Fictional lands...

Illustration by James Gurney from Jouney to Chandara.

This morning I attended a presentation by James Gurney at the Columbus College of Art and Design. Better known as the creator of Dinotopia. An amazing illustrator, he gave a very detailed lecture about his illustration processes from plein air paintings, dressing up as his characters and taking some comical photo references, visiting store rooms of archeological museums, and getting private access to the Library of Congress' collection of millions of books. His work is really quite amazing and his daily blog holds a wealth of technical information for illustration and painting exercises as well as a history of illustration and academic realism. I regret not taking my son out of school for the afternoon to see his lecture, but I will be purchasing a copy the imaginative books for him to discover. I especially loved the detailed maps he created of his fictional reality and the imagined antiquarian journal where the story began.