Talking Portrait: Dan, age 7, accordion player

Here's a new "talking portrait," a video where I combine archival audio with sketchbook art. (Direct link to YouTube video). When my son was just starting out with the accordion, I interviewed him rather formally. Over the next few years, I sketched many of the heroes he talks about at the Irish concerts we attended.

Hey, Boston! Dan's band The Yanks will be performing tonight at 7:00 pm at the Burren in Somerville. More info here. Don't miss a rare treat—and see if you can get him to talk in that helium voice again.
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Listen to a free track of the Yanks new album here.

Fortunino Matania's feats of visual memory

When illustrator/reporter Fortunino Matania (1881-1963) was assigned to cover the coronation of Edward VII, no cameras were allowed in Westminster Abbey, and no sketchbooks or pencils either. Fortunately, Matania had a prodigious visual memory, and was able to reconstruct the entire occasion from notes that he jotted immediately following the event.

Matania's visual memory was put to the test in India, too, according Peter Richardson writing in the new issue of the British magazine Illustrators:

He was invited to accompany King George V and Queen Mary to India when they were installed as King-Emperor and Queen-Empress at the Delhi Durbar of 1911. Matania's resourcefulness on such occasions was also in a league unto itself. Such was the multitude of troops and onlookers at the event that there was little space allocated to the press. The majority of them were obliged to observe the proceedings through binoculars as the distant dignitaries shimmered and eddied into the searing heat. Matania, who had mapped out his preparatory work at the dress rehearsal, nevertheless wanted to get as close to the action as possible and managed to secure a position at the foot of the steps leading up to the Royal thrones. To ensure he remained as unobtrusive as possible, he had secured himself an Army uniform, remained rigidly at attention as he committed the whole scene in all its pomp and splendour to his photographic memory. He got the completed artwork back to London within a fortnight and the resultant artworks were considered so successful that he was honoured with a Coronation Medal.

Matania's career spanned a wide range of subjects, from scenes reconstructed from ancient history....

....to news events such as the sinking of the Titanic. This image, "Women and Children First" transfixed the public when it appeared in 1912. 

Matania went on to illustrate vivid scenes from the first World War, occasionally drawn on the battlefront, but more often reconstructed from sketches, interviews, and a powerful imagination.

Issue 3 is now available and also has feature articles on Peter Maddocks and Andy Virgil.

Order Illustrators Issue 3 at Illustration Quarterly
Matania original art and prints at Illustration Art Gallery
Book: Memory Drawing: Perceptual Training and Recall by Darren Rousar
Previously on GJ: Matania: Without a Net
Matania's Tone Paper Illustrations
Adventures of a Cross-Dresser

Early stop-motion with real insect characters

Above is a still from an early silent era stop-motion film made by the filmmaker Władysław Starewicz in 1912. Below is the film, called "The Cameraman's Revenge."

The stop-motion puppet actors are made from real insects, including a beetle, a dragonfly, and a grasshopper. 

This is just one of several strange pioneering stop-motion films. See some others at the Smithsonian blog 

Proko starts his figure drawing videos tomorrow

Over the last year, Stan Prokopenko, also known as "Proko" has produced some of the best online tutorials on head drawing.


Here's "How to Draw the Head from Any Angle" (Direct link to YT Video). Proko studied at the Watts Atelier starting when he was in high school, and later was a teacher there. His way of drawing and teaching is like a 21st century version of art instruction legend Andrew Loomis.

Now he is polishing up the next series, which will be on figure drawing (video link). The first episode of the new series will launch tomorrow.


For viewers who like getting their stuff free online, he is committed to continue producing short videos, but he also offers paid content that's longer and more comprehensive. There is already a DVD and download available of his head drawing material. The figure drawing videos will have premium versions available for a fee.
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The Proko YouTube Channel
Proko's website (for newsletter signups and products)
Book: "Creative Illustration" by Andrew Loomis

Enter the August portrait sketch competition in New York

The Grand Central Academy in New York will be hosting a Portrait Sketch Competition later this summer. Ten contestants will each paint six one-session portraits over the course of three days, from August 27-29. 

The portraits will be judged as a group. First place is $1500 and second place is $500. There's no application fee, and it's easy to enter, but just be sure you do so by July 1. Here's the link to the online application form.

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The painting above is by Sargent, who won't be in the running.

GCA Facebook page

GCA website

Portrait Sketch Competition website info page

Illustration Master Class 2013

Illustration Master Class is a summer workshop that takes place in Amherst, Massachusetts for artists in the field of imaginative realism.

(Link to video) Students paint in both traditional and digital media under the guidance of 15 faculty members, including (in order of appearance in the video): Rebecca Guay at 00:16, Dan Dos Santos & me painting at 00:26, Greg Manchess at 2:04, and Donato Giancola at 2:14. This year, the faculty also included Irene Gallo, Boris Vallejo, Julie Bell, Scott Fischer, Iain McCaig, Mike Mignola, Scott Allie, Mo Willems, and Peter de Sève. 

Thank you to all the students, too many to name here—for your many kindnesses—and for your bravery and your commitment to your vision.

To break up the long hours of work, there are lots of lectures and demos. Beside mine on the left is one by Iain McCaig in watercolor, Greg Manchess in pencil, and Dan Dos Santos in oil.

My demo was in casein, mostly painted with a half inch flat brush and a size 6 watercolor round in a Moleskine A4 watercolor journal. As I recall, I was using a limited palette of golden ochre, light red, raw umber, cobalt blue and white.

I was trying to go for that '60s look that the model Kita conveyed to me with her flaring collar and that nifty hairdo, which reminded me of Wilma from the Flintstones or Jane from the Jetsons.

For my fellow camera geeks, the video includes time lapse shots made with a GoPro camera set at five second intervals. It's mounted on a rotating kitchen timer.

The camera and timer are attached to a DIY motion control dolly pulled on a string by a geared-down Lego motor. It takes seven minutes to travel the length of the track.

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Illustration Master Class