Innholdsfortegnelse for Summer 2019 i Artists & Illustrators

PAULA REGO A first major English retrospective in two decades is a lesson in telling stories and being bolder Art is, above all, about communicating and one of our greatest living visual storytellers is the Portuguese artist Dame Paula Rego. While the 84-year-old clearly possesses a vivid and often macabre imagination, she also works hard to supplement this to help get her stories across. She admits to turning to folk tales and story books whenever she struggles with a painting, while her studio looks more like a theatre props department, filled as it is with masks and mannequins, stuffed toys and costumes. Working with such visual aids can be a useful way to tease out ideas. And while these fanciful set-ups bring character to Rego’s work, she balances these fictions…

“Young people educate us just as much as we educate them... They show us how to remain vibrant” How did you become Head of Painting for the Royal College of Art? I’ve always admired the reputation and the artists who have studied at the Royal College of Art. When the vacancy for Head of Painting was announced, I underwent an extensive screening and interview process and eventually the position was offered to me. It’s a fantastic opportunity to work with the latest talent and encourage them to broaden their perspectives with my expertise and experience. I am also keen to further the college’s well-established reputation in the United States. How do you feel about relocating to London? London is a rich, vibrant, cultural city that my partner, our puppy and…

A colourful character like this tree frog [original photo, pictured right] can prove a daunting prospect when aiming for a realistic result in watercolour. There are so many colours that have the potential to bleed into each other to create muddy browns, which is why my wet-on-dry method removes the stress. I paint each colour in turn, letting it dry before applying the next so no two layers bleed together. I began this painting of a tree frog with pale, watery mixes of watercolour which were a match to the lightest tonal values within each colour. I then layered up within each colour area, always waiting for each previous layer to dry first, working on the darkest tones followed by the midtones. All the while, I was adding detail and…

1 BE DECISIVE While there’s nothing wrong with a ragged line, the marks in the drawing on the left appear hesitant and indecisive. Know your brush load so you won’t end up with too-thick lines in delicate areas, and opt for longer strokes for curves instead of a series of short ticks. 2 BE SELECTIVE Don’t draw everything you see just because it’s there. In translating your subject into line, some fine features are best implied or omitted. Harsh laugh lines or spaces between teeth are good 3 MERGE DETAIL Don’t get carried away with details in areas like the hair. The drawing on the left looks neat, but the tight pattern vibrates and doesn’t match the rest of the inking. Keep all the elements of your…

For my final life painting session with you, I wanted to show you some interesting ways to tackle complicated or intricate textures and patterns without losing the previous sessions’ expressiveness. Before the sitting, I arranged all my favourite textures and patterns in the space where my model, Fiona, would sit. The towel hanging behind her is one I’ve included in a few sketches and really appeals to me for its exotic pattern. The patchwork quilt was made by my aunt – although it’s barely indicated in the painting below, I know the inclusion of it added to the sensory experience for me. It’s easy to get into overwhelm with a riot of pattern, so once you’ve gathered the patterns and textures you love, know that you can omit some. Be…

Choosing an image of a beloved pet should be an easy task, as we tend to love almost every photo we take of them. And in these days of smartphones, it is much easier to get a quick shot of our furry friends in great situations. Not every photo makes a good painting, however. So how do we judge whether a photo might work as a potential subject for a painting? Something to bear in mind when you choose your image is whether it tells a story or represents something about your pet that is unique to that character. It needs to be an image that can do this even for people who haven’t seen or met your pet. Great lighting and an interesting situation or composition will also help…

1 FIND YOUR FOCUS “Everybody has idiosyncrasies. In portraiture, it is up to the painter to try and find the key to a personality through accurate drawing and placing paint down as simply as possible. There are no techniques to help achieve this. Observation and focus are what is needed.” 2 ALWAYS PREPARE “Do a lot of preparatory work. When beginning a portrait, I start with prep drawings in order to work out the overall composition. “All people are of interest and, even where I thought that might not be so, I have been surprised how absorbed my attention has become.” 3 RESTRICT YOUR PALETTE “My palette is simply made up of seven colours, laid out from warm to cool, plus black and white. I find the more colours you…

The tropical jungle – a place of density, heat, colour and often danger. Perhaps these attributes are why this environment has always been such a draw for painters. Capturing all of that life is quite the challenge. Henri Rousseau is probably the most famous artist who has ever painted a jungle – his name instantly conjuring up images of palms and tigers and orange flowers blazing like flames in the midst of abundant greenery. Yet Rousseau famously never set foot in a jungle. He never even saw one from afar. Instead “Le Douanier” – the customs officer, as the French painter was known in a nod to his day job – worked from his imagination. This is a concept that will be familiar to Kate Morgan, whose paintings are a…

Despite what the title of our esteemed magazine might suggest, it is increasingly rare to find someone who can seriously claim to be enjoying award-winning success as both an artist and an illustrator. Richard Allen is operating in a rather rarefied sphere then. Not only was this accomplished oil painter named the Sky Arts Landscape Artist of the Year 2016 after successfully completing a number of plein air challenges in the popular TV series, but his commercial illustration work also saw him scoop two major prizes in the last three years at the annual V&A Illustration Awards. Richard was named the overall V&A Illustrator of the Year in 2017 for a clever commission for The Sunday Telegraph’s “Money” section that restyled President Donald Trump’s blonde thatch as Hokusai’s The Great…

Emerging in the 1880s as part of the Impressionist movement, Paul Gauguin tackled traditional plein air painting subjects in the south of France, yet always showed an interest in slightly unnatural colours. By the time of his first visit to Tahiti in 1890, that approach had coalesced into the late period style that defines his art. In paintings such as 1892’s Parau na te Varua ino (Words of the Devil), Gauguin is using a varied range of colours yet with a surprisingly muted and close tonal range. Squint at the image and it is only the bright pink earth and modesty-covering white rag that veers from the dominant mid-to-dark tone. Restricting your tonal range can be a powerful way to ensure varied colours sit well beside one another.…

• Watercolours Scarlet Lake, Opera Rose, Winsor Lemon, Winsor Green (Yellow Shade), Permanent Sap Green, Winsor Blue Green Shade, Cobalt Turquoise Light, Burnt Sienna and Payne’s Gray, all Winsor & Newton Professional Water Colour; Transparent Orange, Schmincke Horadam Aquarelle; Quinacridone Purple, Daniel Smith Extra Fine Watercolor • Paper Hot-pressed (smooth) Arches 100% cotton paper • Brushes Golden synthetic pointer spotters, sizes 000, 0, 1, 3 and 5 (available as the Anna Mason Set from Rosemary & Co.) • Pencil • Eraser • Kitchen Roll…

Bath is a beautiful city, rife with painting spots. The majority of the houses there are made from the gorgeous “Bath Stone”, a limestone that plays beautifully with sunlight at all times of the day, making it a prime urban destination for any aspiring plein air painter. I love Milsom Street. The pavement at the north end is raised around four feet above road level, meaning your vision isn’t obstructed by passing cars – very handy when painting in a city. There are also a nice variety of buildings and shop fronts, with awnings, signs and lamp posts to keep you busy with drawing. Bath sits in a valley so many of the city’s best viewpoints look across to the opposing side, giving a wonderful backdrop of hazy trees that…

• Watercolours Alizarin Crimson, Cadmium Red, Winsor Orange, Cadmium Lemon Yellow, Yellow Ochre, Sap Green, Viridian Green, Cerulean Blue, Cobalt Blue, Ultramarine Blue, Burnt Sienna and Vandyke Brown, all Winsor & Newton Professional Water Colour • Brushes Royal & Langnickel flat brushes, size 2, 4 and 6; Royal & Langnickel round brushes, size 8; Rosemary & Co. Series 222 Flat One Stroke Synthetic brushes 1”, 1.5” and 2” (available as the Aine Divine Brush Set) • Paper Bockingford 535gsm NOT surface, Imperial size (76x56cm)…

• Paint Aureolin, Burnt Sienna, Burnt Umber, Naples Yellow, Naples Yellow Deep, Yellow Ochre, Quinacridone Gold, Winsor Yellow, Cerulean Blue (Red Shade), Cerulean Blue, Cobalt Blue, French Ultramarine, Winsor Violet (Dioxazine), Indigo, Ivory Black, Lamp Black, Payne’s Gray and Neutral Tint, all Winsor & Newton Professional Water Colours; Titanium White, Winsor & Newton Designers Gouache • Paper Fabriano Cold-Pressed 300gsm Artistico watercolour paper, 30.5x45.5cm • Brushes Pro-Arte Series 007 Prolene Round, sizes 1, 2, 3, 10 and 20; Pro-Arte Series 008 Prolene Long Flat, size 1” • HB pencil • A set of coloured pencils • Colourless masking fluid • A colour shaper…

I have been a subscriber to Artists & Illustrators for some years and particularly value the new ideas that encourage me to try something new. Terence Clarke’s article Second Time Lucky [Masterclass, Issue 404] caught my eye as I have a number of disappointing works that I I decide what to do with them. These included a canvas on which I had been playing with impasto textures in a landscape setting. There were bits I liked surrounded by lots of areas which I did not like at all. Inspired by the article, I painted over the whole thing and tried a still life. Jeff Clarke, via email…

You won the professional research category at the 2018 World Illustration Awards. What was the specific project? The award was for a book and exhibition called Thinking Room, the result of an artists’ residency at Nottingham Lakeside Arts. The residency studio was a fantastic size, large enough for ballroom dancing, and it transformed my practice. I ended up doing large paintings for the exhibition, and also shrank them right down for a small book. Was it difficult to scale large work down to book size? I had to just go for it and resign myself to the loss of detail, but it actually worked well – different, but to good effect. When did you set up your studio at home? The day I closed the book on my first career.…

Modernists & Mavericks by Martin Gayford A wise and authoritative account of the post-war London art scene, charting the interlinking lives and relationships of painters including Lucian Freud, David Hockney and Bridget Riley. (Thames & Hudson, £12.99) Stanley and Elsie by Nicola Upson The crime author spins a fictional and romantic retelling of artist Stanley Spencer’s family life in Hampshire, told from the perspective of new housemaid Elsie Munday. (Duckworth, £10.99) Lee Krasner – A Biography by Gail Levin Unfairly maligned as simply “Mrs Jackson Pollock”, this weighty first biography reveals a pioneering painter who campaigned for women’s rights and created abstract art that pulsed with life. (Thames & Hudson, £12.99)…

THE COLOUR This is fools’ gold – an unsaturated yellow that appears olive green to the eye and actually contains other metals such as copper or nickel. THE PROPERTIES Green Gold oil paints from Williamsburg, Gamblin, Winsor & Newton and Michael Harding are all based on a Copper Azomethine Green pigment (PY129) which retains a warm, glowing undertone useful for mixing thanks to a medium-to-high tinting strength. Golden’s Green Gold acrylic, meanwhile, is a mixture of three different pigments, prized for its glazing. THE USES Mixed with blues, Green Gold creates interesting sap green hues. Handprint’s Bruce MacEvoy also recommends it for creating “muted but interesting browns and tans with Quinacridone Red or Magenta”.…

“Mud, mud, glorious mud…” goes the old song but in watercolour mud is probably the least welcome problem in a painting. Mud does not refer to an actual colour but instead it describes a part of the painting where the watercolour has lost its transparency and freshness, leading to dull, seemingly opaque passages. Thankfully, many artists have come up with ways of supposedly preventing this from happening. The problem is that many of these methods of prevention don’t actually work to any great extent and indeed can cloud the true cause – a case of muddying the waters perhaps. So before I explain potential ways to avoid muddy colours, let’s first disprove four of the common fallacies. 1. USE CLEAN WATER I would agree clean water is better than dirty…

What is the purpose of travel sketching for you? Travel sketching, for me, serves many purposes. It provides a visual diary of a significant journey; I often find that, when I look back at my travel drawings, even years later, I can remember the mood of the moment – the sun, the breeze, some of the sounds or smells – quite clearly. Because each drawing takes anything from 20 minutes to three hours to create, I get very absorbed in what I’m doing and that seems to fix a scene more effectively in my memory in ways that simply photographing it does not. Also, as an artist whose prints are highly dependent on my drawing abilities, I find it is really important to keep those skills fluent and that involves…

FUSING MEDIUMS  What it does: Creates transitionless blends between glazes. How to use it: Spread bodied oil such as Stand Oil lightly and evenly on the section you want to blend and apply paint directly to it using a very soft brush. Pros: Nothing holds detail as well or facilitates a softer blend. Cons: Bodied oils take an age to dry, are glossy, and if used to excess will run. More inspiration: Jan Van Eyck, Leonardo da Vinci and Giorgione all use soft transitional blends (sfumato) alongside sharp details – and a fusing medium facilitates both. GEM-LIKE MEDIUMS  What it does: Creates great transitions, good impasto and increased luminosity and saturation of glazes. How to use it: Spread megilp lightly and evenly on the area of the painting and work…