Indholdsfortegnelse for October 2022 i The Artist

Want to comment on something you’ve read, or seen? Email me at theartistletters@tapc.co.uk or visit our website at www.painters-online.co.uk/forum I was interested to read the interview with Tom Hemming in The Times’ Saturday Review recently (23/07/22) about his habit of spending his lunch breaks sketching from many of the master works on display in the National Gallery, where he is employed as an art handler. He posts his sketches @lunch_break_drawings It got me thinking about how copying used to be such a cornerstone and important part of the traditional foundation of an artist’s professional training. It involved drawing from plaster casts, busts and the work of an art students’ peers. This virtually disappeared as a practice during the 20th century, however, when self-expression, creative originality and then conceptualism became more…

In times of war I have recently been going through my father’s wartime documents and drawings which he did as a young Royal Artillery officer in south coast gun emplacements in readiness for the expected German invasion in 1942/43. He was a self-taught artist and equipped with nothing more than a mapping pen, a bottle of Indian ink and a pad. He drew caricatures and cartoons for the Battery magazine, which he edited in its entirety. Like prisoners of war seeking to while away the hours waiting for conflict to end, many soldiers found art an escape as captivating (forgive the pun!) as digging a tunnel under the wire. It took the artist to a happier place outside his prison walls. I have presented Dad’s original drawings to the Royal…

Winner of the 2021 Society of Women Artists’ The Artist Magazine Editor’s Choice Award, Elizabeth Nast originally trained as a product designer, but discovered that fine art was her real passion and has been a professional artist since 2008. Since then, she has regularly exhibited with the Pastel Society, the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours, the Royal Society of British Artists, the Society of Women Artists, and the Society of Graphic Fine Artists. Elizabeth is the recipient of many awards, including the Winsor & Newton Young Artist Award, a Jackson’s Art Prize and the North-East Regional Prize at the ING Discerning Eye. She has also exhibited with the Sunday Times Watercolour Competition and the Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize. A contemporary exponent of 19th-century realism, Elizabeth loves painting…

Portrait drawing is, understandably, a challenge as it requires the ability to observe well. When you are at the stage to move from drawing in pencil to drawing a portrait in charcoal, you will need to learn to deal with a medium that acts completely differently from pencil. At first you might think charcoal is messy and a bit heavy. It rubs off too easily with an accidental lean, and when applied with a heavy hand can be quite dark, but if used in conjunction with a putty rubber and a light touch, it can be very delicate and detailed. There is, however, no getting away from the need to observe well. When I teach a class, I often take a two-pronged approach to learning to draw a portrait –…

Detail is an intriguing subject as too much emphasis on detail will make your watercolours lifeless. This seems like a contradiction but the minute you take up a small watercolour brush you can get lost in the detail and the work can easily become tight. One of my favourite paintings is Goya’s portrait, Dona Isabel de Porcel, which can be seen in the National Gallery in London and also viewed online if you’re unable to get there. Dona Isabel wears a beautiful black lace shawl, and this is a fantastic example of successful detail in a painting. However, when you view the lace up close it looks more like a Jackson Pollock abstract painting than lace. The success of the lace is the lively way it has been captured. There…

Bournemouth Arts Club The 101st annual exhibition at The Gallery Upstairs, Upton Country Park, Poole BH17 7BJ, from September 16 to 26, 10am to 4pm daily; www.bournemouthartsclub.co.uk and www.thegalleryupstairs.org.uk Clevedon Art Club The 64th annual open art exhibition at The Science Atrium, Clevedon School, Valley Road, Clevedon, North Somerset BS21 6AH, from August 19 to 29, 10.30am to 6pm daily, from 2 until 6pm on Sunday; www.clevedonartclub.co.uk Denbighshire Art Club Annual exhibition at The Studio, 10 Penrhos Road, Colwyn Bay LL28 4DB, from August 27 to September 4, 11am to 4pm daily; www.dasoc.info Epsom and Ewell Art Group Summer exhibition at Denbies Wine Estate, London Road, Dorking RH5 6AA, until August 28. Open 10.30am to 4.30pm daily. Leighton Buzzard Art Society Annual exhibition at All Saints Church, Church Square, Leighton…

Julie Powell has drawn and painted for as long as she can remember. However, she writes, ‘a completed oil painting was a rarity whilst working full time as an assistant headteacher in a special school. An occasional pen and wash sketch or small gouache painting was more likely. Taking early retirement in 2016 enabled my husband, David, and me to travel in our motorhome and record some of the lovely places we visited, he with camera and myself with sketchbook. My dream was to master plein-air painting and I hoped to do it following a successful gallery exhibition in 2021. I bought a lightweight kit and looked forward to attending two plein-air courses with artists, Mo Teeuw and Haidee-Jo Summers. ‘However, a cancer diagnosis put the brakes on my plans.…

Ken Howard OBE, RA studied at Hornsey School of Art and the Royal College of Art. He is a member of the NEAC, ROI, RWS, RWA and RBA. He exhibits extensively and has won numerous awards. David Curtis ROI, VPRSMA has won many awards for his en plein air and figurative paintings in both oils and watercolours. He has had several books published on his work as well as DVD films, and exhibits his work extensively. Haidee-Jo Summers ROI, RSMA has won many awards for her plein-air and alla-prima oil paintings. She is an elected member of the ROI, the author of Plein Air Painting with Oils and Vibrant Oils and also has a DVD with the same title.…

In the previous article of this series, I explained how the limited palette works, showing how using fewer colours can make watercolours more colourful and the benefit gained from understanding temperature bias, particularly in mixing. In the next two articles, we look at the differing physical properties of the pigments. Colours, even of a similar hue, vary substantially in their behaviour and appearance on the paper, which in turn, influences the choice of colours for a limited palette. This article looks at degrees of translucency and why this matters. See-through or not Artists’ quality paint is made from real pigment, which is ground down into microscopic particles. In watercolour, the particles are bound in gum arabic, which is easily dissolved by water, so that the pigment is held in suspension…

Lisa House studied fine art and experimental textiles at Bradford & Ilkley Community College. She graduated in 1995 and has continued painting since, focusing now on painting and using textiles to enhance and build up texture throughout her work. Lisa sells through several galleries throughout the UK and Southern Ireland and also undertakes private commissions via www.lisahouseartist.co.uk and through her Etsy shop www.etsy.com/shop/lisahouseartist All social media links can be found through https://linktr.ee/LisaHouseArtist My painting, A Time to Wonder, developed during long periods of shielding during lockdowns in 2021. I’m not sure who the character in the painting is, I just felt an impulse to paint her, then developed the still life around her. I had a rough idea of the layout but I never really know how a painting will…

Mike Barr is a Fellow of the Royal South Australian Society of Arts. He has won over 80 awards, including 17 first prizes. You can find more of Mike’s work at www.mikebarrfineart.com How long did it take to paint that? I’d love a hot dinner for every time I have heard that question! We almost feel as if the enquirer will be heartily satisfied if we tell them it took six months of hard labour to complete a painting, and that anything less might have them thinking it’s unworthy of attention. I know from experience that onlookers are almost in disbelief that an artist canproduce three or four paintings in a few hours while painting plein air. General thinking is that paintings take days, weeks or even months to finish.…

From Coast & Cove Anna Koska There’s a word that comes to mind when looking through this really rather delightful book, and it’s ‘serving’, but as a suffix. So, we have observing, conserving and preserving. While not being an art book as such, Anna’s sensitive illustrations in ink, watercolour and tempera are the result of looking closely, understanding and recording faithfully. Her seasonal walks around her home in Devon are packed with information, anecdote and atmosphere that conjure up not just a landscape, but the sense of what it’s like to inhabit it. The plants, animals and insects she paints have stories as well as form and this comes through not just in the words but the pictures. You can’t paint like this without getting to know your subjects intimately.…

THE PRACTICAL MAGAZINE FOR ARTISTS, BY ARTISTS, SINCE 1931 LONDON Like many great cities, London spreads out before us – something we can never entirely see or understand. Its roots go down deep into history; its constant redevelopment unearths previously hidden wonders, tears great holes in what we think is around the corner and jostles old against new in the bustling confines of its centre. That sense of the unexpected, that sense of its unlimited potential, draws people to it or in some cases repels them. Its suburbs, more orderly in some respects, still throw up the odd wonder: concrete dinosaurs, Art Deco tube stations, former picture houses and gin palaces. London is not one thing, it is many things – born there or not, it is yours for the…

FEATURES IN CONVERSATION Katrina Wallis-King shares the thoughts and techniques behind her atmospheric charcoal and pastel landscapes INSPIRATION Be inspired by Alan Cotton who reveals his approach to his palette-knife landscape paintings in oils PRACTICALS Capture the shapes, colours and atmosphere of the garden in acrylics, combining loose techniques and tightly painted flower details, with Judith Yates Winston Oh shows how to paint mountain clouds and mist in watercolour PLUS ● Hazel Soan highlights the importance of understanding the staining properties of your watercolours, with an exercise to try ● Explore gouache painting techniques with Manda Comisari ● How to sand back discarded oil paintings to use as a key for further paintings, by Robert E. Wells ● Follow Michele Ashby’s demonstration of a portrait in pastel pencils ● Ian…

I’ve been painting in gouache for over 12 years and even today it continues to surprise me. I was surprised at how much I liked gouache even from the beginning when I used it for the first time during a painting course in college. It was smooth and opaque, similar to oils, but I could use water to clean up instead of harsh chemicals such as turpentine. It dried quickly like acrylic but had a gorgeous matt finish. Best of all, it was easy to control and I could get the outcome I wanted with relative ease. It combined all of the things I liked about other media while leaving out the ones I didn’t much care for. That isn’t to say that gouache doesn’t have its own quirks, it…