Gurney is proof that diving in head-first is one way to become a master artist. Paint or die! It was a great education, much better than I would have gotten at an art school.” I had to produce about 600 paintings in a little over a year, at a rate of about 11 per week. It was like art school under a shotgun–with a paycheck. Bakshi gave me a chance as a background painter, even though I didn’t know much about the business. The studio was staffing up for an animated sword and sorcery film called “Fire and Ice,” with Frank Frazetta co-producing. “Then I stumbled into Ralph Bakshi Productions. I thought my art career was over at age 21. I was OK at drawing, but had never really painted. None of them wanted to hire me, and my portfolio was not too impressive anyway. So I made cold calls to all the animation studios I could think of: Disney, Bluth, and Hanna Barbera. It wasn’t so easy! I couldn’t find work in the freelance world. My plan was to find an art job to pay off her loans, while I would just crib off of her class notes. “Here was my situation: I was broke my fiancée wanted to finish art school and I already had a college degree (in archaeology). “I had to drop out of art school because I got a job working in the movie industry as a background painter,” says Gurney. Dinosaur Parade (oil on canvas, mounted to panel, 24×48) by James Gurney, has been in more than 30 art museum exhibitions, and was the cover of Gurney’s book Dinotopia: A Land Apart from Time, which sold more than two million copies, and was translated into 18 languages in 32 countries. Sign up for the Artists Network newsletter and get a free, instant download on drawing basics for the beginning artist! It’s pleasantly surprising, as you’ll see below. Gurney kindly took the time to share with us the story of how he became a professional artist. You may know Gurney from his groundbreaking book, Color and Light: A Guide for the Realist Painter, and his Dinotopia series. Such is the case with the renown artist James Gurney, who is famous for painting realistic images of subjects that aren’t real themselves. Looking at your path and the paths of other artists you know, it’s easy to realize that unexpected turns are often what lead people to where they’re meant to be.
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