For those who can’t make it to those, there are my books and videos, and plenty of free content on blog posts. I’ll be doing some teaching and demoing at the Portrait Society Conference this spring, and at the Denver Botanical Gardens and the SKB Workshop in Wyoming this fall (2016). I’ve lectured at lots of art schools, and I teach a few workshops. I learned on the job, working with Ralph Bakshi, Frank Frazetta, and Thomas Kinkade. I got a job as a background painter for animated films, and that started the ball rolling. I had just enough money saved up to move to Los Angeles and my goal was to learn to paint.

I lived in a bad neighborhood and often rolled in late on my unicycle wearing the gorilla mask and a security guard uniform, and I never had any problems.īy the time I finished college, I had taught myself to draw fairly well, but I couldn’t paint yet.

In my spare time from college work, I made a latex gorilla mask with realistic resin teeth. I fell in love with archaeology and paleontology, because of the deep mysteries of those fields. At first when I started at the university I thought I’d be a medical illustrator, but I abandoned that when I started doing illustrations for the anthropology museum and I discovered archaeology. So I put off art school and spent four years at the University of California, Berkeley, studying a little of everything. I wanted to be an artist early on, but I was worried that if I went to study illustration right away, I might miss out on those other interests. I also loved science and writing in high school. Escher and Norman Rockwell in middle school, and they taught me how art can reach people through the printed page. Wyeth because they had the best pictures in them. Qn: Will you be able to let our readers know more about you and your artistic journeys?Īs a kid I loved the old adventure classics illustrated by Howard Pyle and N.C. We have invited James today to share with us some of his paintings and the art-tools that he uses, as well as offer some tips for aspiring artists. He co-authored The Artist’s Guide to Sketching, in 1981 and is also the author behind the well known illustrated book series Dinotopia, as well as Imaginative Realism, and Color and Light. James is a full-time painter who paints in both oils and water media, and is a lifelong sketcher. Originally from California, James is based in the Hudson Valley of New York State. For this installment of Art Tools and Gears, we have guest artist James Gurney from the USA with us.

James gurney national geographic