Innholdsfortegnelse for July 2016 i Artists & Illustrators

As I prepared to edit my first issue of Artists & Illustrators, I had the opportunity to read countless copies from cover to cover and take inspiration from each one – much like an artist does when creating a new painting. When tackling a blank canvas, thoughts of the art you love and want to create can breed hesitation. But that provenance can also be a guiding force for your paintbrush. For this issue, we decided to explore inspiration, what it means to a painter, and the unexpected places it comes from. On page 18, artist Tony Foster tells us how his search for watercolour inspiration took him across the globe, setting up his easel on site to paint subjects like Mount Everest and the Grand Canyon. Meanwhile, artist Ray…

AS L.S. LOWRY ONCE SAID, ‘WHEN YOU’RE NOT PAINTING, THINK ABOUT PAINTING’ Learn how to work like an artist. If you want to become one, don’t give up the nine to five day job; there are valuable lessons to be learned from big names who kept their ‘regular job’ whilst developing as an artist. As Andy Warhol said: “Making money is art, working is art and good business is the best art!” It’s inspiring to know that even the great artists struggled holding down a day job whilst working on their art. Van Gogh’s first job was working as an assistant at his uncle’s art dealership, Goupil & Cie, a firm of international art dealers in The Hague, which took him to London and Paris. He then took up a…

Drawing without curves: it sounds easy, doesn’t it? Just try drawing or painting for five minutes without using curves or circles and the compulsion to add them becomes irresistible. We tend to examine everything at first glance in all its intricacy and produce drawings or paintings that can be very literal copies. One of the things to consider in art is how we go about portraying something and questioning the common perceptions or approaches in order to find that little touch of originality. When you look at a curve or circles, you glide from one edge to the other or follow the spiralling shape; it’s all very rhythmical. As a viewer this can make your journey a bit too comfortable and less dramatic. Something with a slightly more jagged or…

SUCCESS STORY Regarding my quite recent letter about older work, which you kindly published, I am writing to let you know that one of my old paintings, which I had repainted over recently, has been chosen to be published in a well known gardening magazine! This floral painting was originally painted years ago and was copied from the book, Flowers & Designs to Copy. This book was the inspiration on my painting journey. Jean Cooper, via email SCREEN TEST Having seen David Hockney’s wonderful digital paintings I finally purchased my own iPad a few months ago. I downloaded several drawing and painting apps and, while having some success with drawings, I found myself in difficulty when attempting painting. Quite by chance, a fellow member of an art group mentioned a…

“IT IS BEST TO MAKE THE SALE PRICE OF YOUR WORK A FIXED ONE WHEREVER THE CLIENT BUYS’’ Recently I have noticed an increase in people asking me for a ‘best price’ when I am selling work at shows and fairs. I put it down to television’s current love affair with competitive shows based around selling antiques where haggling for a price is the order of the day. How you choose to respond to this approach is entirely up to you. Do have a think about it before it happens, however, so that you have a strategy in place and can respond with polite calm rather than making a spur of the moment decision you might regret later. I stick to my guns and explain that, while I might give…

ROBERT HENRI (1865 – 1929) Robert Henri (pronounced Hen-rye) was born in Cincinnati, Ohio and was one of the most influential teachers of art in the USA at the beginning of the 20th-century. He had an extraordinary gift for verbal communication, with the personality and prophetic fire that transformed pupils into idolaters. During an extremely active life as an artist, Henri exercised considerable influence as a portrait painter. His portrait paintings embodied the use of a colourful palette, facile brushwork, as well as an ability to catch a fleeting expression. He also painted landscapes and made several trips to Ireland’s west coast. Later he painted in Santa Fe, New Mexico where he found the locale as inspirational as the Irish countryside. Henri’s paintings feature in many prominent American Museums and…

Painters’ Paintings takes its inspiration from works in the National Gallery Collection once owned by painters, revealing the private acquisitions of Freud, Matisse, Degas, Leighton, Watts, Lawrence, Reynolds, and Van Dyck. The exhibition investigates why these painters acquired other painters’ works – for artistic inspiration, to support their fellow artists, as status symbols or investments, even out of obsession. It also considers the fascinating relationships painters had with the paintings they possessed, and how their acquisitions more widely impacted on public collections. Painters’ Paintings runs from 23 June to 4 September at the National Gallery, London, W1. www.nationalgallery.org.uk THE PRIZE One lucky winner chosen at random from the prize draw will win: • A pair of tickets to Painters’ Paintings at the National Gallery. • A private introduction from a…

With more than 30,000 years of artefacts and related archaeological research, we have a good view of the evolution of theories and practices of colour in art. The earliest forms of paints found in prehistoric cave paintings form the basis of what we still use today, materially and aesthetically. Coloured clays provided ochres and browns, carbon was used to make black and chalk, and ground seashells created whites. These basic ingredients provided the earliest pigments for depicting animals and humans in an elegant mixture of fact and symbol, storytelling and religion. Surprisingly, these earth colours have remained the basis for most artists’ palettes throughout history. By the time the peoples of the ancient Near East and the Mediterranean had developed stable cultures, the use of colour had blossomed into a…

What do the paintings owned by artists say about the work they created? In the case of Lucian Freud, the content of his art collection is one of the few windows into the painter’s process, beyond his own work. Freud, unlike his contemporary, Francis Bacon, was famously cagey about naming his influences, at times denying he had any. His earlier paintings, created in painstaking detail with small sable brushes, were regularly compared with those of the New Objectivity, a theory Freud often rebuked. And yet the techniques of historical painters, particularly those of 19th-century artists, were crucial to his work. He travelled the world to visit Goyas and Velazquez’s Las Meninas; he haunted the halls of the National Gallery in spare moments, a ritual he once described as, “going to…

I am prompted to respond to ‘share your tips’, the request in your May issue. My tip is: ‘half close your eyes’. This is to enable tones to be far more easily visible – either with my own work or to appreciate painting in general. It is so easy to underestimate tonal contrast as we strive for that magical 3D effect. I have subscribed to Artists & Illustrators for so long, it must be the beginning of publishing! Having had a wonderful life in the art world, I am now in my 87th year and I am still able to draw, paint, exhibit and sell. Betty Thornton, Huddersfield…

“A LOT OF WHAT HAPPENS IN PRINT TEACHES ME ABOUT WHAT MIGHT HAPPEN IN A PAINTING, THERE’S A RANDOM NATURE TO IT” What’s the focus of your latest exhibition? It’s mainly to do with Ireland, Co. Mayo. I discovered Mayo 15 years ago and I’ve based my work around there, in the Céide Fields [an archaeological site]… But I don’t just paint topography; I have to be interested in the history and the evolution of the landscape and the people. What did you discover about Co. Mayo? A lot of the images have evolved over a number of years. Like Cézanne and his Mont Sainte Victoire, a lot of artists return to familiar images, and they don’t repeat them, but they allow them to evolve. It’s almost like my icon,…

HOW TO PAINT A SELF-PORTRAIT WITH STILL LIFE GLEN SCOULLER SHOWS US HOW TO CREATE A QUICK BUT VIBRANT PAINTING IN WATERCOLOUR This painting was a bit of an experiment, as I had recently acquired some Lascaux watercolours, which come in small plastic bottles with the colours inside resembling very runny cream. Let me say, first of all, that I don’t think these are for the purist watercolour artist. They have a slightly greasy feel to them and if applied without enough water, they leave a pronounced brushmark. Having said that, I rather liked them, especially their intensity of colour. Plus, if you are covering a large area, it’s easy to mix large quantities of colour. You also need to be aware that a palette with deep wells may be…

BY HALF CLOSING MY EYES, I CAN IDENTIFY AND PAINT DOWN THE SHADOW SHAPE ATTACHED TO THE UNDERSIDE OF THE NOSE. THEN I AM READY TO PLACE THE MOUTH As John Singer Sargent said, “a portrait is a picture in which there is something not quite right about the mouth.” In this article, I’m going to explain how I paint the mouth in watercolour, but from a variety of viewpoints, and hopefully the mouths in your paintings will end up just right. As always when painting a portrait, I recommend bringing everything up together, rather than painting one feature in isolation. It’s helpful to half-close your eyes and see the general darks and lights in the whole area of the face. Before locating the mouth, I like to find the…

We Brits love our pets, and for many of us who love to paint, a pet portrait seems the perfect fit. For watercolourists, however, painting hair or fur is a daunting prospect; capturing the texture and highlights of hair and fur when working from light to dark is tricky, to say the least. With the help of Molly-Mou, and her delightful mix of doggy wool and hair, I hope this demonstration will give you the confidence to try it for yourself, assuming you can get your pet to ‘sit’ for long enough! Start by choosing materials that will work with you to achieve the effect you want, NOT or rough watercolour paper will help enormously. The techniques used in this step-by-step are based heavily on understanding which brushes to use,…