Innholdsfortegnelse for October 2017 i Artists & Illustrators

Simple ways to step up your pastel techniques. The Pastel Society’s Sarah Bee explains why using acrylics, charcoal and gesso can help you get the most out of your pastel art... Rhoda Hamer: There are no rules – eg, I create a colourful variegated pastel background and then draw over it with black pen or charcoal with some some amazing results. Emma Boitoult@duckard12 @AandImagazine My new painting of a beautiful Rottie named Shylo. Let us know what you think of Artists & Illustrators magazine and share your painting projects with us at the contacts below... @AandImagazine ArtistsAndIllustrators AandImagazine AandImagazine…

“PLANNING MY TIME, ALLOCATING A SLOT TO MY PROJECT AND MAKING SURE I STICK TO THE SCHEDULE WORKS EVERY TIME” Making art isn’t always enjoyable. This will come as a shock to those who assume creative types spend their time in a whirl of indulgent invention. Whether you’re a professional artist with demanding clients or scrabbling to make Christmas cards, there can come a point where joy leaves the room and you have to summon up some grit. There’s a double standard when it comes to creativity: on the one hand, there’s the idea that we artists can only work when our muse visits and, on the other, that we are naturally gifted with skills we live to indulge. Reality falls outside these extremes, and is rather more mundane. Art,…

oils and claim first prize in the professional and semiprofessional category. “This year’s event was a great success with around 300 artists of all skill levels taking part,” says Pintar Rapido organiser Roger Beckett. “I loved Adam’s painting of Piccadilly Circus. It captured the spirit of the day. Clearly the judges felt the same, too.” Perhaps because the Blackpool resident is used to painting his home town’s busy seaside in all weathers, he was well prepared for the day’s challenges, managing to complete two pictures. “I was expecting the rain so came with waterproofs, an umbrella and clip-on light,” says Adam. “Apart from the difficulty of holding an umbrella while painting under it, I love the milky tones you see during wet weather. I knew there’d be crowds and lots…

BUILDING LAYERS OF PAINT To create a solid area of colour with paint, build it up in layers rather than painting one thick layer. Two or three loose, watered-down layers of paint will give you a flat finish that’s free of visible brushstrokes. Here I have painted three layers of the same colour. I let each layer dry before adding the next and created a nice, solid base colour that could be used for the body of a light brown dog, cat or hamster. STIPPLING Stippling can be used to build texture in a painting. For example, if you want to paint a scruffy dog, simply load a paintbrush with paint, and dab it repeatedly onto the paper to create fur. DRYBRUSHING Applying paint with a dry brush can add…

The fleeting British summer will soon be a memory. But after reading my interview with this year’s Pintar Rapido winner Adam Ralston (page 30), you’re sure to be inspired to make the most of what’s left of the mild weather. His plein air paintings will put a smile on your face (who doesn’t want to see Postman Pat and Frosties cereal packets as subject matter?) Plus, he has some very helpful advice for painting your way through that inevitable summer downpour. We’re also keeping the autumn at bay with our watercolour special. It’s a medium wonderfully well suited to working en plein air, and Ray Balkwill’s roundup of essential techniques (page 46), Aine Divine’s free-spirited portrait masterclass (page 42) and Sandrine Maugy’s guide to the choosing brushes (page 52) should…

1 WATCH LOVING VINCENT Mix a passion for art and film this month with a visit to see Loving Vincent – the world’s first fully painted film – at cinemas from 13 October. Every one of the movie’s 65,000 frames has been oil-painted by a professional to tell the heartwrenching story of Vincent van Gogh’s demise in the style of his paintings. The film took years to complete with new techniques needing to be developed and actors, including Douglas Booth and Helen McCrory, first shooting live action sequences, which were then hand-painted by a team of more than 100 artists. Unmissable. www.lovingvincent.com 2 ENTER Royal Society of British Artists (RBA) annual exhibition call for entries The prestigious RBA Exhibition is now accepting submissions for its 2018 showcase. For your chance…

BY THE 1840S AND 1850S, THE PRINCIPLE OF COMPLEMENTARY COLOURS WAS MAKING ITS WAY INTO STUDIOS Most pigments used during the Renaissance proved durable. The rose madders and umbers that Italians set down five centuries ago still absorb light much as they ever did. Yet since, the meanings of coloured paints have been upended. Cima da Conegliano, starting a panel circa 1500, draws first, then colours. A head, a hill and a tree have outlines, within which pigment may be applied, because each is a distinct entity in the world, held together in a predictable way: a form, in other words. The painter’s job is first to grasp forms and then to present them on a flat plane in such a way viewers will recognise them. In this way Cima,…

Pegasus Art is offering five lucky readers the chance to win a tin of 24 Derwent Procolour Pencils worth £44.75 each. The winners, chosen at random, will each receive a set of the fabulous new range of colour pencils, which are a perfect combination of a strong point and smooth laydown, with a texture that has the covering power of wax while also gliding like an oil. These pencils will retain a hard point while you are drawing, making them great for achieving fine detail in your coloured pencil artworks or enhancing aspects of watercolour paintings. Pegasus Art has been supplying fine art materials to the art community since 2005, offering a comprehensive online shop, as well as art classes and workshops. Visit them at www.pegasusart.co.uk HOW TO ENTER For…

Discover how Van Eyck’s Arnolfini Portrait became one of the beacons by which the Pre-Raphaelites forged a radical new style of painting at Reflections: Van Eyck and the Pre-Raphaelites. The exhibition runs from 2 October to 2 April 2018, organised by the National Gallery in collaboration with Tate Britain. It is set to bring together The Arnolfini Portrait with paintings from the Tate collection and other loans to explore how it influenced Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Sir John Everett Millais and William Holman Hunt, among others. Enter now for your chance to win two tickets to the exhibition, a complimentary catalogue and tote bag, and enjoy an overnight stay at the Strand Palace Hotel. Set on the Strand in the heart of the West End, the Strand Palace Hotel is just…

•Work with chalk pastels on tinted pastel paper. Start with a willow charcoal under-drawing, laying down outlines while building a pattern of tone. Next, spray fixative and apply areas of colour. Limit colours and think about combinations that create harmony, such as opposite complementary colours or nearly opposite colours. Try using three stages: charcoal followed by two colour layers applied in broken, hatched and scribbled marks. •Begin an oil painting on canvas, sketching your subject and covering the image with a reasonable amount of paint. Then scrape down by pressing the paint into the canvas with the side of a palette knife, wiping the knife clean each time. Select one or two areas to sharpen with bright, contrasting colours. Aim to have some areas scraped down, and others with more…

LONDON 50 Years of Children’s Books 6 October 2017 to 4 March 2018 Work from Quentin Blake and lifelong collaborator John Yeoman. House of Illustration.www.houseofillustration.org.uk Bomberg 21 October 2017 to 4 February 2018 A major reassessment of the life and career of Whitechapel Boy David Bomberg. Pallant House Gallery, Chichester.www.pallant.org.uk Canaletto and the Art of Venice Until 12 November 2017 The famous painter’s most spectacular views displayed alongside his contemporaries. The Queen’s Gallery, Buckingham Palace.www.royalcollection.org.uk Dalí / Duchamp 7 October 2017 to 3 January 2018 Two of the 20th century’s most famous artists in exclusive dialogue. Royal Academy of Arts. www.royalacademy.org.uk El Greco to Goya – Spanish Masterpieces from The Bowes Museum 27 September 2017 to 7 January 2018 The first London exhibition of the collection. The Wallace Collection. www.wallacecollection.org…

IN THE STUDIO “I FINISH WORK BACK IN THE STUDIO. I GATHER EVERYTHING AROUND ME: DRAWINGS, SKETCHBOOKS, PHOTOS” You have completed a residency at the Garden Museum in London. What are you working on at the moment? The residency has come to an end, but I’m only half-way through it because my plan was to create 12 paintings of the gardens, and I did not expect I would be so affected by the weather. It turned out to be a two-year project. You are best known for your paintings of gardens and green spaces, but you’ve always lived in London. The city has the most wonderful gardens, both public and private, and sometimes quite unexpected green spaces. For me, they are also very much places of escape. When did you…

Mixed-media artist Anna Perlin was crowned overall winner at a glittering ceremony at Mall Galleries in London in January this year. As well as the prestigious title, she was presented with a year’s worth of art supplies from Artists of the Year 2017 sponsor Cass Art. Since then, she’s been busy creating beautiful new paintings with her Cass Art materials, as well showing her art in exciting new venues. “I’m going to have work in Thackeray Gallery’s Christmas show, which I’m working towards now,” she says. “And I’ve just finished a successful solo exhibition with Bircham Gallery in Holt, Norfolk.” Anna’s paintings will also feature in Christmas shows at the Bircham Gallery and Robert Fogell Gallery in Stamford, Lincolnshire, and she’s been busy demonstrating and exhibiting – and having fun…

“PEOPLE ARE VERY KEEN› THEY LOVE COMING TO RWS EXHIBITIONS AND SPEND A LOT OF TIME DISCUSSING TECHNIQUES AND SUBJECTS” Could you briefly describe how you became a painter? I did a two-year foundation course at Colchester School of Art. We had some fabulous staff, and artists such as John Nash and Edward Bawden would come in for a day and teach. That was very influential for me. This was in the 1960s. At the time, I wanted to go to London and study graphic design. I got accepted at the Central School of Art and Design for the graphics course and, when I’d finished, I got a job at a publisher doing book layout and typography. What made you give up publishing and return to painting? By 1996, publishing…

I have painted Alisdair many times, with and without a beard, with long hair, hats and in many different guises. For this painting, my focus was on representing each shadow shape with ease and lightness. With this in mind, I also made sure I felt light in myself. There was a constant advancing and retreating. It was almost a fencing action with the easel. I am reminded of this quote by Walter Sickert: “If you put free loose coat over free loose coat, eventually the deaf canvas listens and the painting paints itself.” Standing back often means the painting can speak to you; it creates the space and room to see what needs to happen next. I like to loosen up regularly by picking up the two-inch brush and whipping…

When faced with the plethora of watercolour brushes in art shops, it might feel difficult to make a choice. When asked what the best watercolour brush is, my answer is that I can only say which is my favourite, not which is the best. The answer differs from artist to artist, depending on what they are looking for in a brush. Softness, good spring, cost, value, aesthetics, high animal welfare standards, control or looseness are criteria we may need to consider before splashing out. SHAPE The first thing to decide is which shape is the most appropriate for the job. Round, pointed tip The most common shape of brush. This classic works well for laying washes and painting details, while being suited to wet and dry brush techniques. I would…

1 IT’S A MYTH HE INVENTED OIL PAINTING Van Eyck’s reputation as the inventor of oil painting can be linked to Giorgio Vasari, the author of the 16th-century text The Lives of the Artists, who tended to overstate facts. But, Van Eyck was one of the first to truly master the medium; The Arnolfini Portrait is one of the earliest and finest examples of this. 2 THE LADY IS NOT PREGNANT It is easy to see why many people think the woman in The Arnolfini Portrait is pregnant. In fact, she is holding a huge amount of rich green fabric in front of her. It is possible the cloth is a reference to the Arnolfini being a family of merchants from Lucca. 3 IT’S AN ILLUSION In The Arnolfini Portrait,…