people do, that artists have a difficult time making a living…the “starving artist stereotype”

I thought I would try to answer him through my first blog post.

He said, “My wife and I are trying to figure out what her (his daughter) career possibilities are in the art world since we don’t understand too well. Maybe you can give some advice.”

Before I go into the practical side of being an artist I thought it would be good to ramble a bit about what I think makes a good realist artist first…then we can get to all that career stuff.

I was trained as a classical artist, in the Frank Reilly technique…value, line, color, edge, plane, form, composition etc. I was instructed to not paint what I feel, but rather paint what I see. And learn to see I did.

I guess before my classical training when thinking of a leaf, my mind would fix upon a bland green spear shape thing with little resemblance to an actual leaf. As Lao-Tzu said “the five colors make a man blind, the five tones make a man deaf” But while studying and painting and drawing I began to see a “leaf”, with a multitude of colors, patterns, textures …and it was beautiful.

This is mindful observation.

The artist in seeing this way can begin to represent, as my business partner David says, “the truth and beauty” in life.

This artist can see the patterns and beauty of life. Through this type of observation the quieting of the labeling, judging mind happens immediately.

This state of mind does not come easy, but through proper training, and experience an artist can realize their best work.

This state of observation must be coupled with intense study in how to represent what you can now see. Classical art technique has been taught for hundreds of years and some of the best schools still teach these techniques. It is no easy task to become an artist, it takes talent, dedication and a lot of practice!

I know …just food for thought, but I promise Steven, I’ll try my best to answer your question next time.

- mike a

Links to Frank Reilly

http://www.dhfa.net/Artiststatement2.html

http://todaysinspiration.blogspot.com/2008/05/frank-reilly-could-teach-wooden-indian.html

http://apollodorian.tripod.com/

Posted by Michael in Stuff & Nonsense

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China’s First Annual International Scientific Animation (SciAn) Festival

Posted October 20th, 2009 by David

August 8th, 2009 inaugurated China’s First Annual International Scientific Animation (SciAn) Festival, in Guiyang.

It all began three summers ago in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where I had been invited to speak at the Red Stick Animation Festival. I had noticed, and was subsequently introduced to, a lively and friendly Chinese gentleman named Wang Liuyi. I came to know and like Liuyi, first during a reception at the festival and subsequently through numerous emails.

Formerly an international journalist for a Chinese government publication (meaning he was allowed to travel extensively overseas – a rarity in his day), Liuyi eagerly attended every Red Stick session and took copious notes. Besides enjoying our conversations (on events and politics in China, from my perspective and recent US history through his), I found out that Liuyi was intent on founding China’s first international animation and cartoon festival. Attending the Red Stick Festival was part of his research. Liuyi had been having this conversation with another new friend of mine from Red Stick, Sander Johnson, an LA based entrepreneur with broadcast relationships in China.

Be careful what you ask for. It may be delivered on a platter!

Sander was instrumental in the difficult gestation and birth of Wang Liuyi’s first, tiny, AYACC (Asian Youth Animation and Comics Contest) in Guiyang in the summer of 2007. Sander enlisted my help to fly over and serve as a lecturer in Scientific Animation for last summer’s 2008 AYACC. Sander and I noted numerous growing pains and much growth potential for the AYACC and between us we convinced Liuyi that there should be a separate category for scientific animations in future AYACC Festivals. Liuyi, a person of great persuasive skills and a wonderful imagination, countered that if Sander and I wanted to, ‘we could run’ our OWN separate International Scientific Animation Festival in Guiyang!

Liuyi volunteered regional support from the provincial Guizhou government as well as municipal financial and services support from the city of Guiyang. The city of Guiyang refurbished and donated a building, converted from an abandoned factory, to house both our festival and a soon-to-be-established animation school. He even offered to furnish Chinese animation industry and academic participation. Liuyi ended up getting us support from five of the six ministries from Beijing, including Science and Industry and Education, with a promise to bring in the Ministry of Health, and a liaison with the Beijing open University, through its president.

Heady stuff, and I am getting ahead of my story, but that is how Sander and I became co-chairmen of the Chinese International SciAn Festival.

So, after a year of communications, brainstorming, rule and entry form-writing and endless defining of terms, conditions and terminology over a twelve hour time difference, we had a Festival, a Contest, and a Panel of Speakers and a built-in audience, as our first year was to be held under the umbrella of (and concurrent with) the AYACC, a now robust three-year-old festival.

I was fortunate to be able to bring into the mix two speakers who (along with Sander and me) doubled as animation entry judges: Jane Hurd and Dr. Elizabeth Rega, who are long-standing friends of mine, who are each at the top of their industry. Jane Hurd is a medical illustrator whom I have had the pleasure of knowing and learning from, for 30 years, and who, as founder of Hurd Studios was both my competitor and collaborator for much of that time. Beth and I met at TED MED II in 2002. She is an Associate Professor of Anatomy at the Western University of Health Sciences in Pomona, California, and has had a long-standing advisory position with several movie studios, including the Disney Company. Beth is instrumental in making sure that the anatomical and anthropological details in movies as diverse an Mulan, Pocahontas and The Jungle Book maintain correct racial morphology in their drawn characters.  Beth’s husband Dr. Stuart Sumida, an anthropologist who has also advised on many movies, from The Invisible Man to Bolt, had been responsible for my speaking at Red Stick (all your fault Stu!), and will be a judge (fingers crossed!) next summer.

Flash forward to August, 2009 and you can read a report on China’s First Annual International Scientific Animation (SciAn) Festival, and the list of award winners, in our News section.

Posted by David in Inspiration, Talks & Travels

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