There are artists.
There are teachers.
There are art teachers.
And then there is James Gurney.
I have no doubt that all of my readers know who James is, but if not you can read his full bio here.
James, through his blog, books and appearances, is one of those artists who thrives on giving their knowledge to others. Since 2007 he has authored almost 2500 posts on his blog, most of which are instructional and all in good humor. Back in 2009 he was kind enough to write the introduction for my reprint of E. G. Lutz’s Drawing Made Easy.
Recently, he wrote the introduction to Dover’s reprint of Solomon J. Solomon’s The Practice of Oil Painting and Drawing. Solomon’s book, like Harold Speed’s books, needs to be read by every aspiring representational painter.
Since their release, his books, Imaginative Realism: How to Paint What Doesn’t Exist and Color and Light: A Guide for the Realist Painter have consistently been on Amazon’s top ten list in the painting category. There is a very good reason for that.
We’ve never met, although I imagine that one day I’ll be out for a walk somewhere and come upon him, hard at work, creating one of his amazing plein air paintings.
I look forward to that day.
Darren R. Rousar studied privately with Richard Lack and attended Atelier LeSueur, both in Minnesota, as well as Studio Cecil-Graves in Florence, Italy. He was the assistant director and an instructor at Charles Cecil Studios in Florence, after which he became vice president of The Minnesota River School of Fine Art in Burnsville. He has been a professional artist for more than 20 years, focusing mainly on Christian themes. Darren is currently an art teacher, technology coordinator/coach at Providence Academy in Plymouth, MN. He is the author of three books, Cast Drawing Using the Sight-Size Approach and Cast Painting Using the Sight-Size Approach and Memory Drawing: Perceptual Training and Recall as well as the producer of a companion DVD, Sight-Size and the Art of Seeing. Through his company, Velatura Press, he republished an expanded edition of E.G. Lutz's 1921 book, Drawing Made Easy and edited a combined reprint of Asher B. Durand's 1855 Letters on Landscape Painting with Birge Harrison's 1910 Landscape Painting.
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See If You Can Help
Clearly, sight is very important to all of us. But not everyone sees clearly and not everyone can afford eye care and glasses.
Books and DVD
Memory Drawing teaches you how to visually perceive and accurately recall those perceptions.
Landscape Painting by Asher B. Durand and Birge Harrison, together in print for the first time.
Sight-Size is a way of seeing and comparing nature to your artwork from a given distance. The books and DVD shown below explain it in detail.
Children and young adults can learn constructive drawing through Velatura Press' reprint of E.G. Lutz's 1921 classic, Drawing Made Easy.
