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About James Gurney

Born in California in 1958, the son of a mechanical engineer, he taught himself to draw by reading books about the illustrators Norman Rockwell and Howard Pyle. He studied archaeology at the University of California at Berkeley, receiving a degree in anthropology with Phi Beta Kappa honors.

Prompted by a cross-country adventure on freight trains, he coauthored  The Artist’s Guide to Sketching  in 1982. During the same period, he worked as a background painter for the animated film  Fire and Ice,  co-produced by Ralph Bakshi and Frank Frazetta.

His freelance illustration career began with paperback book covers, where he developed his characteristic realistic renderings of fantastic scenes, often using posed models and handmade maquettes for reference. His has worked on more than a dozen assignments for National Geographic magazine, painting reconstructions of Moche, Kushite, and Etruscan civilizations.

The inspiration that came from researching these scenes of ancient life led to a series of lost world paintings, including ”Dinosaur Parade” and ”Waterfall City.” With the encouragement of retired publishers Ian and Betty Ballantine, he committed two years’ time to writing and illustrating  Dinotopia: A Land Apart from Time,  which was published in 1992. Solo exhibitions of his artwork have been presented at The Smithsonian Institution, The Norman Rockwell Museum, The Norton Museum of Art, The Delaware Art Museum, and other venues. He is a popular lecturer at art schools, movie studios and game companies, and he teaches occasional workshops. His  book,  Color and Light: A Guide for the Realist Painter  (2010) was Amazon’s #1 bestselling book on painting for over 52 weeks and is based on his daily blog gurneyjourney.blogspot.com.

Books by James Gurney

Selected illustration work, postage stamp art.

"Australia's Age of Dinosaurs" 5 stamps for Australia Post, 2013

“Sickle Cell Awareness,” commemorative stamp for USPS, issued Sept. 30, 2004. “The World of Dinosaurs,” commemorative pane of 15 stamps, issued May 1, 1997 in Grand Junction, CO. 219,000,000 produced. “Settling of Ohio, Northwest Territory, 1788,” postal card, issued 1988.

Selected Lecture Venues

Articles by james gurney.

Bimonthly column in International Artist, 2007-present

“James Gurney Masterclass: Atmospheric Effects: Part 1,” International Artist, Feb./Mar. 2011 “James Gurney Masterclass: Part 10,” International Artist Magazine, Dec./Jan. 2011 “James Gurney Masterclass: Part 9,” International Artist Magazine, Oct./Nov. 2010 “Terrible-Lizard-Happy-Dream-Kingdom: The Origins of Dinotopia,” Phi Beta Kappa Magazine, Fall 2010. “The Science Behind Visual Perception,” ImagineFX Magazine, September 2010. “James Gurney Masterclass: Part 8,” International Artist Magazine, Aug./Sept. 2010 “James Gurney Masterclass: Part 7,” International Artist Magazine, June/July 2010 “James Gurney Masterclass: Part 5 & 6,” International Artist Magazine, Apr./May 2010 “James Gurney Masterclass: Part 3 & 4,” International Artist Magazine, Feb./Mar. 2010 “James Gurney Masterclass: Part 2,” International Artist Magazine, Dec./Jan. 2010 “25 Steps to a Lived-In Future,” ImagineFX Magazine, December 2009 “James Gurney’s 10 Tips for Realistic Dinosaurs,” Prehistoric Times Magazine, Fall 2009 “James Gurney Masterclass: Part 1,” International Artist Magazine, Oct./Nov. 2009 “Asher Durand: Plein-Air Pioneer,” Plein Air Magazine, Apr. 2005 “Recreating History for National Geographic,” Step-By-Step Graphics, Volume 6, Number 7, 1990.

Selected Articles About James Gurney

Selected awards, selected solo museum exhibitions.

2019 Into the Unknown: A Journey through Science Fiction, Barbican Centre, London (6 Dinotopia paintings)

2015 Dinotopia: The Fantastical Art of James Gurney, Stamford Museum and Nature Center, CT 
 2013 Dinotopia: The Fantastical Art of James Gurney, Arkell Museum, Canajoharie, NY 2013 Dinotopia: Art, Science, and Imagination, The New Hampshire Institute of Art, Manchester, NH 2012-13 Dinotopia: Art, Science, and Imagination, The Lyman Allyn Art Museum, New London, CT 2011 Dinotopia: Journey to Chandara, the Paintings of James Gurney,” The Alden Dow Museum of Science and Art, Midland, MI

2010 Da Chandara al’ Antico Egitto, Palazzo Ducale, Lucca Comics & Games, Italy

2010 Dinotopia: The Fantastical Art of James Gurney, Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, FL 2010 Dinotopia: The Fantastical Art of James Gurney, Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington, Delaware 2009 Retour à Dinotopia, Festival International de Science-Fiction De Nantes, France 2009 Return to Dinotopia, Centre for Life, Newcastle, UK 2008-9 Retour à Dinotopia, Maison d’Ailleurs, Yverdon, Switzerland 2007 Return to Dinotopia, Oshkosh Public Museum, Oshkosh, Wisconsin 2006 Dinotopia: The Fantastical Art of James Gurney, Norman Rockwell Museum, Stockbridge, Massachusetts 2006 James Gurney’s Dinotopia, The Alden Dow Museum of Science and Art, Midland, Michigan. 2004 Dinotopia: A Land Apart From Time, Oshkosh Public Museum, Oshkosh, Wisconsin 2004 Dinotopia:Un Pays Hors Du Temps, Palais Granvelle, Besançon, France 2003 Dinotopia et les Mondes Perdus, Maison d’Ailleurs, Yverdon, Switzerland 2002 Dinotopia, Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, Washington, DC 1998 Dinotopia, Carnegie Public Museum, Three Rivers, Michigan 1996 James Gurney’s Art of Fantasy, Richmond Children’s Museum, Richmond, Virginia 1994 Dinotopia, Cleveland Museum of Natural History, Ohio 1994 Tiffany Windows, Tiffany & Co. Jewelers, Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 1993 Dinotopia: The Art of James Gurney, Buffalo Museum of Science, Buffalo, NY 1993 Dinotopia: The Art of James Gurney, Royal Tyrell Museum, Drumheller, Alberta, Canada 1993 Dinotopia: The Art of James Gurney, New Mexico Museum of Natural History, Albuquerque, New Mexico 1992 Dinotopia: The Art of James Gurney, Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History, California

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Gurney Journey

This daily weblog by Dinotopia creator James Gurney is for illustrators, plein-air painters, sketchers, comic artists, animators, art students, and writers. You will find practical studio tips, insights into the making of the Dinotopia books, and first-hand reports from art schools and museums.

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Color in Practice, Part 1: Black, White, and Complements

Painting in full color can be an intimidating experience for many students, or even for professionals exploring a new medium. There so many colors to choose from and so many variables to consider, including hue, chroma, and value.

What I’ll do in this video workshop is start with a few basic, inexpensive materials and foundational ideas. I’ll demonstrate grisaille (black and white) painting in gouache. We’ll explore the variations you can get with the contrast between transparency and opacity, and apply them in a painting of a store window.

Next I'll paint Greg at his workstation in a car repair shop, demonstrating a single-accent scheme based on the Zorn palette (basically, black, white, red, and an iron-based yellow). The painting developed spontaneously on location and it takes advantage of a raw-sienna colored underpainting.

I'll then paint two pictures, each using a different complementary relationship. In the first, I use just two colors: ultramarine blue and burnt sienna, and in the second, I paint a still life with an opposition between yellow-green and magenta.

•Transparency/opacity

• Underpainting options

• Zorn palette

• Complementaries

• Wet blends

• Color afterimages

The video alternates between simple, practical exercises that are well worth doing, regardless of your skill level, followed by paintings made on location that put the principles into action. I use gouache and watercolor, but the painting insights are universal and will benefit oil and acrylic painters as well.

"Straightforward and unassuming" —Edward Minoff, Teacher at the Grand Central Academy of Art

"A multi-layered discussion of color in practice - using a clear, logical progression of concepts and techniques." —Renée P. Foulks, Painter / Draftsperson, Professor and Chairperson of Drawing, PAFA

"Down-to-earth, step-by-step approach that anyone can understand."—Nathan Fowkes, Teacher and Concept Artist for DreamWorks, Blue Sky, and Disney

"James brings it down to small steps accompanied by inspiring painting demonstrations."—Wouter Tulp, Artist and Teacher

This video takes the concepts from my book Color and Light: A Guide for the Realist Painter and translates them into basic practical assignments.

Satisfaction 100 percent guaranteed or we'll refund your payment.

You'll get a 69 minute 1080pHD video

An ambulance, an empty lot and a loophole: One man’s fight for a place to live

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After a hard day’s work, Cameron Gordon sometimes finds a bit of solace as he lounges on the gurney in his yard, surveying a patchwork of weeds, potted plants, garden beds and a hose that meanders across the dirt.

This is where his struggle to navigate the housing crisis has left him: living by day on an 18,000-square-foot lot in Sun Valley, pulling weeds, watering trees — and then leaving at night as he searches for a safe place to sleep.

Gordon’s strange — and quintessentially L.A. —odyssey started when he found he couldn’t afford an apartment and came to realize a home was whatever you can squeeze into.

A studio. An accessory dwelling unit. A camper.

Gordon bought an ambulance.

Emblazoned with bright red paint, his boxy service vehicle has found a new purpose after being decommissioned. Storage shelves once lined with trauma kits now hold cooking utensils. The bench has been turned into a bed. So, if you see Gordon winding through the city, he’s not transporting a victim. He’s avoiding a parking ticket.

“It works for my lifestyle,” he said. “It has thick walls, [and] good insulation for the weather. I’d rather live for free in my ambulance than pay for a house I can’t afford. That’s what it actually means to be stuck.”

Gordon may actually be one step ahead of stuck, as he plots an uncanny journey from the fringes of Los Angeles to a path to homeownership.

But the path is still littered with obstacles.

Gordon, 30, moved here from Texas in 2018, arriving the way many do: with wide eyes and shallow pockets. He drove out for a songwriting convention in Hollywood and realized it’d be cheaper to sleep in his car than pay for a hotel room.

“I thought I was so smart. Like I’d invented sleeping in your car,” Gordon said.

Housing tracker: SoCal home prices at a record

He planned to spend only a few weeks here, but when the conference was over, he just stayed. A few weeks in, he drove past a downtown parking lot full of ambulances. Crammed into his car, he looked into buying one to live in. At a bankruptcy auction a few days later, he spent his life savings — $15,000 from his days as a roofer — on three ambulances.

Two of them were lemons, requiring more work to fix than he’d anticipated, but the third was good enough to drive around and sleep in. He spent his afternoons parked on city streets and playing guitar in his newly fashioned home, and one day a director approached him to ask whether the ambulance was a film car. He was hoping to rent it for an upcoming project.

Gordon’s business model immediately took shape: Sleep in the ambulance at night and rent it out to film and television shoots during the day. He bought a domain name — ambulancefilmrentals.com — and quickly mastered the art of search engine optimization. If you Google “ambulance rental,” Gordon’s site will be among the top results.

“I called every ambulance rental company in North America pretending to be a movie producer and asked for their rates to see how much I should charge. Then I made a spreadsheet and gave it to clients to pretend like I knew what I was doing,” Gordon said.

The business quickly took off as he rented his ambulance to multiple films including “The Gray Man” starring Ryan Gosling and “Doula” with Chris Pine. Today, he charges $1,100 to $1,400 per day and even offers himself as an actor if the project needs an ambulance driver.

“It can be a package deal: the ambulance and the driver,” he said. “I even bought an EMT outfit.”

Gordon spent the first few months of ambulance life popping around beach communities: Venice, Santa Monica, Playa del Rey. But the city of Los Angeles prohibits storing vehicles on public streets. Cars parked for more than 72 hours risk being ticketed or towed , even if there are no signs posted. So Gordon kept moving.

Eventually, he discovered a dog park in Valley Village without any signs prohibiting parking for a certain amount of time, so he’d post up there, playing guitar, practicing yoga and chatting up the locals. At night, he’d park the ambulance in the surrounding neighborhoods, always driving away by morning to avoid annoying the residents.

Gordon is affable and easygoing, hugging his visitors and laughing during every conversation. He’s quick to crack a joke while describing his often-tenuous living situations. At the dog park, he turned strangers into fast friends, joining regulars for dinner and even serving as a pallbearer at one of their funerals.

“It’s not for everyone, but it’s a good life. I sleep in my car, meet up with friends for adventures and avoid the weight of bills and finances,” he said. “Carefree. Stress-free.”

Gordon is one of thousands of people living in a vehicle in Los Angeles County. In 2023, the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority estimated there were 3,918 cars, 3,364 vans and 6,814 RVs being used as a dwelling — 14,096 vehicles and 9% higher than the year before. It’s a trend the city of Los Angeles is keeping a close eye on. Last year, Mayor Karen Bass told The Times , “We have not resolved the RV issue yet. But we absolutely will because it’s a very serious issue.”

Solutions are elusive. Two years ago, the L.A. City Council lifted a moratorium on towing oversize vehicles used as homes, but the city doesn’t have enough trucks capable of removing RVs or enough space to store them.

What’s more, RVs — and ambulances — are mobile. If a vehicle is parked illegally, it can simply drive away when city officials show up.

Out-squatted: Handyman Flash Shelton will squat with your squatters — until they leave

With money flowing in from his rental business and no rent to pay, Gordon invested heavily in stocks and cryptocurrency. When the market boomed during the COVID-19 pandemic, he found himself with just enough money to buy an empty piece of land in Sun Valley for $65,000 in 2022.

The plot was zoned as RE40, a residential designation. But since there was no house on it, he couldn’t officially live there.

But Gordon had a plan: He would eventually build a home on the property and park his ambulance on it in the meantime. He regarded his purchase as a legitimate move toward homeownership and a way to get himself off the streets at night.

He vowed to tackle the problems — the lack of a house; that the lot was far too hilly to build on; that he can’t legally sleep on a property that doesn’t have a certificate of occupancy — as they came.

A year after he bought the property, the actors’ strike began, shutting down the film industry for roughly four months. Gordon found himself without an income.

So he spent his days working the land.

He first flattened the hillside lot, breaking up dirt with a pickax and moving it until it was even enough to plant trees and park his ambulance. The process took months.

“I’d wake up, work, eat, talk to my neighbors, work more and then sleep,” he said.

Then the fines started to roll in.

The Los Angeles Municipal Code prohibits occupying vacant land without a certificate of occupancy, and L.A. County also prohibits recreational vehicles from being occupied as a residence on any private property, according to the Department of Regional Planning.

Since Gordon was working and storing his belongings on the property, he quickly racked up fees, noncompliance issues and inspector visits regarding open-air storage of his stuff and unauthorized RV storage.

“You’re met with resistance when you try to upgrade your life,” Gordon said. “The moment you have any money, the city tries to take it.”

The year of the ‘mansion tax’: Hundreds of millions raised, but a chill to L.A.’s luxury market

So Gordon dug into the Municipal Code and found a loophole.

The section of the code that outlines certificates of occupancy says, “No vacant land shall be occupied or used, except for agricultural uses .”

If he used the land agriculturally, he’d be allowed to store equipment there and stave off the string of fines. So he planted apple trees, nectarine trees, grape vineyards and a vegetable garden, turning the once-empty lot into an oasis.

He also set up an outdoor lounge — a shade structure, as it’s defined in the Municipal Code — with string lights and a pop-up gazebo. Solar panels charge a battery that he uses for electricity, which runs appliances such as a pan, kettle and small refrigerator. He stashes a portable toilet in the ambulance.

On days when he’s not renting out the ambulance, he spends time farming, smoking weed and enjoying the fruits of his labor. The hillside plot takes in sweeping views of the surrounding mountains. The gurney that rolls out of the ambulance makes for an excellent chaise longue.

At night, he drives off. It’s legal for him to work on the land, but not live on it full time.

His latest inspection went well; the city approved his setup. After paying around $1,500 in fines and inspection fees over the last two years, they finally stopped rolling in.

Gordon is happy with the strange life he’s built for himself; he maintains the property with his girlfriend, Susie, and their two dogs, Brody and Gizmo. The next step will be obtaining building permits and site plans, which will bring its own set of hurdles.

“I just want to take it at my own pace. I want to build a house when my business grows and it becomes manageable,” he said. “Until then, I don’t want someone knocking on my door every month with a $300 fee.”

He sees himself as many Angelenos do: in the gray area between homeless and homeowner. Enough money to get by, but not enough to ever have the picture-perfect California single-family home. One more person with a dream of putting down roots in one of the priciest real estate markets in the country.

“I can’t buy a million-dollar home, but I can buy a $100,000 piece of land,” he said. “I just need to figure out where to go from there.”

More to Read

Meet the homeless L.A. immigrants who built a DIY home in gentrifying Highland Park

April 22, 2024

L.A.’s right-left divide on solving homelessness

April 14, 2024

Opinion: The future of Los Angeles housing can learn from Silver Lake, Fairfax and Crenshaw

March 25, 2024

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Jack Flemming covers luxury real estate for the Los Angeles Times. A Midwestern boy at heart, he was raised in St. Louis and studied journalism at the University of Missouri. Before joining The Times as an intern in 2017, he wrote for the Columbia Missourian and Politico Europe.

Robert Gauthier has been with the Los Angeles Times since 1994. He was the photographer for a project detailing the failings of an L.A. public hospital that won the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for public service. Before The Times, Gauthier worked at the San Diego Union-Tribune, the Escondido Times-Advocate and the Bernardo News in San Diego County, his hometown.

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James Gurney

Color in Practice

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Wednesday, november 8, 2023.

2 comments:

Wonderful colors...

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