Innholdsfortegnelse for March 2019 i Artists & Illustrators

REMBRANDT: THINKING ON PAPER 7 February to 4 August 2019 Celebrate the casual brilliance of his draughtsmanship and ability to think around a subject via 70 prints and drawings. British Museum, London. www.britishmuseum.org REMBRANDT IN PRINT 1 June to 15 September 2019 This free exhibition of prints from the Ashmolean’s world-class collection includes family portraits, landscapes, nude studies and more. Lady Lever Art Gallery, Wirral. www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk REMBRANDT’S LIGHT 4 October 2019 to 2 February 2020 See 35 major loans with lighting design from Peter Suschitzky, director of photography on Empire Strikes Back. Dulwich Picture Gallery, London. www.dulwichpicturegallery.org.uk YOUNG REMBRANDT 27 February to 7 June 2020 Former director Dr Christoper Brown co-curates an exhibition of the artist’s early works, produced in conjunction with Leiden’s Museum…

“I prefer to work on the floor these days so I can move the canvas around” How did you come to be involved with Sky Arts Landscape Artist of the Year? I was selected as a wildcard in 2015. It was the best day ever so decided that I would enter each year, just to be a wildcard, knowing I wouldn’t get an actual place… How wrong I was! When I applied in 2018, I was so shocked to be selected as I know how hard it is to get through. What does the prize entail? The prize was a £10,000 commission for the Imperial War Museum to create a landscape to commemorate a battle in Macedonia during the First World War. I had about three weeks to prepare, which…

DURATION 15 minutes MATERIALS Aselectionofbluepaints in your chosen medium A white paint A brush A sketchbook WHAT YOU WILL LEARN This exercise should help you understand that blues can be both warm and cool in appearance depending upon how they are placed within a composition and the effect of other colours placed around them. Always be aware of how surrounding colours can influence how we perceive and understand a colour. WHAT TO DO 1 To begin exploring the properties of each of these blues, try painting a swatch of each in a sketchbook. Laying the blues side-by-side in this way can help you to distinguish which is the warmer and which is the cooler. Seeing each colour against the white of the paper will help to compare them, while…

• Acrylics Cadmium Yellow Lemon, Cadmium Yellow Medium, Permanent Yellow Medium, Yellow Ochre, Burnt Sienna, Cadmium Orange, Pyrrole Red, Quinacridone Rose Deep Opaque, Olive Green, Sap Green, Turquoise Blue, Sky Blue, King’s Blue, Cobalt Blue, Phthalo Blue, Prussian Blue (Phthalo), Phthalo Turquoise Blue, Permanent Blue Violet Opaque, Titanium White, all Royal Talens Amsterdam Expert acrylics • Brushes Daler-Rowney System 3 Sky Flow wash brushes, sizes 1”, 1.5” and 2” • Canvas 61x76cm • Large plastic mixing tray • Water pot • Kitchen roll…

1. OUTLINE Willow charcoal is easily erased, making it ideal for refining proportions. 2. SHADOWS Use compressed charcoal to establish the darkest tonal areas. 3. MIDTONES The compressed charcoal can be smudged to create a middle tone. 4. HIGHLIGHTS Erasers will bring light back into the drawing. 5. DETAILS Add detail with a nice sharp charcoal pencil. 6. REFINE Build up complexity by adding and subtracting layers. Next issue… Jake explores drawing with pen…

GILL WITH A PEARL OF A PAINTING I have done two copies of a Vermeer painting. My first attempt was bought by a friend. The second version [below], does not “do it”. I am not happy with the line of her face or the shape of the headdress. I was pleased with the eyes though. There is a great deal to be learnt from copying the masters. I shall keep going back to this painting until I am as satisfied as I can be. Or should I just start again? Gill Ashley, via email www.artistsandillustrators.co.uk/gillashley The question to ask yourself, Gill, is what you want from this painting. If your aim was to make an accurate copy of Girl with a Pearl Earring, then definitely persevere until you are happy.…

1 THE POSTER PRIZE FOR ILLUSTRATION 2019 The Association of Illustrators and London Transport Museum’s flagship competition returns (8 February to 14 July). Judged by an independent panel that includes Artists & Illustrators publisher Steve Pill, this year’s theme is London Stories. Illustrators were invited to interpret a London narrative, be that an urban myth, a historic fact, a family anecdote or a personal observation. The winning poster design will also be displayed at tube stations across the British capital. www.ltmuseum.co.uk 2 PAINT Building the Surface: Colour in Impasto and Paint This one-day workshop (16 March) is ideal for anyone seeking to enhance their understanding of colour and paint application. Tutor Jenny Martin will draw upon the work of Euan Uglow and William Coldstream as you learn how to work…

1606 Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn was born in Leiden, now part of the Netherlands, on 15 July. 1620 Briefly enrols at the University of Leiden before leaving to complete a painter’s apprenticeship. 1624 Spends six months in Amsterdam studying with artist Pieter Lastman. 1628 Mentors his first student, the 14-year-old Gerrit Dou. 1631 Returns to Amsterdam. 1634 Marries Saskia van Uylenburgh. 1639 The couple move into a larger property on Jodenbreestraat in Amsterdam, which today houses the Rembrandt House Museum. 1641 The couple’s fourth child, Titus, is born, the couple’s only child to survive into adulthood. 1642 Rembrandt completes the colossal group portrait known as The Night Watch. Saskia dies aged 30. 1654 His former housekeeper Hendrickje Stoffels gives birth to their daughter, Cornelia. 1656 Applies for cessio bonorum, a…

When beginning to paint, the idea of colour temperature can be a difficult one to grasp. Artists & Illustrators caused confusion last year when two separate articles in one issue claimed blue was both a warm and a cool colour. We are taught at art school that reds are warm and used to bring areas forward, while blues are cool and therefore will cause objects to appear to recede in a painting. But, as with the other primary colours, blue has both warm and cool variations. All but the purest primary colour has a leaning towards a secondary colour; it is this undertone that helps us to understand the notion of warm and cool. Within the range of blues available to buy by the tube, it is possible to compare…

Most of us have been there: staring at a fresh white canvas and feeling overwhelmed with anxiety. The fear of blank canvas is never fun, and, if you are reading this article, I am pretty sure that you are experiencing it. For this project, I have put together seven effective strategies to help you handle and overcome that fear. I am certain you will find some useful tools here. 1. THINK POSITIVE What exactly do you fear when faced with a blank canvas? It is usually one of two things. First is a fear of failure: a worry that you might make a mistake and spoil a perfect surface, or produce a painting that may not be as good as the last. Alternatively, you may fear success: a worry about…

What are the key challenges when it comes to painting in the evenings? A close study of my paintings would be a good way into explaining my way of approaching the challenge inherent in painting the city of Bath at night. I began making this series of works around 2003 as a response to the need to create paintings of the city where I live that would be different from all the endless pretty pictures of it. Nightfall was the first work I made, a sliver of the evening landscape in which I stripped out all the extraneous colour and detail, using only Cobalt Blue and Cadmium Yellow to capture the crepuscular light. This was the twilight time that began to fascinate me, when the daylight is drained from the…

1 START SMALL “Many of my pieces start with a thumbnail idea drawn on a scrap of paper as a result of something I have seen or felt. I then draw a larger version which allows me to work out any problems of scale or design.” “I keep working... Inspiration only comes when I am busy and receptive” 2 KNOW YOUR SUBJECT “I trained as a ship draughtsman and naval architect for four years before going to art college and that apprenticeship taught me to get to know your subject well. I familiarise myself with my subject through drawing, note taking and ruminating.” 3 FOLLOW YOUR INSTINCT “The paintings that work best for me are ones where I came up with an initial colour or theme when I first thought…

This month: Readers share tips for looking after brushes… Vivien Blackburn: I use baby oil for cleaning oil paint brushes, followed by soap and water. It cleans skin and brushes beautifully and is environmentally friendly – vegetable oil is cheaper but baby oil smells nicer. Roger Conrad: I swear by Dawn-brand dishwashing soap, the kind used to clean wildlife after oil spills. Annie Kennerley: “The Masters” Brush Cleaner and Preserver gets everything off! Tina Mammoser: I use large bristled varnishing brushes and leave them in water 24/7. Nothing dries on them. Yes, the metal rusts but if I need to replace a couple brushes a year that’s a reasonable expense. Felicity Campbell-Reynolds: After washing my brushes, I rub coconut oil into the bristles then reshape them using bar soap. Julia…

If you could travel back in time, which artistic era or group would you like to have been a part of? One of the few art books my father had when I was growing up was a copy of the catalogue for the 1968 Bauhaus exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts [50 Years Bauhaus] and I was utterly captivated by it. This seemed to me to be the place where the modern world was created, and I still think there’s a great deal of truth in that. The original Bauhaus movement included Walter Gropius, Johannes Itten, László Moholy-Nagy, Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee – all men, sadly, but I was growing up in Northampton in the 1960s, so you’ll have to cut me some slack. If you could have a…

DRAWING FEATURES Illustrator JOANNA HENLY shares tips for creating an elegant likeness THE FACE Keep moving around the face as you draw. It’s very easy to overwork one area without making sure the overall balance of the face is correct first. Try to keep your lines as soft as possible before you are happy with the proportions. THE EYES Eyes reveal so much. To capture their expression, you need to observe the position of the iris in both eyes. Also pay attention to the growth pattern of the brows and the eyelashes – these differ for each person and will help you establish likeness and character. THE NOSE With the head tipped backwards slightly, foreshortening occurs, placing more focus on the nostrils, which are slightly narrowed as a result. Note…

COBALT BLUE Cobalt is a delicate blue, which has a cooler colour temperature. This is an artificial mineral pigment and has been available since the early nineteenth century. It derives from treated cobalt oxide and aluminium oxide. Cobalt Blue is a transparent blue that makes it useful when being used as a glaze, and it is fast drying. ULTRAMARINE Ultramarine has a high tinting strength, making it much more intense now than the original lapis lazuli. It is an artificial mineral pigment that is made by heating together clay with sulphur, soda and coal, resulting in a fairly slow-drying colour. Ultramarine pigment was produced in Germany and France (hence French Ultramarine) from the 1830s as a cheaper alternative to natural ultramarine. Ultramarine is a warm blue as it is more…

• Watercolours Naples Yellow, Cadmium Orange, French Ultramarine, Coeruleum and Raw Sienna, all Daler-Rowney Artists’ Watercolour; Rose Madder Genuine and Light Red, Winsor & Newton Professional Water Colour • Gouache Brown Pink and Permanent White, Daler-Rowney Designers’ Gouache • Pastels Blue-Violet 8 and 15, Blue-Green 17, Orange 12, Red-Earth 9, Brown-Earth 1, Yellow-Green-Earth 9 and 16, all Unison Colour soft pastels • Paper 300gsm Arches (Not) watercolour paper, 31x41cm • Brushes 1” hake, 1/2” filbert, size 10 round, size 4 rigger, and an old brush (for masking) • 4B pencil • Black marker pen • Black conte crayon • Masking fluid…

Acrylics are the ideal medium for painting anything shiny because their quick-drying qualities help you to create starker contrasts between dark and light areas. Where the extended working times of oils allow you to blend seamless transitions of tone, fussing too much with acrylics can dull the paint. As a general rule when painting any subject with acrylics, avoid overworking or applying too many layers. This goes against the general thinking and, while you technically can paint layer after layer of acrylics on top of one another, I find that, as a water-based medium, it results in a flatter finish. I get the most out of acrylics by diluting them with less water and being more direct with the applications instead, whether I’m establishing certain tones or colours. Painting shiny…