The American artist and author James Gurney comes from a long line of imaginative engineers who believed in drawing. “Everything begins with drawing,” his father told him. “If you can draw something, you can create it.”
In this beautifully produced video Gurney tells the behind-the-scenes story of how he developed the imaginary 19th century civilization in his remarkable illustrated Dinotopia books, where dinosaurs never became extinct and went on to live side by side with humans. He specializes in painting “realistic images of scenes that can’t be photographed, from dinosaurs to ancient civilizations”. Gurney is also a dedicated plein air painter and sketcher, and believes that drawing and painting from observation fuels the imagination. For more about Gurney and his astonishingly imaginative artwork, visit his web site here
Amazing Cynthia I saw the programmes on tv but never knew about him and those amazing imaginative drawings . Thanks for the link
Harriet
Harriet, thank you for your comment. I like the idea that James Gurney’s father and grandfather held drawing in such high regard even though they weren’t artists themselves. It was curiosity and the desire to know how things work that led them to draw.