Innholdsfortegnelse for March 2021 i Artists & Illustrators

I really enjoyed writing about Wassily Kandinsky for this issue because he and I have something (almost) in common – and sadly, it’s not that I’m also a successful Russian abstract painter whose works sell for billions of rubles. No, it’s that Kandinsky is also thought to have a condition known as synaesthesia. Synaesthesia is a union of the senses, where one sense triggers another. Kandinsky is thought to have had a variant known as chromesthesia, in which sounds are experienced as colours. David Hockney apparently has this too, which explains a lot. I have grapheme-colour synaesthesia, which involves perceiving letters and numbers in different colours. So I tend to see letters in colour, a bit like this. It’s an involuntary reaction, something I’ve had as long as I can…

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Wassily Kandinsky wasn’t the first artist to embrace music in his painting, but he was possibly the first to do so in such an immersive and comprehensive way. Music for the Russian artist didn’t simply mean a radio on in the studio; it was a source of inspiration that triggered colours and ideas in his mind. Back in 1877, Walter Pater had declared that “all art constantly aspires towards the condition of music” and here was an attempt to put a chorus of colours into visual form. Colour and line would become Kandinsky’s musical notes as he pursued an increasingly abstract agenda, creating several series of individually numbered works that he called “improvisations” or “compositions”. 1912’s Improvisation 28 is a typical example, a wide canvas with roughly applied passages of…

I will always jump into any water that presents itself to me,” says painter Emily Ponsonby, with a vigour that translates to the oil-and-beeswax scenes of nude figures submerged in water that feature in her work. Although she rather accurately describes her subject matter as timeless, Emily’s paintings are also fresh and innovative and strangely modern. They are heavily textural, almost to the point of becoming sculptural, and they treat the depths and lightness of both water and the human body with a graceful respect. Emily’s investment in her work goes beyond simply looking and depicting. Her experience of water bleeds into her paintings. When she is herself in the water, she’s always thinking about how the scene might look if painted: “From that moment, as I jump in, it’s…

Picture this: you want to draw a figure. An exciting composition comes to mind, so you grab a pencil, or a piece of charcoal, and... nothing looks right. Do you recognise that feeling? Figures are one of the biggest challenges to draw from one’s imagination, yet also one of the most fascinating. Many great artists of the past have studied the structure of the human body and used it as a reference in their work. For instance, one remarkable story goes that Michelangelo had to take cover inside a secret chamber in the Sistine Chapel for about two months to hide from the Medici family. To occupy his time, he drew numerous charcoal figures from his imagination on the walls, works that only recently have been uncovered. In this article,…

Elise Ansel was born in New York City in 1961. She studied a BA at Rhode Island’s Brown University, where she later returned as a visiting artist and lecturer. An MFA in Visual Art followed at Southern Methodist University in Texas. Her paintings are an attempt to translate Old Masters into contemporary artistic language, and she has been exhibiting them in the UK and US for more than 35 years. Elise currently lives in Portland, Maine, and is represented by Cadogan Contemporary in London and Miles McEnery Gallery in New York. www.eliseansel.com TALKING WITH ARTISTS Flowers in a Glass Vase I springs from Rachel Ruysch’s 1704 painting Flowers in a Glass Vase, which is in the Detroit Institute of Arts Museum (DIA) collection. In 2019, gallerist David Klein saw my…

ABSORBED IN WHITE I am greatly enjoying your January issue’s creative challenges [Issue 425], working my way through quite a few of them and learning a lot. I would also like to thank you for your inspired choice of recommended reading: The Vivisector by Patrick White, based on the life of Australian painter, Sidney Nolan. I had heard of White’s work but never got around to reading any. This novel, which won him the Nobel Prize, is brilliantly written and totally absorbing. So glad you reminded me of him and gave your readers a great aid for getting through the latest phase of the lockdown. Jane Kelly, via email SANCTUARY AT HOME I wanted to thank you for the super feature on the homes of the great artists [Issue 426].…

OIL BRUSHES 1 Wrap a clean rag or paper towel around the ferrule (the metal bit of the brush) and wipe away from the handle – you want to avoid pigment getting down the ferrule. Repeat as necessary. 2 Dip the brush head in a jar of odourless thinners (a safer alternative to white spirits) and knock the pigment off the bristles. Repeat this step until no pigment is visible. 3 Wash the brush with soap or The Master’s Brush Preserver. Work the lather through the bristles with your fingers, always pushing out from the ferrule again. 4 Rinse with clean water, reshape the brush head with your thumb and forefinger, and leave to dry. ACRYLIC BRUSHES Repeat steps 1-4 above, but use a jar of clean water in step…

I www.jakespicerart.co.uk Jake’s materials •Coloured Pencils Mars Violet, Black and Plum, all Derwent Procolour pencils; Dark Orange, Amber Gold, Natural Brown, Wild Lavender, Mid Ultramarine, Turquoise Green, Strawberry, Flame, Moonstone, Oyster and Flesh Pink, all Derwent Lightfast pencils •Paper Seawhite 220gsm Cartridge Paper, A3 •Plastic eraser •Pencil sharpener 1 Create an under-drawing I began with a loose establishing drawing in Mars Violet Procolour pencil. Hold the pencil with a distant, underhand grip to keep the marks playful. Although most of the drawing will be made with oil-based Lightfast pencils, I prefer Procolour pencils for under-drawing as they can be erased more easily. 2 Refine the lines I lightly erased the first sketch, working over the top with Mars Violet Procolour to add greater clarity to the under-drawing. The aim here…

You can’t be good at drawing fantastic figures, if you can’t draw a simple cylinder. Therefore, it is good practice to draw and shade some simple forms, like spheres, cubes and cylinders. Draw lots of them, quickly, in various positions – and don’t worry about whether they’re perfectly drawn or not. If you’re wondering how this relates to the figure, have a look at the red lines I have overlaid on my original drawing below. Can you see how the leg can be seen as a cylinder and the pelvis as a box? See if you can imagine more shapes and forms underlying the forms in the figure.…

In this three-part series, we will look closely at a few paintings in terms of how they have been composed. I teach a class at The Heatherley School of Fine Art called “Drawing from Paintings in London Collections”, which normally involves a group of us meeting up at a different gallery each week, with camping stools under our arms and heading in to look at, talk about and draw from the paintings. When the first lockdown hit, I, like a lot of people during that time, found it difficult to continue drawing. One of the few things that felt manageable was to make a small drawing from a postcard of a painting. When we took the class online, however, we missed seeing the paintings in the flesh, but there have…

“Accepting that not every artwork is about a good outcome is very liberating” Recently an ex-student of mine, Bill, came to my studio to collect a print. He told me that during the Covid-19 restrictions he’d been working on his printmaking and trying to improve his technique. I was impressed by his prints, but the thing that really stayed with me after he left were his words, so I jotted them down. “I quickly realised that I had so much to learn and struggled to like anything about my prints at all,” he told me. “I almost stopped trying altogether until I decided I’d focus on one aspect of the work at a time and not be overwhelmed with trying to get everything right. That way I could see some…

Rosemary Thompson Founder, Rosemary & Co. Why did you start Rosemary & Co.? I felt frustrated with the quality and price of artists' brushes. I couldn't afford the better brands and so began making my own. I figured if I could make fishing flies for my brother then I could make brushes. Where’s the strangest place you’ve been in search of hair for your brushes? Russia is one I will remember. No one advised me how cold -30 degrees can be. I was very grateful to the folks who met me off the train carrying a fur coat. What are your own artistic talents like? Nowadays my art is gardening. Being a Shropshire lass, my addiction is to David Austin Roses. I tried to create a tapestry of colour for…

Take a first sheet of paper and spend 30-60 minutes drawing from the National Gallery painting. Take note of every figure and, as much as possible, draw them in relation to one another. Try to get the whole composition in and be sensitive to the rectangle and the overall design. Now take a new sheet of paper and spend the same amount of time drawing from the British Museum drawing. You’ll notice that some of the figures appear in both the drawing and the painting and some only appear in one. On the third sheet of paper, pick out and draw seven of the figures from either painting. For example, take three from one and four from the other. What you’ll find is that you can see all of some…