Tag: illustration

Daniel Urrabieta Vierge 1851-1904

Armand Cabrera

by
Armand Cabrera

Daniel Urrabieta Vierge was born in Madrid, Spain on March 5, 1851. His Father Vincent was also a professional artist and he encouraged Daniel to draw from the time he was three. Vierge was rarely without his drawing tools after that age. At thirteen he was entered into the Academy in Madrid and studied under Francisco Pradilla y Ortiz, Federico Madrazo and José Villegas Cordero. Vierge received his first assignment when he was sixteen illustrating  Madrid la Nuit.

With money from his work he decided to move to Paris to study painting but the outbreak of the Franco Prussian War kept him from entering the academies there. Instead he chronicled the war and sold the illustrations to Le Monde Illustre and other periodicals. By the age of 21 he was a highly sought after illustrator of books and magazines.

Vierge is considered the father of modern illustration. He worked to incorporate his illustrations into the text and  he helped develop a process to copy the art directly to a plate for printing avoiding the translation of a wood engraver.  This produced a line quality unique in the publishing world a the time. Vierge worked in Guache, pen and pencil. His ink work was done with a glass pen on Bristol Board. His working method was to always sketch from life, quick vignettes of everything around him. These sketchbook illustrations would be used as the basis for his professional work. He rarely used models for assignments having so much information collected over the years. His facile handling and expressive, fliud line work kept him one of the most sought after illustrators of his day.
 His largest assignment was Michelet’s History of France containing 1000 drawings in  26 volumes. Vierges best known work was to be Pablo De Segovia. Vierge would create 110 illustrations for the book. After completing the first 90 illustrations he had a stroke which left him paralyzed on the right side of his body, unable to draw and with short term memory loss; he was 30 years old.
Vierge spent almost ten years retraining his left hand to draw as well as he could with his right. The second edition of Pablo De Segovia had all 110 illustrations; the last twenty finished by Vierge left handed; they are indistinguishable from his earlier work. He had to have someone repeat the passages to him over and over again while he drew them because of his memory loss which eventually was cured.
    
In 1889 he was awarded a gold Medal at the Paris Exhibition for his work on Pablo De Segovia. His last work was the four volume set of Don Quixote, creating 75 illustrations for Cervantes Classic. Vierge never regained the use of his right hand. Daniel Vierge died at Boulogne-sur-Seine in May 1904 at the age of 53.
Google books has free complete copies of some of the books illustrated by Vierge including On the Trail of Don Quixote and Don Quixote. The books are in .pdf format complete with all of the illustration albeit in slightly fuzzy scans.
Bibliography
Daniel Urrabieta Vierge in the collection of the Hispanic Society of America
Elizabeth du Gué Trapier
New York, 1936
Pablo De Segovia the Spanish Sharper
Fransico De Quevedo
London 1892
Quote
Work is the greatest fun in the whole world it is the only fun I want to  have.
~Daniel Vierge

Observation, Construction and Visualization

Armand Cabrera

by Armand Cabrera

Observational painting directly from nature opens your eyes to a world filled with color and light. There are very few situations outside that shadows aren’t filled with ambient and reflected light. Colors of local objects are affected in unusual and unpredictable ways. The organic groupings of rocks and the undulating flow of the landscape are always more interesting than imagined.

There is a drawback to observational painters though; the information is overwhelming at first. Learning to translate the 3d image of what you see is harder than copying a 2d photo. It is hard to decide what to use and what to ignore. The organic patterning of trees and other elements are hard to organize. Too many easel painters don’t transcend the observational aspects of painting. They cannot construct what they cannot copy. They lack the basic knowledge of construction to elevate their drawings past the mundane.Until they learn to visualize their compositions tend to be weak always depending on what is in front of them, whether a figure model or scene.

In the book on the biography of the Payne’s, Edgar’s daughter Evelyn remembers “He sometimes planned his studio painting in the evening; he very often sketched penciled compositions as he sat listening to the radio. They were little composition sketches, working out artistic problems. It was interesting to watch him draw; his hands moved very rapidly, and he held his Venus 6B pencil in the same fashion you would hold a piece of charcoal when drawing on canvas…” What she is talking about is construction and visualization.

A constructive approach is the one often used by comic book, illustrators and production artists. In these industries many times you learn the rules governing perspective and anatomy and construct the scenes out of your head. Color schemes follow strict rules of theory to maximize impact. Little time is spent using models under real world lighting conditions if at all.

Visualization is also used in these disciplines, creating worlds, creatures and characters from the imagination or scenes from antiquity. The skill is an important one in painting and drawing because it allows for manipulation of elements to suit the image. Artists are not tied to something observed and more focus can go toward design and composition.

The problems arise when people rely too much on these systems for a completed painting and ignore observation. A lack of understanding of how light actually works or natural effects really look can over simplify a scene. Too many illustrators ignore real world observation and use only construction and visualization for their subjects, relying solely on these skills which can never match the lighting in a real world situation. Their lighting is simplistic with the shadows too dark and their colors too saturated and color combinations monochromatic.

NC Wyeth maintained his plein air painting his whole life he incorporated impressionist observational studies into his illustrations to great success. His illustrations were painted using the places he knew giving them life.

Painting from life doesn’t just benefit the easel painter. Construction and visualization are not just good tools for the illustrator or the painter of historical subjects. Any painter serious about their painting should incorporate all three of these skills in their work. It requires a lifetime of dedication and practice.

Combining all three, visualization, construction and observation will take your art to the next level and your paintings can only improve no matter what the final use for them is.

 Top two images Edgar Payne
Bottom two images N.C. Wyeth

Artistic Integrity

Armand Cabrera

By Armand Cabrera

 

As an artist I love the process of painting. I’ve always taken an illustrative approach to my painting in that I painted anything people would hire me to paint. Commissions were a partnership entered into with the idea someone was hiring me to give them my vision of the agreed upon subject. The client’s participation stopped at the edge of the canvas and the rest was up to me. They had right of first refusal on the work but they didn’t have the right to stand over me and guide my decisions as I painted like puppet masters pulling the strings for every aspect of the art, from subject to style of execution.

Even as an illustrator or production artist I expect to be hired for my knowledge not just my wrist. I am not for hire to render someone else’s vision; it has to be a collaboration or it’s not worth my time and effort. In the last few years people seem genuinely shocked by my stance. I guess the downturn took more than money out of the economy it also took many artists self-respect with it.

I am not talking about large projects that require multiple artists to complete them like television series’, movies or games. In those instances the project style requires consistency. I’m talking about smaller projects like ad campaigns, illustration assignments or gallery work that is completed by a single artist.

I believe if you hire an artist you have a responsibility to be familiar with their work. If you want to have a painting in a certain style of a living artist, then hire that artist. Don’t hire someone to be a stand in for that artist. If you can’t afford the original artist then then hire an artist whose work you can afford but let them paint it in their own style.

I think it is our responsibility as artists and illustrators to buck this trend. Who wants to be known as the guy who paints like (fill in the blank) only at a cheaper rate? Do you even have a career if all you are is a wrist for hire by people who can’t draw and paint?

Do you agree or disagree?