James Gurney dropped out of art school to ride the rails across America, which resulted in "The Artist's Guide to Sketching." He worked as a background painter for the Ralph Bakshi / Frank Frazetta animated film "Fire and Ice." He wrote and illustrated the Dinotopia series, painted the "World of Dinosaurs stamps" for the U.S. Postal Service and illustrated over a dozen assignments for National Geographic magazine. He's had over 35 solo exhibitions in museums such as the Smithsonian Institution, the Norman Rockwell Museum, and the Norton Museum of Art. He was named a “Grand Master” by Spectrum Fantastic Arts, a “Living Master” by the Art Renewal Center, and "Master Chowhound" by his wife. His books, "Color and Light: A Guide for the Realist Painter" and "Imaginative Realism: How to Paint What Doesn't Exist" have sold over 350k copies and have been translated into a bunch of languages. He has been sucked into Instagram (246K) and YouTube (502K) and hasn't come up for air since.