Innehållsförteckning för October 2025 från Artists & Illustrators

Landscape painting… Landscape painting… is often associated with the countryside. But urban scenes can be equally as fascinating. Our award-winning cover artist, Thomas W Schaller, likes to paint cityscapes from around the world, with his watercolour work being shaped by patterns of light. Julie Swinsco is constantly drawn back to the poetic beauty of Birmingham, where “brutalist landmarks sit beside gleaming towers, and canals weave through concrete and glass.” For Max Panks, it’s often London that inspires him, as demonstrated with his step-by-step of Camden Lock. Most of us draw to scale but Picasso’s The Three Dancers, which is at the heart of a new exhibition reconfiguring him as an artist deeply engaged in all aspects of performance, measures over seven by four feet (still not his largest work of…

17 SEPTEMBER Applications are open for the Online Drawing Development Year at the Royal Drawing School. A one-year intensive course with live drawing tuition. Fee: £3,980.  royaldrawingschool.org 23 SEPTEMBER Entries invited from all 2D and 3D artists for The Soho Open. Prizes include £500 and solo shows, and an exhibition at the Great Pulteney Street Gallery in November.  artopps.co.uk 10 OCTOBER Royal Institute of Oil Painters Annual Exhibition 2025, call for entries. Work from non members as well as members of the Institute. mallgalleries.org.uk 31 OCTOBER Enter the Anthology Magazine’s Cover Art competition. Annual award to support established and emerging artists. Entry: €18. anthology-magazine.com/awards…

“EVERY NOW AND THEN, ONE PAINTS A PICTURE that seems to have opened a door and serves as a stepping-stone to other things.” Pablo Picasso’s comment is easily applicable to his famous oil painting The Three Dancers (originally called La Danse), and he was right in judging it a seminal work, for it marks the bridge between Picasso’s years of immersion in Cubism and his evolving interest in Surrealism. The painting bears many hallmarks of the genre with its vivid intensity and depicts three angular, jagged figures, engaged in a feverish and fragmented dance, a scene reflecting the artist’s emotional state, grieving a close friend’s death and his own complex relationships. The painting is not just an abstract representation of dance but also testament to a personal tragedy involving a…

The British Art Club member SHARON TIERNAN likes to paint the beauty that surrounds us everyday. Here are her top tips on working with her favourite medium: acrylic 1 Spend time on the drawing, resolving the shape and composition first, before rushing to add the paint Don’t rush this stage. Drawing is the scaffolding which enables the creation of a good painting. 2 Protect the drawing by creating an isolation layer to prepare this for your acrylic paint A thin layer of gloss medium can be applied with a flat brush to fix the drawing, preventing any contamination of future layers of paint from the pencil. 3 Explore colour-mixing on your palette rather than an over reliance on tube or pan colour This will create a broader spectrum of interesting…

I ’VE BEEN DEVELOPING A PORTRAIT STYLE of painting that combines realistic female characters in surrealistic backdrops. The women are usually built through a collage-style process; borrowing eyes, noses, lips and hands, many times my own, from a collection of images. Getting the right character, the right expression and gaze is as important as setting the other elements of the piece. One of the most challenging aspects of my style is to achieve a balance between heavily decorated surroundings and delicate female characters, many times making an appearance with almost no colour, just grey pencil shading. I always take sketchbooks with me wherever I go. Lots of time I don’t have the time to actually use them, but when I do, almost always one of the butterfly girls pops up.…

MICHAEL BRACE Based just north of London, Michael is a visual artist working primarily with coloured pencil drawing. His work centres around nostalgic, contemporary still life and small objects such as retro toys, cakes and doughnuts. Michael studied Fine Art at Coventry University. JULIE SWINSCO Julie is a painter, printmaker and photographer. She was originally from the northeast of England but now lives in Warwickshire. A graduate of Central Saint Martins, Julie’s work looks into movement and energy across diverse media and explores dynamic urban landscapes. THOMAS W SCHALLER Thomas is an artist, author and architect based in NYC. He received the Arthur Ross Award in Fine Arts and is a two-time winner of the Hugh Ferriss Prize. Tom is the author of four books including Architect of Light and…

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Manchester-based Rafael Mamedov discovered painting almost by chance during lockdown – and in doing so, found a fresh creative voice. His canvases are full of bold colour and rich texture, capturing a lively energy and natural freedom. “Five years ago, due to lockdown, like many people I was forced to stop,” he says. “With no expectations, I started experimenting with my son’s acrylics. My style quickly became bold and full of movement because I think the pressure was off for me at that time. Nothing was riding on what I came up with, so I just went for it.” What started as a way to pass the time soon became more serious. “I’d become so fed up with my day job, and people were buying my artwork. I thought at…

LUCIA LEYFIELD IS NOT AN ARTIST prone to grand statements. Her work speaks in subtle tones: sketchbook pages filled with weathered doorways, overheard conversations or fragments of wild gardens. A lettering artist by training, she has since carved out a distinct voice as a visual diarist; mapping the everyday with wit, warmth and unshowy precision. Her journals – part calligraphy, part collage, part observational sketch – are deeply personal, yet immediately accessible. What sets Lucia apart is not technical bravado, but the honesty of her line. She draws like someone who’s listening – to people, places, objects and time. There’s a sense of looking slowly, allowing meaning to accumulate like sediment across a page. Her influences are tactile and timeworn: field guides, worn architecture, explorers’ sketchbooks. Yet, her work is…

BROUGHT TO YOU BY Don’t miss your last chance to enter the British Art Prize, brought to you by Artists & Illustrators and supported by Raw Umber. This major international art competition will expose winning artists of all levels to a far-reaching platform to gain valuable publicity and recognition for their work. Open to everyone – whether you’re an amateur, emerging or professional artist – all styles, media* and techniques will be considered. Prizes FIRST PRIZE The overall winner of the British Art Prize will receive a £2000 cash prize and a solo exhibition at Panter and Hall’s Cecil Court Gallery! Plus a £750 Royal Talens art materials voucher and a six-page feature in a future issue of Artists & Illustrators. The winning artwork will also be displayed at the…

DRAWING IS GENERALLY where your practical artistic journey begins. A pencil or pen and a sheet of paper is all you need to doodle away. Outlines clarify information, making it easy to access the information you’re conveying. A fine, narrow point provides absolute control and you can hold onto the implement with complete authority. We tend to write more than draw so writing habits come in when you begin drawing. Holding a pencil nearer the tip or using a monotone pressure on the pencil are all signs. Loosening up your grip and holding a pencil further back from the tip are better habits to get into. Another would be to look at shapes to define the elements rather than drawing outlines. There are many advantages to this, using a line…

Editor’s pick… Anthony Lawrence, a New Forest artist, painted everything from Dante’s Inferno to portraits of Ian McKellen and Yehudi Menuhin. This October, Palais des Vaches presents the first major retrospective of his work, spanning nearly 50 years. The show reveals a vast collection of paintings and drawings, many unseen until now, highlighting the artist’s skill across themes like religion, portraiture and landscape. A rare chance to explore the depth of a remarkable career. palaisdesvaches.co.uk Be inspired… by the vibrant, creative network behind South Asian modern art. This exhibition showcases Mrinalini Mukherjee and her circle, highlighting how mentorship, collaboration and cultural roots from Santiniketan to Baroda shaped their groundbreaking work. Experience over 100 pieces of sculpture, painting, textiles and more that reveal a rich artistic legacy. Visit the Royal Academy…

SICKERT LOVE, DEATH & ENNUI 26 September to 19 December 2025 This focused exhibition presents over 80 works by Walter Sickert from the Herbert and Ann Lucas Collection, many unseen publicly for decades. Paintings, drawings and prints showcase his distinctive style, from Camden Town naturalism to vibrant music hall scenes and architectural studies. Central to the show is Ennui (1913-14), a haunting exploration of emotional stasis in married life. The collection reveals Sickert’s printmaking skill and personal annotations, offering fresh insight into one of Britain’s most influential 20th-century artists. Piano Nobile, London W11 4LW. piano-nobile.com DOWNLAND: ART AND THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL IMAGINATION IN WILTSHIRE 4 October 2025 to 24 January 2026 Curated by artist and archaeologist Dr Rose Ferraby, this exhibition explores Wiltshire’s ancient landscapes through new and historic artworks by…

I STUDIED AT GOLDSMITHS AND THEN CENTRAL SAINT MARTINS in London, where I was tasked with capturing the energy of the city. These elements of vitality and motion have remained an integral part of my work, whether through painting dynamic swimmers, circus performers, dancers or the commuters and traffic within the urban environment. I also continue to learn and evolve my ideas through lived experience: endless hours observing, walking and absorbing the city. As a female artist in a genre often focused on architectural detail, I bring a more emotional lens. My paintings explore the interplay between presence and absence, as well as motion and stillness. They are less about structure, more about soul. Why Birmingham? It isn’t just a city, it’s a living pulse. Rain-slicked streets, neon-lit corners and…

I’VE BEEN QUITE CAPTIVATED BY URBAN LANDSCAPES LATELY. After completing a small series of paintings around Camden Lock in June – which I dubbed The Great Graffiti Search in my filmed walkthrough episodes – I wanted to revisit the scene at a different time of day. So, I headed down to the canal and set up my easel facing west, toward the lock. When choosing a subject, I’m always looking for strong contrasts between light and dark, along with a good sense of depth. This particular landscape has the added bonus of reflections on the water’s surface, offering a chance to introduce symmetry into the composition. Since it’s quite a complex scene, I find it important to sit with the landscape for a while before committing to anything, mostly so…