Innehållsförteckning för May 2023 från The Artist

Email me at theartistletters@tapc.co.uk or visit our website at www.painters-online.co.uk/forum Renowned figurative artist ‘Pete the Street’ Brown kickstarts the practical features in this issue with an inspiring insight into the trials, tribulations and passions of the committed en-plein-air painter. He discusses his decision making regarding his choice of subjects, painting position, the challenges of the weather, local distractions and effects of the weather, light and time of day on his colour choices. He is refreshingly candid in his comments and self-criticism, which should be reassuring to all en-plein-air enthusiasts. As he says: ‘Looking back at paintings you see stuff you think you got right but mainly the things you got wrong’. Later he expands on his theme when he says: ‘It was interesting how little I needed to alter the…

There are many reasons that artists find bridges such a compelling subject, each with their own unique history, character and perspective, they can also be an effective device for creating interesting compositions. Listed below are just some of the ways in which they can be used. 1 To frame a subject: The negative space, such as the underneath of arches, can be used to frame a subject or focus the eye in a particular area 2 As dividing lines: Usually constructed of strong lines, they can be a useful device to separate areas of a canvas either horizontally, vertically or foreground from background 3 As leading lines: The structure of a bridge can provide clear directional lines that can be used to lead the eye towards an area of interest…

‘A landscape painting in which composition is ignored is like a line taken from a poem at random: it lacks context, and may or may not make sense.’ Walter J Phillips With regard to painting, composition basically means the design and construction a work of art. In conjunction with tone, colour and drawing, it is an essential building block for any successful painting. A good composition will enable you to emphasise your vision in your work, providing balance and harmony, with a convincing focal point and lead in. It is therefore always sensible to take time to think about the composition of your subject before starting to paint. The Golden Section The Golden Section is a mathematical proportion accepted by Renaissance artists as having significant aesthetic and artistic significance. Applied…

Drawing is the most relaxing, challenging, satisfying and absorbing thing that I do. I love it because it provides me with an intellectual and emotional workout while demanding no more than a piece of paper and a pencil or pen. Because I draw, I feel confident that I will never feel lonely or bored as I can simply become lost in the process of doing it. On another level I thoroughly enjoy taking time drawing from photographs - a slow, intricate and very satisfying process. Choosing your drawing tool I have recently been running a series of drawing classes especially aimed at people who think they can't do it. The most crucial starting point has been to help them develop an explorative approach to mark making in which there are…

Email theartistletters@tapc.co.uk or write to The Editor, The Artist, Warners Group Publications, The Maltings, West Street, Bourne, Lincolnshire PE10 9PH Please note we may have to edit letters for reasons of space Worth taking the plunge! Not many of us are brave enough to enter a painting competition, let alone one put on by Sky Arts. Personally my courage was boosted by contributors to The Artist magazine. I finally took the plunge following a prod from my sister, Jennifer. I had no success the first time, but last year I was offered a wild card. Wow! This was Sky Arts Landscape Artist of the Year at Castle Ward, Nothern Ireland on June 23. In reality what a crazy painting day. I joined 50 other interesting-looking hopefuls armed with a bewildering…

Anyone Can Paint Watercolour Landscapes Anyone Can Paint Watercolour Landscapes by Grahame Booth was previously published as The Paint Pad Artists: Watercolour Landscape and has been reimagined as part of Search Press's Anyone Can Paint series, due to be published at the end of June. Books can be preordered at www.searchpress.com A limited number of the original The Paint Pad Artists: Watercolour Landscape are still avialable from Search Press; www.searchpress.com You will need Brushes: wash brush; large, medium and small round brushes; sword liner. Watercolour paints: French ultramarine; cobalt blue; phthalo blue (green shade); quinacridonegoldquinacridonemagenta, pyrrole (Winsor) red; and burnt sienna. Spray bottle. TECHNIQUE ONE: SIMPLIFYING SHAPES Everything can be constructed from simple geometric shapes such as spheres, cubes, pyramids, cones and cylinders. Even the most complex construction can be reduced…

Westminster Bridge 1862 Now the oldest-bridge-crossing in London, Westminster Bridge must be my favourite. Built in the Gothic style and painted in a soft green to reflect the seats in the Houses of Commons, it is adorned with some of London's last surviving gas lamps. With Big Ben to the north end, it must be one of the most photographed views in the world. Waterloo Bridge 1942 On first impression this may not be the most remarkable of London's bridges but viewed from the neighbouring Jubilee Bridge its backdrop of St Paul's and the City, creates a truly breathtaking vista. Built predominantly by women during the war it was often referred to as ‘The Ladies Bridge’. Millennium Bridge 2000 linking St Paul's with Tate Modern This pedestrian suspension bridge was…

Try not to be too tied down by composition rules – they are flexible; every element of every painting doesn't need to conform. On completing a painting, if you feel that the focal point is not strong enough, consider adding a figure. Don't make it too obvious or place it in the centre of the focal point. It should enhance, not dominate. Another way of strengthening the composition is to increase the tonal contrast around the focal point and, if possible, reduce the contrast on the outer edges of the painting. If your painting lacks a feeling of depth, try using aerial perspective to solve the problem. This may require you to carry out some, or all the following adjustments: For the distance, reduce the contrast, reduce the intensity and…

STAGE TWO Starting with a size five squirrel mop brush, I loosely washed in fluid colours of cerulean blue for the sky, then lower down, I mixed alizarin crimson, sap green, and yellow ochre on the paper to generate some variety in the overall colour. This layer depicts the lightest values of the scene, so it must not be over heavy MATERIALS 6B pencil. Saunders Waterford 140lb (300gsm) rough paper. Watercolours: cerulean blue; alizarin crimson; sap green; yellow ochre; Hooker's green; cadmium yellow pale; cadmium red; French ultramarine; and Naples yellow. Squirrel mop brushes, sizes 2, 3, and 5. Kolinsky sable round brush size 6. Kolinsky sable rigger brush size 2. STAGE ONE I drew out the scene with a 6B pencil on Saunders Waterford 140lb (300gsm) rough paper. I…

The good old British pub is a great subject matter for the artist and never more so when it gets dark and the lights come on! This time I will be concentrating on the sketching element of the scene, using the Fude nib pen for the quick people studies and Inktense pencil to produce loose full colour studies of the pub both inside and out. The Fude nib fountain pen is just the ticket to produce those quick studies of people in the pub, be they chatting at the bar or a couple of musicians doing an impromptu session. MATERIALS Fude nib pen. Carbon black waterproof ink. No 4 round brush. Hahnemühle Quattro 90lb (190gsm) semi-smooth watercolour paper. Watercolours: Indian yellow; cobalt blue; rose madder; and manganese violet. INKTENSE PENCILS…

I tend to use coloured pencils as a sketching medium so that is what I'm concentrating on with these next demonstrations. MATERIALS Selection of Inktense pencils. No 4 round brush. No 2 rigger. Hahnemühle Quattro 90lb (190gsm) semi-smooth watercolour paper. Titanium white gouache. STAGE ONE I am predominantly interested in speed, so I began drawing directly with the colour of each of the elements of the subject. I coloured in the face with a fawn colour and used red for the shirt. At this stage I just wanted to establish broad areas of underlying colour, which I will work on once dry. The ink washes become waterproof when dry so you are able to build up your colours as you go along STAGE TWO I moved on to the other…

My awakening to the colour of shadows was painting an old, white wooden home set in a green field where cows grazed. I was amazed to see that the shadow under the eaves was tinted a diaphanous green. Before that I had thought all shadows were grey, as in photographs. I remember this incident because the cows formed a circle around me as I made my discovery: namely that the colour of shadows is a result of colours reflected from nearby surfaces, the intrinsic colour of the object itself and the colour of the light-source, usually ‘white’ sunlight. FAMILIAR TERMS Local colour The intrinsic colour of an object, such as red peppers or yellow bananas when viewed under white light. Form The object, such as a tree or apple, and…

Q: As a professional working artist, are you confident about what your skills are worth? A: Quite honestly, not always. I have a pricing structure for my work and I sell my paintings but I have usually been surprised when professional galleries have sold them for a higher price than I would have put them on the market for. Q: How do you go about pricing your artwork? A: I have a pricing structure based on the size of the painting, how good I think it is, and what I know similar work has sold for previously. I don't use any formula involving how long it took to paint or the price of materials. I also keep an eye on what other artists in a similar market position to myself…

Arnold Art Society Spring exhibition at Pond Hills Community Centre, Arnold, Nottinghamshire NG5 8DR, on April 15 and 16, 10am to 5pm each day. For details visit www.art4arnold.com Bridport Art Society Easter exhibition at The Salt House, West Bay, Dorset DT6 4EL, from April 7 to 10, 10am to 5pm daily. Cheltenham Art Club Spring exhibition at the Gardens Gallery, Cheltenham, from April 12 to 18; www.cheltenhamartclub.co.uk Chipping Campden Art Society Annual spring exhibition at Chipping Campden Town Hall, Chipping Campden, Gloucestershire GL55 6AT, from April 29 to May 1, 10am to 5pm daily. For more information email jenniejohnston.art@gmail.com Fair Oak Art & Craft Society Spring exhibition at Fair Oak Village Hall, Shorts Road, Fair Oak SO50 7EJ on April 15 and 16, 10am to 4.30pm each day. For more…

Artists are some of the greatest observers of the world that you can find. We tend to look at things a lot and analyse them in terms of colour, shapes and tones. Observation will give us a better legup in our progress than most other things. This is mainly because we have seen things for ourselves and that is a more powerful learning tool than anything. We can be told, we can be shown, but when we find out something for ourselves it becomes a revelation that is not easily forgotten! It's called experience and a journey we should travel with joy. Plein-air painters, of which I am one, are way ahead in the observing-from-nature stakes. We really do see colour as it is and not through a printed photograph…

Sending-in days Aviation Paintings of the Year 2023 Details: The Guild of Aviation Artists invites entries, from both members and non-members, to its annual exhibition, featuring the best in aviation artworks. Exact details are still awaiting confirmation. Keep checking the website for up-to-date information. Exhibition: Imperial War Museum, Duxford, Cambridge CB22 4QR, from June 22 to 25. When: Dates tbc. Check website for details. Contact: www.gava.org.uk DSWF's Wildlife Artist of the Year 2023 Details: Founded by the David Shepherd Wildlife Foundation in 2008, DSWF' Wildlife Artist of the Year is an internationally renowned wildlife art competition open to amateur and professional artists. The competition uses the power of the arts to celebrate wildlife and raise vital funds for endangered species. Exhibition: Mall Galleries, London, from September 11 to 16. When:…

WITH NITRAM CHARCOAL “I have been using Nitram charcoal since my Angel Academy days back in 2005 and I have never looked back! Nitram's charcoal is quite simply the most fluid, most consistent and I must say the most elegant charcoal around. Since most of my charcoal work is life-size or larger, I absolutely love using the bâtons épais, demi bâton de saule and the bloc de saule; their various thicknesses get the job done with accuracy and efficiency and are malleable enough to make modifications on the go and keep freshness in my work. I always work uniquely from life and my self-portraits such as this are my “playgrounds”: hours sitting in front of a mirror, allowing me to get a little crazy with expressions that would otherwise be…

‘Growing up in South Africa, my family and society around us didn't hold art in very high esteem’, reflects Susanne. ‘Neither was there any particularly well-known or international art to see in the local museums, so I had to make do with reproductions in books. I remember the outrage when the Johannesburg Art Museum bought a wax crayon drawing by Picasso! So, you can imagine that when I went to art school there in the 1970s, the fashion was lagging a few decades behind. ‘Despite being old-fashioned, there were some genuine benefits to studying art in this very un-avant-garde atmosphere. I did a four-year full-time degree, and part of this was a comprehensive, academic course in art history, which made me familiar with the art of every epoch, from the…

READER EXERCISE PHOTO Use the image, left, to paint your own spring scene. Work from light to dark starting with the sky and the sunlit colours of the trees and path. Allow this to dry before working through the mid values to establish the greens and general masses of shapes. Again, let this dry before building up the shadows and details to pull the painting together. Email a copy of your finished painting to dawn@tapc.co.uk, no larger than 2MB, with Working from Photographs in the subject line to see your work shared in an exclusive PaintersOnline gallery.…

STAGE ONE Starting with the guy on the left I drew in the outline of his head. Whilst the ink was still wet, I took my brush, dipped it in water, and added some tonal shade in the hair STAGE TWO Utilising the unique properties of the Fude pen, I was able to draw different thicknesses of line with this one instrument. You can see nere the way I could dilute the ink lines into passages of tone with a wet brush STAGE THREE I completed my tonal study of two guys having a chat at the bar FINISHED SKETCH Debate at the Bar, pen and watercolour, 5½×7in (14×18cm). A few basic watercolour washes adds a little extra to the ink work…

STAGE ONE I dived right in and started to draw the outlines of the pub exterior with a mid-blue pencil STAGE TWO I next added some yellows to the window frames STAGE THREE It's always rather satisfying to watch how the colours come alive once they have been wetted STAGE FOUR The under colours were almost completed. I let them dry before starting to build up some darker passages STAGE FIVE It was time to build up some darks. With a dark blue pencil, I shaded in some of the shadow areas STAGE SIX Dipping my brush in water, I started to dissolve some of the pencil marks to produce fluid passages throughout the subject STAGE SEVEN Using dark yellow, grey and purple pencils I drew in the window areas…