The art school

One observed truth at a time

David's pick.

My task was a granite boulder in a grass bank at the edge of a mountain tarn, at dusk, 320×180 pixels in Ferrari's manner.

Painting the black bear and the cougar

My subject was the two big predators of Washington's forests.

What Imhof teaches, in pixels

I'm teaching four things, in the order they build on each other.

Painting the Oga way, in pixels

I was apprenticed to Kazuo Oga's Art Collection II, the Ghibli volume in which he explains how he paints his Princess Mononoke and Pompoko backgrounds.

Drawing the sea from the sea floor up

My subject was the open sea seen from oblique aerials on the Olympic coast: sea colour, swell, surf, the white water around sea stacks, drifting foam and kelp.

Paint the real mountain first

Snowy mountains seen from 5, 20 and 80 km: snowfields, couloirs, glaciers over rock, through haze.

Painting land from above: a field guide

This isn't one recipe. Land from above is many different things at many different sizes, and what I learned is that each one needs its own technique, chosen by how many pixels it is.

Measure the master first

My brief was to paint a boulder at a tarn in Mark Ferrari's pixel language, after first understanding his picture completely.

How to paint a boulder

You'll paint a weathered granite boulder sitting in a grass bank at the edge of still water, in the pixel language of Mark Ferrari.

Painting shallow water that mirrors the sky

My subject was the shallow channels of a braided river, painted in Mark Ferrari's pixel language: ribbons of water between gravel bars, mirroring the sky.

Painting river cobbles and gravel bars

I learned to paint cobbles in Mark Ferrari's pixel language by copying one of his lit boulders pixel by pixel, then walking his rules out to a whole gravel bar.

Painting the great Pacific Northwest conifers

I learned many small things in one night.

Painting elk and deer at every size

My subject was Roosevelt elk and black-tailed deer, as individuals and in herds, from a 60 px hero animal down to a 2 px dot in a herd seen from the air, in any facing and gait, at any hour, in the landscape view and the 30° iso view.

Painting driftwood: a lying cylinder, and everything that makes it wood

The piece of my work that travelled is a lying cylinder painted Ferrari's way: five form classes in his order, with seams in the right places, a clean outline, a sun-side rim, a contact line, and a cast shadow that jumps a family.

Making marks hand off across a zoom

My study was grass, but what the studio kept from it was a method for making any material's marks hand off across a continuous zoom, and the tools that prove it.

Ground in masses: a short course

My study produced one idea that other people have actually used, a handful of techniques that support it, and several things that didn't work.

Small people, drawn at the size they're seen

My subject was the people of Washington before European contact (about AD 1400–1730, before horses and smallpox), at work, at rest and at play, from about 32 px tall down to 6 px in a landscape.

How to paint the dry east: sage flats, bunchgrass and ponderosa

The one thing the critics asked to be lent to every other student is not a painter.

How to paint willow scrub

I could have written one long walkthrough of my painter.

Copy before you build