Innholdsfortegnelse for August 2019 i Artists & Illustrators

1 TAL R 6 July to 13 October This collection of bright, semi-abstract paintings by the Copenhagen-based Israeli painter is the highlight of several inaugural displays at the new Hastings Contemporary, which replaces the East Sussex town’s popular Jerwood Gallery. Subtitled “eventually all museums will be ships” the exhibition sits alongside Roy Oxlade’s abstract art and a collection of drawings by illustrator Sir Quentin Blake. Hastings Contemporary, Hastings www.hastingscontemporary.org 2 REFLECTION: BRITISH ART IN AN AGE OF CHANGE 17 August to 5 January 2020 This fascinating exhibition takes a look at the unique and contrasting ways in which modern British artists have perceived and represented the country’s ever-changing cultural landscape. Works by Stanley Spencer, David Hockney and Barbara Hepworth capture the diversity of British art and question our national identity…

Runbacks are caused when weaker paint (or water) is introduced into a stronger wet or damp wash. The weaker paint will spread, only stopping when it meets a sufficiently dry area where it creates a crinkly edge. To create the mark on the left, I added a drop of water into the very wet wash; on the centre and right, I added the water when the wash was almost dry and the crinkly edges are much more obvious. Encouraging runbacks Paper texture has a bearing on the likelihood of runbacks: hot-pressed (HP) paper encourages runbacks, whereas rough paper does not. Here a few drops of water added to an almost-dry wash on HP paper achieved lovely effects. Avoiding runbacks If you don’t want runbacks, always add strong mixes to weak,…

You grew up in an artistic family, as the son of printmaker Edward Bawden and ceramicist Charlotte Epton. Was it a natural choice to follow in their footsteps? My parents never tried to push me into something I didn’t want to do. I had always drawn continuously, however, and started making prints when I was about 10 years old. I did a linocut of Sweeney Todd and some small wood engravings. How long have you lived and worked here? My wife Hattie and I bought this house 34 years ago. Did you make any changes to the house for working? Yes, we built this room as a pottery studio. When we first came here, I had two rooms upstairs that I used for printing and design work. I did not…

• Watercolours French Ultramarine, Perylene Violet, Nickel Azo Yellow, Quinacridone Magenta, Quinacridone Fuchsia and Permanent Alizarin Crimson, all Daniel Smith Extra Fine Watercolor; Sap Green, Royal Talens Rembrandt; Titanium White, Winsor & Newton Professional Water Colour Stick • Paper Saunders Waterford High White HP 640gsm paper, 40x55cm • Brushes ProArte Prolene Series 007, sizes 000, 2 and 5; Princeton Neptune, sizes 6 and 12 •Cartridge paper •4B clutch pencil 2mm •8B Derwent “Dark Wash” watersoluble sketching pencil •A rubber and putty rubber •Tracing paper and Tracedown transfer paper…

When we look at anything, we tend to think in terms of objects. If we see a coffee cup sitting in a saucer resting on a table, we think of this as three individual objects. When we paint, however, we must think in a slightly different way. Instead we should look for shapes – specifically ones that connect together. Using the previous example, we should be trying to see a cup connected to a saucer connected to the table – one single, rather abstract shape. As artists, we should paint it as a single shape, using soft, blended colour between the three. As a rule of thumb, if two objects physically touch you should be thinking of creating a soft blend between the two and if they don’t physically touch…

Helen Tabor Writing on the hottest the day of the year, the prospect of being inside a polytunnel tending to plants seems far from fun. For Scottish Borders-based artist Helen Tabor, however, her own polytunnel has provided “a great source of pleasure and never ceases to amaze us in what it produces each year”. When she chose it as the subject for her latest painting, In the Polytunnel, she wanted to evoke “the jungle-like feel of being in the polytunnel.” The challenge of balancing this wild mess of foliage with the white arches of the tunnel appealed to Helen. She is a huge admirer of the great Scottish artists like Joan Eardley, Anne Redpath and William Gillies, while she was also inspired by a recent exhibition of work by Jackson…

It’s a grey day in north London when Patrick Cullen opens the studio door, his bright welcome a contrast to the ominous clouds above. His two-storey work space opens out onto a quaint cobbled mews in a desirable corner of the city, but no one is lingering long outside today. Inside, the ground floor space is packed floor to ceiling with more paintings than you’d find in a whole wing of the National Gallery. Plan chests heave with drawers full of unseen works on paper, painted canvases hang limply awaiting stretcher bars and a dozen or more larger framed works lean against the wooden staircase to the floor above. Everywhere you look there are repurposed picture frames, mounted drawings and flight cases from his painting trips abroad. Several self-portraits, painted…

Most artists agree that portraiture is the most difficult genre to conquer when drawing or painting. Achieving a large percentage of a likeness can be dragged down by minor inaccuracies. The first and most important strategy for painting portraits is don’t show what you don’t need to – in fact, this is my general rule for any artwork. The more information you convey, the more ammunition for an overly critical viewer. Obviously, you may need more accuracy with features, but you’ll be surprised what details can be left out. Do you really need to show all the eyelashes, wrinkles, blemishes and moles? In fact, your sitter might thank you for underplaying them or leaving them out completely. You may even just concentrate on getting one eye right and blur the…

In the first image, the three simple tree shapes have been painted separately, leaving space between them with a half-hearted ground line below. We read this clearly as three separate trees, albeit with a static, rather boring appearance. In the second example, I have allowed the tree shapes to combine with each other and the ground below as I painted them to produce a single, more dynamic shape. Thinking of groups of objects together and painting them as such can help to avoid the temptation to paint them as single isolated shapes.…

In your recent magazine, you have some delightful watercolour paintings with bright colours and one thing that I have noticed is that many people struggle to create bright watercolour paintings and give up on watercolour for acrylic paint, thinking that it cannot compete – but it can! I have four very straightforward techniques that I would like to share: 1. Use good quality white paper. White paper enables the maximum contrast and reflects back more light through transparent colours. 2. Do not allow the paper to become too wet. If this happens then adding more paint will not strengthen the colour. 3. Use artists' quality paints as these have purer colours and the pigment density is significantly higher than cheap alternatives. 4. Add gum Arabic to your paint mixes. This…

THE COLOUR A warm mustard brown that is one of the oldest pigments known to mankind. THE PROPERTIES Made from natural iron oxides, this semi-opaque earth pigment is a cooler alternative to Quinacridone Gold or a warmer, browner option when compared with Yellow Oxide. THE USES Vermeer is one of many portrait painters who made extensive use of yellow ochre for flesh colours. Mix with white and a touch of Alizarin Crimson for great results. It is also useful for muting sky blues near the horizon or mixing to create early autumnal greens.…

People like faces. Babies are drawn to them without knowing why, whereas adults use them to engage and relate. Faces tell us so much about a person, from expressions revealing one’s inner thoughts in that very instant, to wrinkles and laughter lines betraying many years’ worth of life experience. Faces are also the reason for the enduring popularity of one of the world’s biggest and most prestigious open art competitions. The National Portrait Gallery’s annual portrait award was launched back in 1980 with sponsorship from tobacco company John Player & Sons. Early winners included Alison Watt, Humphrey Ocean and Tai-Shan Schierenberg, the latter now a judge on Sky Arts’ Artist of the Year series. In 1989, the competition swapped one controversial sponsor with another and the BP Portrait Award was…

“Getting out of the studio and interacting with other artists is very important” What first inspired your artistic journey? My school years were spent at a wonderful art department at Morrison’s Academy in Crieff, Perthshire. The teachers were welcoming and encouraging, unlike the reception that I encountered in maths and science classes. Later, at Edinburgh College of Art, the artist John Busby took us out of the studios to observe and be visually excited by places as diverse as coal mines, breweries and sea shores. That experience shaped the way I work today. Travel is an integral part of your practice. How have past journeys inspired particular works? My working practice involves observing and recording in a location over a lengthy period then returning to my studio to develop these…

AIM The key to this exercise is to look for large shapes first: the forehead, the cheekbones, the chin, the neck. You could use a large flat brush and block those in fairly quickly. Trickier are the nose and mouth, which will require more thought, and trickier still are the eyes. If you’re a complete novice when it comes to portraiture or even acrylic painting in general, you may be tempted to sketch a quick outline of the face first. This can stifle free-flowing brushstrokes though so try to keep the drawing to a minimum. If you don’t have someone who can sit for you, use my reference photo and attempt a portrait like the one below. MATERIALS For this exercise, I painted on a 51x61cm canvas board, using a…

I enjoy working with masking fluid when I make my watercolours – in fact, I rarely make a painting without using it somewhere. My use of it often becomes a topic of conversation during workshops or art breaks and it certainly seems to elicit strong views when discussed by fellow artists. It’s definitely the Marmite of the watercolour world – they either love it or loathe it. This feeling often stems from an unsuccessful experience when first introduced to it. Some artists cite that the reason they prefer to avoid using masking fluid is that it can leave a hard edge to the paint on its removal. That can certainly be the case. However, if the correct paints and paper are used, ones which enable the pigment to be lifted…

Remember that painting with red shades is energising. It is a feel-good colour, with positive connotations. In the Chinese tradition of feng shui, round shapes are said to be better than hard straight lines, bringing good fortune with them; which makes painting tomatoes or other round red subjects ideal. Observe the colour of your subjects. Not all tomatoes are just red in colour. There are green, orange and even yellow tones. Carry out a few colour sample exercises on a scrap of paper to get a great idea of your favourites before you start painting. That way you can discover the shades you would like to use. Absorb the energy from every red shade that you opt for as you create. Let it warm you, energise you and simply help…