Gurney's Imaginative Realism

As an avid reader of James Gurney's blog, I keenly wanted to read his book Imaginative Realism: How to Paint What Doesn't Exist. Gurney is the creator of Dinotopia, a gorgeously rendered tale of a discovered world where dinosaurs and humans live in peaceful co-existence. He also worked for National Geographic for a number of years. Imaginative Realism is written in small vignettes no longer than three pages and contains lots of illustrations.

Most of the "lessons" have been covered on his blog, but I still picked up several useful hints. Apparently, Gurney extensively uses tone paper to study models before adding them to his larger designs. In addition, I had never heard of a mahl stick, but it's use (to keep one's hand from grazing the wet painting surface) is obvious.

Gurney's upcoming instruction book, Color and Light, is slated to be published in November. I am eager to read it!