Q and A with James Gurney, creator of 'Dinotopia'

Author and artist James Gurney's "Dinotopia" series has become a national best seller since the first volume's 1992 release. The books chronicle the adventures of Professor Arthur Denison and his son, Will, on Dinotopia, a mysterious lost island where dinosaurs and humans live in harmony.

Gurney's artwork will be on display at the Delaware Art Museum starting in early February. In advance of the show, he shared some of his thoughts and inspirations with the Community News.

Q. What was your inspiration for Dinotopia?

A. I began my career painting animation backgrounds and paperback covers and National Geographic illustrations, I had no idea I would come up with Dinotopia. But looking back, I suppose that illustration work was an ideal training ground for the kind of visual world I was trying to develop, because I was called upon to paint all sorts of subjects: dinosaurs, ancient cities, space ships, aliens and mermaids.

For National Geographic, I traveled to Jerusalem, Athens and Rome on assignment, and it was a huge inspiration to see those famous old cities. I spent time with Rick Bronson, an archaeologist who was just like Indiana Jones. He led me through overgrown jungles to find little known Etruscan ruins, and we descended down ladders into newly-discovered tombs. Sitting around the campfire at night, Dr. Bronson and I would talk about dreams of discovering a lost city like Machu Picchu or Troy. I realized that I could always make a painting of such a lost city, and that led to Dinosaur Parade and Waterfall City.

After painting a few of generalized “lost empire” paintings, I started playing with the idea of a picture book that would serve as a kind of grand tour. After that, I drew a map of an unknown island and came up with the idea of a Victorian explorer who discovers this island and reports about it in his journal.

Then I thought of putting all those places on a single island, and populating the island with dinosaurs and people. I tried to immerse myself in every aspect of world building, from maps to mechanics to metaphysics, making it as real and believable as possible. I tried not to think of myself as creating the world, but instead just transcribing some lost journal. This attitude really freed me up. It’s easier to transcribe something that already exists rather than creating something from whole cloth. It took about two and a half years to write and illustrate Dinotopia, which came out in 1992, and the time was funded by the sales of art prints.

As an artist, what I enjoy about Dinotopia is that is provides a venue for painting all sorts of pictures, from landscapes to portraits to still lifes, and from quick sketches to elaborately finished large paintings. By the way, all the paintings in the Dinotopia books are painted in oil, even the ones that look like watercolor.

Q. How did you create such a richly-detailed world?

A. I start with small thumbnail sketches in marker or pencil, sometimes dozens. If it’s an architectural subject or a dinosaur, I’ll often build a little model or mockup to establish shadows and angles. If necessary, I enlist models to pose in costume, usually friends or neighbors. I either take photos or do tone paper sketches of the models. I have a large mirror mounted in the studio and often develop tone paper studies of myself posing in costume to get the basic action. I also have a scrap file of color magazine photos that I use for texture and form ideas. If the painting requires scientific or historical accuracy, I consult with experts at every stage of the process and incorporate their suggestions. After all these studies, I work up the line drawing—and sometimes a full charcoal drawing—and finally begin the final painting.

This approach is developed from the teaching methods of the French Academy. There was a vast body of painting knowledge and terminology that was largely forgotten and is now being enthusiastically rediscovered. When I was a student, I read everything I could find about artists like Alma Tadema, Bouguereau and Gerome. I also pored over editions of the Famous Artist’s Course from the 1950s, where great story illustrators shared the secrets of their craft. I was very curious how they painted such lifelike scenes from their imaginations. The method is rather painstaking, starting with lots of research, pages and pages of thumbnail sketches, studies from the costumed model, miniature sets for the architectural elements, and often a charcoal comprehensive study before launching into the final painting.

Q. How do you develop the cities and concepts in your books?

A. That part is easy. Ideas come from combining two different things together that don’t seem to go together. For example, Waterfall City is a combination of Venice and Niagara Falls. Skybax riding is a combination of horseback riding with giant flying reptiles. I find if I can take two things that interest me and combine them I can come up with a million ideas.

Q. What role does science and archaeology play in your work and how do you combine it so seamlessly with fantasy and imagination?

I went to the University of California at Berkeley, but I didn’t take any classes in the art department there. Instead I sought out the archaeology and paleontology professors and asked them if they needed an artist to render artifacts. They let me loose in the vast Kroeber Museum collection. One of the things I got to do for school credit was to render Egyptian scarab carvings for a scientific publication. After participating in an actual archaeological dig, I decided to major in anthropology. I then went on to study drawing and painting at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, Calif.

As a kid, I liked dinosaurs and ancient civilizations because I knew they were once real, even though I couldn’t see them with my own eyes. Outside my bedroom door was a shelf of old National Geographic magazines dating back to 1915. I would tiptoe into the hallway late at night and read about pilots in biplanes flying over uncharted Incan ruins. After school I would dig excavation pits in my suburban back yard, hoping to find a dinosaur bone or maybe even a lost temple. The neighborhood moms quit letting their kids play at my house because they always came home covered with dirt. Even though I didn’t find much of what I imagined, I made up for it by sculpting it out of clay or drawing it on paper.

I find most scientist are kids at heart, with a sense of wonder and imagination about worlds that they must imagine from scraps of evidence.

Q. As an author and illustrator, which do you find more challenging and why?

Writing and illustrating seem like different tasks, but they’re really drawing from the same imagination. I love both, and I love seeing how pictures spark ideas for works and vice-versa. The process of creating a book means alternating the writing and picturemaking tasks throughout the process. One of my biggest inspirations among writer-illustrators is Howard Pyle, so I’m especially excited to have my work displayed at the Delaware Art Museum.

Q. What do you hope readers take away from the Dinotopia series?

I’m mainly interested in creating an alternate universe that my readers can travel to during those moments of daydreaming during the day. I’m not conscious about morals or hidden messages; I simply enjoy telling a good old adventure story. At one point I read everything I could find about Joseph Campbell and the patterns of imagery in mythology and dreams, but I found that I had to push all that out of my conscious creative process and just concentrate on a kind of disciplined daydreaming to develop the characters and situations. I suppose we all need to have a place in our minds and hearts where we can travel away from the daily pressure of time and circumstances. But fantasy is not just escapism. It provides a place where we can deeply engage with ideas, and play with different ways of looking at animals, nature, and mankind. Dinotopia provides that place for me creatively, and hopefully it does the same for my readers.

Q. What advice do you have for aspiring illustrators or authors?

The publishing field is competitive but not cutthroat. Nearly everyone I’ve met in the field has been congenial and welcoming to new talent. Of course there is always a surplus of young (and older) artists who want to write or illustrate books, but there is always room for a new voice with a new song. I would say: keep in mind that desire and hard work are worth more than talent. Genius, as Thomas Carlyle once said, is the infinite capacity for taking pains.

Regarding fantasy art, we’re in the early stages of a renaissance. This is a more visual age than ever. This is the best time ever to be coming into the world of art. Young artists are better connected with each other and have more resources and tools than ever before. The only thing we have to do is to break down the artificial barriers between all the different genres and categories of art-making, and try to see it all with fresh eyes.