Innholdsfortegnelse for August 2017 i Artists & Illustrators

Who doesn’t like a good look around someone else’s place? Checking out the neighbour’s soft furnishings is one thing, but, for painters, space is a serious business. Where and when you paint can be just as important as the media and techniques you choose. Creating art is about process, and we all develop unique methods for getting the work done. But that doesn’t mean we can’t learn from the greats, so this month our Studio Special has cast its net around the UK to explore where you can get a taste for how artists as diverse as Henri Matisse (page 18), Sidney Nolan (page 22) and GF Watts (page 25) made their art, from the objects that inspired them to their paints of choice. And, to help you exploit these…

LONDON RA Summer Exhibition 2017 Until 20 August 2017 Explore the best of what is happening in the art world right now at this must-see show. The Royal Academy of Arts.www.royalacademy.org.uk Be Magnificent: Walthamstow School of Art 1957-1967 Until 10 September 2017 This exhibition features leading names in art, fashion, music and film, including Peter Blake. William Morris Art Gallery.www.wmgallery.org.uk The Encounter: Drawings from Leonardo to Rembrandt Until 22 October 2017 Discover creative collaborations between artists and their portrait sitters. National Portrait Gallery.www.npg.org.uk Sargent: The Watercolours Until 8 October 2017 Visit the first UK show in almost 100 years dedicated to the watercolours of the Anglo-American artist John Singer Sargent. Dulwich Picture Gallery.www.dulwichpicturegallery.org.uk BP Portrait Award 2017 Until 24 September 2017 See shortlisted works from the most prestigious annual prize…

 How did your unusual studio come about? “THE BEACH BECOMES FAMILIAR. YOU GET TO KNOW EACH ROCK. YOU KNOW WHICH BIT OF SHADOW IS GOING TO BE WHERE AT EACH TIME OF DAY” I came for a walk in 2015 and saw this old ice-cream hut. It’s owned by the Treyarnon Bay Youth Hostel next door. I spoke to the manager about it and he asked if I wanted to use it. I opened in February 2016 for a test run until Easter. It went well, so we worked out a deal. I give a percentage of takings to Breaks for Kids, which is run by YHA to help children from disadvantaged backgrounds. I’ve renovated and it’s now known as the Art Shack. It’s rustic and keeps needing new paint…

Backruns are beautiful when you want them and highly annoying when you do not. Understand what creates them, and you can use them to your advantage and avoid them happening by mistake. They occur when too much water is added into a previous wash, or excess water pools at the edge of a wash and pushes pigment back into the drying wash. Water in an added wash will spread into the first, pushing pigment away with it, devoiding the area of much of the colour. Beguiling patterns often occur at the edge of the backrun, such as feathered fans or delicate spreading linear fingers – patterns you could never engineer – but less attractive backruns can also result and these are hard to obliterate. If you do not want a…

I visited the GreatArt superstore in Shoreditch to check out its range and do some sketching. I knew about the brand’s comprehensive online shop, so it was interesting to see how this translated to a high street superstore. My first impression was that the shop also stocked a huge selection of products, from pencils and paper through to printmaking presses, at a great price. Most of the major brands you could want are available, making it a great one-stop shop. I was looking for new materials to take out sketching and settled on some Tombow pens and colour Pentel Brush pens, which looked like they would be a good alternative for the times when it’s difficult to use a watercolour set. I tried them out quickly with a couple of…

When hands and feet are included in a portrait, they not only solve the compositional arrangement but also bring additional meaning to the message being communicated. It is important to plan ahead and work out sizes, shapes and foreshortenings beforehand to retain the proportional relationship and anatomical accuracy needed for realism. ALYONA’S MATERIALS •COLOURED PENCILS Faber-Castell Polychromos: Titanium White, Burnt Umber, Dark Indigo, White, Rose Carmine, Burnt Ochre, Dark Cadmium Yellow, Sand, Jasmine, Goldenrod, Permanent Red, Fuchsia, Magenta, Caput Mortuum Violet, Cool Grey V, Deep Scarlet. Prismacolor Premier: White, Dark Umber, Indigo Blue, Mineral Orange, Burnt Ochre, Permanent Red, Crimson Red. Caran d’Ache: Vermilion, Purplish Red •POWDER BLENDER •FIXATIVE ACP Textured Fixative and ACP Final Fixative •SPONGE APPLICATOR •SHORT-BRISTLE STENCIL BRUSH THE HAND 1 The underpainting was created with Faber-Castell…

KIERAN NAISH It seems fitting that the winner of this year’s People’s Prize at the prestigious Lynn Painter-Stainers competition depicts one of the UK’s most popular views. Kieran Naish, aged 22, from Beckenham in Kent, was awarded the honour for his oil painting View from Tate Modern, which features London’s St Paul’s Cathedral as seen from the popular gallery. It’s a vista most visitors seek out but, in Kieran’s painting, it is far from romanticised. The artist has captured the more plaintive aspects of the skyline – dreary office blocks and construction work – yet the energy of the mark-marking makes the chaos of the city’s tangled architectural heritage throb on the canvas. “I wanted to achieve a clear representation in a realist – as well as architectural – way,”…

Richmond upon Thames held an enduring appeal for JMW Turner, one that was about much more than mere geography. The area possessed potent classical associations, thanks to images cemented in the popular imagination by poets such as Pope and Dryden. It was also considered culturally important, celebrated by artists, including the Royal Academy’s first president Sir Joshua Reynolds, whom Turner admired. The artist had been familiar with the area from childhood. He’d briefly spent time at school in Brentford and, later, kept a sketching notebook while renting there. A proliferation of sketches attest to his abiding interest in the place; the beautiful scenery stimulated his artistic vision. And so, when he was seeking a country abode far away from the intense demands of his London life and, in 1807, the…

I usually use Canson Mi-Teintes Pastel Paper as a support for my pastel paintings but, for this demonstration, I have experimented with a Strathmore Charcoal Paper. As the name suggests, it is intended for use with charcoal, but it is also ideal for pastels. With both papers, I use the reverse side because it has a less obviously mechanical texture, which is something I find rather distracting, particularly when painting on a smaller scale. I like to apply the pastel in a variety of ways, incorporating gently blended passages with more vigorous strokes made with the tip of the pastel, as well as the side. When using the side, a whole stick can be rather unmanageable, so I remove the wrapper and break it in half. Here, I have attempted…

My studio is a 10x5m rented farm outbuilding. I spent two months improving it before using it to paint. Here, I’ve outlined some of the main areas I considered in creating a good workspace. Thinking about these factors in relation to where you work will help you build a successful environment where you can do your best work. www.gerrydudgeon.com 2 LIGHTING Good lighting, whether natural or artificial, is essential. As my windows were quite small, I fitted five 300-watt Eterna halogen lamps and eight GU10 35 watt lamps to the beams. A skylight would have helped to get natural daylight, but was impractical. Instead, I work on the wall next to the largest window, where I placed the worktable and sink, which has a strainer for catching paint solids. The…

THE ARTIST’S RELATIONSHIP WITH HIS WORKSPACE AND THE OBJECTS THAT FILLED IT WAS PARTICULARLY PROFOUND To the casual viewer of art, the end image is everything. They might think about what the artist is trying to communicate and make them feel, but the practicalities of how a painting comes into existence remains hidden. To practising artists, however, looking at a great artwork sparks a wealth of questions. How did the painter make that mark? What medium did they use to mix their paint? And, how was their studio set up? Artists love to peek behind-the-scenes at the spaces of those who excel in their field because studios are the place where inspiration mixes with the reality of painting and ideas take physical form. How a painter organises their space reveals…

We’ve teamed up with the Royal Academy of Arts to bring you an exclusive opportunity to step into the world of Henri Matisse. The Matisse in the Studio exhibition, from 5 August to 12 November 2017, provides a rare glimpse into his personal collection of objects from around the globe, as well as the paintings, sculptures and drawings it inspired. Our winner and their guest will be able to experience the exhibition outside of public opening hours and receive a free catalogue. The VIP pair will also be treated to an overnight stay in five-star The Stafford London, just around the corner from the RA. There they can relish the luxury surroundings of the Victorian house and explore the Game Bird restaurant and American Bar, before enjoying a complimentary breakfast.…

White artist’s paints come in several common forms – Chalk White, Lead White, Zinc White and Titanium White – and are characterised by their various thickness, tinting strength (ability to lighten another colour), purity of whiteness and covering power. White paint has its origin in pre-history. The earliest calcium carbonate – naturally occurring white chalk – was ground with water to make paints for decorating cave walls and, later, pottery and statues. Historically, chalk was also mixed with limewater as a fresco paint, as well as wax to make encaustic and, later, gum Arabic for watercolours, and linseed oil for oil paints. Acrylics are also made from the same white chalk materials. LEAD WHITE This lead carbonate white has been in use in the west since the classical Greek era.…

WATERCOLOURISTS WILL FIND ONE OF THE MOST MAGICAL THINGS ABOUT PAINTING APPS IS THE UNDO BUTTON Anyone who saw the David Hockney retrospective at the Royal Academy of Arts last year will be acquainted with the delightful results you can achieve creating art digitally on the iPhone and iPad. Computer art has been around for years but, with the advent of the tablet and the smartphone, the studio has become increasingly portable. Rapid improvements in technology has meant software is increasingly user-friendly. Your virtual paint, paper and brushes/tools now take up only the space on your tablet screen, and you can paint full colour – with no mess and clearing up – while sitting in a cafe. Following in Hockney’s (very big) footsteps, I started with the Brushes app. One…