[liv the fish]

"This is the Post that never ends
It just goes on and on, my friend
Someone started Posting not knowing what it was
And they'll go on Posting forever just because
This is the Post that never ends
It just goes on and on, my friend
Someone started Posting not knowing what it was
And they'll go on Posting forever because
This is the Post that never ends..."
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*This space for sale*

[Matthew]

Well, all this talk about Pyle made me interested so I was wondering where I can find some big pictures by him.
I tried search Google but could just find some museum pictures in pixel 100x100.

Links to some of pyle�s work would be really appreciated. :)

thank you
Matthew

[SolarC]

Wayne, I think that definition of art is more subjective matter than something you could read from a dictionary. Every artist seems to have more or less own relationship with art.

[Lunatique]

PLEASE let this thread die. It's begging for it. No more posting, PLEASE.

[Wayne Johnson]

I posted a link to a Pyle page in a message above. It's on page 4 of this discussion.

I have stated my opinion about art, which for the most part I seem to be the only one holding this opinion. Well then, following the hurd is the quickest road to mediocrity, so I guess I'm ok.

Later
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Art is long and time is fleeting.

Andrew loomis

[spline]

All these rules...What they say to me is that a Raytraced picture is perfect,
because it has made a perfect calculation of the light and form...

Or you can just use them as a guide...


7. Relationship of values is more correct in natural light than in any other.

No its not! Its just as correct in any other light, it just may not look as good.
If you are to paint a indoor scene you should not paint it in outdoor light, then
you will be wrong...

17. Contour cannot be continuously defined all around all units and a sense of space be achieved.

Thats not a truth, because there are very nice linedrawings which do give a sense of space...

Also you said that if you take a impressionistic painting and turn it into grey
it will all look like on big grey blob.

Well ofcourse it will, it was never meant to be looked at in greyscale!
That does not mean its a bad painting.

[Wayne Johnson]

spline,

I feel your missing the point. Why don't you spend the next few years understanding and studying Loomis before you just fly off the handle and denounce his work. How much of Loomis's work have you seen? For that matter, how much have any of you seen? You bash and argue and denounce the findings of great artists yet you yourselves have not even seen the work or read the theorys. You hate the idea of rules, and truth so much that you blind yourself to not see things that could make you better! You want to discover things that have been known for hundreds of years on your own! When your 80 and dieing and you come out of your studio and say "Hey I just figured out that if I connect all the darks in my composition I will create a natural visual pathway in my design!" and I'll say, "Duh, we have known that for about 600 years." Why don't some of you get off your ass's and just go out and see what has been done, and learn what has been learned.

John Pike was giving a watercolor demo, and after the demo an woman walked up to him and said "that was really fine, but you know, watercolor is just a happy accident." and Pike paused for a moment and said. "Why yes Madam it is, but I find the more often I practice, the more often the accident happens."

Pikes books are full of brush drills, and value studies and lessons on design.
academic knowlege, attached to empirical study = greater success as an artist. Take a look at some Pike Paintings, and study what he's done and see if it dosn't improve your own work.

Otherwise you will find life finished before it has begun.
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Art is long and time is fleeting.

Andrew loomis

[Matthew]

Oh I missed that link earlier, thank you there Wayne. :)

Matthew

[Jason_Manley]

[Wayne Johnson]

Jason,

I could not agree with you more. Thank you.
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Art is long and time is fleeting.

Andrew loomis

[Jason_Manley]

some comments were being made on how they eye sees vs the camera


you can break it down this simply....a camera will put an entire plane into focucs (lens and filters depending)....while they eyes focus within a particular plane, they have "peripheal falloff" as i call it....when one looks at a bottle for example...look at the letters or label...hold yer eyes there....now notice how that the focus softens gradually the farther into your peripheal vision you go....it softens into space...and around into peripheal of that same plane as the label....its almost like a sphere of falloff. focus softens in all directions from the POINT of focus. cameras do not do this well....only one lens to see with in a cam.

cameras do tend to flatten shapes...this is true....it is one lens...and thus has limited depth perception....two eyes...better depth perception...better three dimensional seeing.

understanding how your OWN eyes see can help you in your picture making...understanding what you feel based on what you sense can also help your picture making. open minds...open minds are gooood....and so are open eyes.

i do think that working from photography only will not help you understand what you are seeing and how your own eyes work....a key is to work from life...lots and lots....observation of the visual and the emotional is important to artistic growth....observation of form, thought...feelings...light...color...pattern....shape....all are things that we deal with as artists...everything we need to know is often right in front of us...or inside us....one must only look...and look....and draw...and paint...one can know about such things if that path is followed...intimately know about such things....that is when understanding happens.




j
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Jason Manley
www.conceptart.org

[spooge demon]

Hi Jason and Wayne

(some to Jason, mostly to Wayne)

What I am responding to is the assertions about ART with capitals. I am an illustrator, and I do not confuse my tastes with Art or any kind of universal ideals. I think people do what they like, and then invent a world with rules that place themselves at the top of things. Rationalization is what we humans do best. Do what you like and realize that that is what it is; it is not binding on anyone else. I think absolutists get frustrated with a relativist because a relative world makes it difficult to force people to worship them.

I had Burne Hogarth�s drawing class at school, from 9 to 4 once a week. The morning was given to endless nonsensical rants about Art with polysyllabic words he did not understand. I remarked to him once if we accepted his definitions he would be the greatest artist that ever lived. He said �of course I am!!� He was only half kidding.

If someone wants to be an illustrator like me, sure, I have always preached the fundamentals here, drawing, then values, then color, roughly speaking. But be aware that there are compromises, like everything else in life. This type of training will infect your thinking, and you will likely never escape it. I walk into a gallery and I can see a mile away who was an illustrator and who was not. It seeps in to the bones like a frog boiling to death. And this is even within the world of naturalistic art. If you value originality of conception as most important in art, stay away from learning �foundations.� If you like 19th century artists and illustrators, like I do, you cannot learn enough.

But please realize that you are paddling in a tiny backwater of the Art World. That is where I am and quite happy with it, thanks. There are many people who find Greatness in Art is different places than you, and you can�t say they are wrong, as they can�t say you are wrong.

A lot of it comes back to values. Which is the greater value, justice or mercy? Freedom or order? Originality or continuity? People have different answers to these questions, and that is fine. You might say there has to be an answer but there is not.

And Pyle�s rules are great, but in no way fundamental. They are applicable to a subset of illustrative styles. To say they underlie all Art is beyond na�ve. I would say drawing is a far more fundamental value within the tiny world of illustration, and there are many, many ways to draw. There are so many ways to show form, and if there is any underlying principle of naturalistic art, it is in the different ways to show form. Using value is a higher order system that is ignored successfully in many different illustrative styles. Pike�s work runs on shape, not really value. This is why, Wayne that I feel you are doing yourself a disservice by placing Pyles ideas so highly. And from the work you posted, you do not understand the principles he set forth, even in the copies.

And if you take a wider definition of illustration, as in visually expressing an idea, there are many ways to do this outside of anything Mr. Pyle ever dreamed of Look at some of the illustrator annuals from 60�s, 70�s. A lot of experimentation was going on with how to express a feeling or idea. That is your real job, and there are many interesting ways to do it.

I have said this before, but. how do you view Eastern Art? As primitive degenerate scribblings? Or a way of thinking that you know nothing of? If we accept your position that there are physiological principles that underlie all Art, we should see much more similarity between East and West than we do.

BTW You don�t see with your eyes, you see with your brain. The inverted shapes on the back of the retina have no meaning without the brain to interpret them.

[Matthew]

I find this thread more and more interesting. I really enjoy to read your observations of stuff Spooge and yours too Jason.
Spooge - You should really write a book, or have you already? I think you have some really good info to put in a book. :)

see you
Matthew

[saturnfive]

I second that, Spooge, you should write a book...and while you're at it, you could put some pictures in (not so as they get in the way of the text, mind)
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Saturnfive Design

[amichaels]

I just wish Wayne would put his money where his mouth is, so to speak. You can talk about it til you're blue in the face, but it doesn't MEAN ANYTHING unless you can apply it to what you are doing. What few artworks I did see did not impress me. They were simply, average.

[iandredd]

A Spooge -ahem- book would be a garuanteed money spinner . And no doubt a jolly good read also. My comment on this thread? Eskimo.

[Light]

WOW

This makes my head spin. I can't discuss art so much before it would require too many pages for me to be precise, and accurate, and I couldn't bother to read all of this anyway.

Loomis = good but overrated (imo only seen his book though)
Hogarth = good but overrated (imo only seen his bookt hough)


Wayne, it seems you keep talking about value though.. Well most people know that the angle of a light ray hitting a surface will light it up as associated to the vector of its ray and the normal of the surface (I think the so).

I don't know. But basically light strikes surface like a RAY and the more the surface is turned to the light then the more it will be hit. You know so dividing a surface up into planes can allow one to shade it properly.

Of course, light is more tricky then this too as you have bounce light etc etc etc.. Light is very complicated and I don't understand it.

If you want to learn about value then study Craig's paintings. He's rreally good at painting as "artist should see it" Or just use photoshop to color reduce pictures and see it.

There are many value sets that can represent an image. Now one that is interesting I think is if form can seperated from value. Some people say yes and some people say no. Or at least this is how I feel about it. IE. it is possible to draw geometric shapes entirely proper (I call this structural drawing) and then shade based on light sources but the resulting shapes will often times be far different. So can line be separeted from value. I guess it depends on how you work.

Anyway regarding your art ideas, I don't really want to go into that. I try to be quite open myself.

Now, regarding what you stated about the focus of the eye, and real vision. You are very right. The eye has circular focus, and the rest of a phenomenal view field is blurred out. However, I don't think this can work as well in a painting unless the painting is very large, and the viewer location is fixed. Also, this is under normal conditions. There may be other phenomenal view fields the brain is capable of. (actually I can state with good certainty that there are other phenomenal view fields beyond the normals)

I don't think focal bluring is as effective in a painting when the entire painting is encompassed within the field-of-view.

Anyway, btw your paintings look better when I squint my eyes. Much better then I thought they were but..... still they need more finish. Or not many people will realize just how good your paintings are.


Uh anyway.. I don't really know why I wrote this...

Anyway you can read my post for my theories on art... they might help you too. But yeah breaking an image down into basis shapes, values, etc is well known and understood.

I didnt know who Pyle was but I'll look him up and try to figure out if there is anything extra to your theory.. maybe you are saying something about the seperating of value from shape or something.

Anyway, I think my theories will encompass all other theories anyway.

[Les Watters]

After reading and understanding most of what was said, not all, just most, I believe that the academic study of Pyle and Loomis should be taken up by a novice art beginner, along with seriouse study from life. I see nothing wrong with that as a base. If you look at the work of Pyle and Loomis you see that they are more qualified to teach than any one here.
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When in doubt, black it out.

Wally Wood

[AndyT]

I love the way Loomis writes and explains things in his books.
Maybe it's the only point where I disagree with Craig Mullins.
There's something about Loomis that he doesn't like. Seems to be something personal.

But I'm sure Craig could write even better (and up-to-date) books.
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http://www.conceptworld.org

[jHof]

This is all great interesting lengthy disccusion(Minus Wayne's comments.). I think this Wayne Johnson is someone else from the forums just being a troll and wasting other peoples time though.

Just a thought.

[JOSHUATHEJAMES]

This is a great thread. Thanks to everyone for the read.

-Joshua
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www.joshuathejames.com

Coming Soon...
SW: Fading Oasis!

[Malachi Maloney]

Sorry I had to resurrect this thread (someone slap me), but this was a great read.


~M~
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l i q u i d w e r x

[skullmonkeys]

A slap to you MM and a slap to me for taking the time to read it.

*scratches head*

[Lunatique]

What evil spirit possessed you to resurrect this thread?

[Malachi Maloney]

The one in my butt...

What?! Some interesting stuff was said.


~M~
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l i q u i d w e r x