Art Journal: Eadweard Muybridge

Julie Balzer did an interesting post for Art Journal Every Day this week showing how one of her art journal layouts evolved over the course of several days. My journal spread above started on the right page with the black & white sketches I did on three different days, using Eadweard Muybridge's book The Human Figure in Motion for reference. Then after staring at the blank left page one night, I printed out and glued in the sequence of the horse Daisy jumping a hurdle, from Muybridge's Animal Locomotion. The next day I added color using Letraset markers, and today I filled in empty space with text.

Muybridge was a 19th-century photographer who pioneered the field of stop-motion photography and thus became the father of the motion picture. You may know him best for the sequence of photos showing how a race horse gallops:

When he first showed these photos to the public, many people did not believe they were real! Now we take this imagery for granted, because Muybridge changed the way we see the world. If you're interested in learning more about him, check out Stephen Herbert's website The Compleat Muybridge or read Rebecca Solnit's fascinating book River of Shadows: Eadweard Muybridge and the Technological Wild West.