Innholdsfortegnelse for May 2021 i Artists & Illustrators

Send your letter or email to the addresses below: POST: Your Letters, Artists & Illustrators, The Chelsea Magazine Company Ltd., Jubilee House, 2 Jubilee Place, London SW3 3TQ EMAIL: info@artists andillustrators.co.uk The writer of our ‘letter of the month’ will receive a £50 gift voucher from GreatArt, which offers the UK’s largest range of art materials with more than 50,000 art supplies and regular discounts and promotions. www.greatart.co.uk WE RESERVE THE RIGHT TO EDIT LETTERS FOR PUBLICATION…

“Learning how each pigment behaves is key to setting up your palette” My role at Gamblin involves offering technical advice to artists all over the world. I hope to give them the confidence and reassurance to use oil colour to achieve their vision. This is done via email or live chat on our website, but we also offer one-to-one phone consultations and hope to implement video calls soon. One of the best aspects of my job is handling the product. Collaborating with painters and printmakers also gives me a lot of unique experiences. It’s amazing to see the different things people do with the materials. To help artists select the right products, I ask questions. I try to find out about their subject matter, studio setup, experience and stylistic approach,…

60 SECOND CHALLENGES Today I hosted my “Art with a Heart” Zoom class which has been running during the lockdown as a means of reaching patients who we support at East Lancs hospice. They thoroughly enjoyed the challenge I set, whereby they had to draw 20 sketches based on uplifting stories from 2020 in just 20 minutes – one minute per sketch! It was great fun and something I’d highly recommend trying. Liz Swan, Ribchester, Lancashire What a great idea, Liz. If other readers have been setting similar artistic challenges for each other during the lockdown, we'd love you to share them with us. A NEW SOLITUDE As an artist working independently and in solitude, I am a person knotted in expectation and apprehension for my own moves amongst those…

“Nature is always willing to reveal its secrets to those who are willing to see them” From dopamine fasts and teatoxes to goat yoga and cow cuddling, the latest wellness trends appear downright ridiculous to the non-initiated. But not even the biggest self-care critic could knock the remarkable healing power of art, especially if they had ever had the pleasure of speaking to Darya Tratsiakovich about her immersion in the welcoming world of botanical art. The Minsk-born, Stockholm-based painter had suffered with unexplained joint pain for years, but when she became pregnant around five years ago it became excruciating. After giving birth, the agony continued, flummoxing many medical professionals. Then, while watching an episode of TV medical drama Grey’s Anatomy, she saw a character with similar symptoms and, taking this…

1 Draw the shapes I usually make a detailed initial drawing on a separate piece of paper to preserve the surface of my watercolour paper. However, this time I drew rough shapes directly onto the paper for guidance, which allowed me to keep things looser. 2 Begin to mask I masked out white highlights with masking fluid, starting with the flowers. I then mixed up some yellows to paint the pistils, adding Manganese and Cobalt blues to the flowers and petal shadows, as well as pale scarlets and Permanent Rose. I added masking fluid over these colours later, so the shapes didn’t need to be painted precisely here – the darker backgrounds helped to hide rough edges later. 3 Blot away colour I masked the pistils, stems and petals. When…

KEEPING CONNECTED I have been a subscriber to Artists & Illustrators for several years now and January [Issue 425] was particularly welcome. I belong to an art group of 26 members and, in line with most other art groups, our meetings had to cease at the start of the first lockdown. Because several of our members are classed as “vulnerable” we have not seen each other since March 2020. As some of our members would struggle to use Zoom meetings to stay in touch, I decided to create a monthly email newsletter in the hope of keeping our group together. It was a difficult year and motivation levels have really plummeted. However, I have been encouraged by the response from members who have not only provided me with photos of…

NEW KIT Freshen up your practice with our pick of the new materials for artists 1 Cobra Oil Paint Paper Oil sketching just got easier with these 300gsm, FSC-certified pads. www.royaltalens.com 2 Hahnemühle Natural Line This new range of acid-free artists’ papers includes a 290gsm Agave watercolour range. www.hahnemuehle.com 3 Faber-Castell Goldfaber Aqua Pencils 12 new pastel shades are available, either as a separate tin or part of a 36-colour set. www.faber-castell.co.uk 4 Derwent Line and Wash Paint Pan Set A mix of bold and muted watercolour pans are ideal for sketching on location. www.derwentart.com 5 Jackson’s Alcohol Inks Add punchy, saturated colour to graphic artworks on a variety of surfaces. www.jacksonsart.com 6 Schmincke Liquid Charcoal Try underpainting with three vegan-friendly shades made from charred fruit seeds. www.schmincke.de/en 7 Lyra…

“A lot of European artists were painting these luscious, beautiful African subjects… I felt as an African-American, I needed to delve into that” Dominic Avant had an epiphany in Paris. A pre-lockdown trip to the grand galleries of the French capital had left the American painter fired up. “There were a lot of European artists who were painting these luscious, beautiful African subjects,” he recalls. “I felt that, as an African American, that was something I need to delve into.” It was a timely trip, as America was enduring a period of protests and civil unrest, largely sparked by random and horrific acts of racially-motivated violence. Rather than speaking out with words, Dominic did what he has always done and channelled his feelings into his painting. “I thought one thing…

Though my present work tends to be loose and sometimes abstract, I had a traditional and classical training at art school. I spent a lot of time honing my drawing skills while studying at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. In much of my current work I use large brushes to mass in tones and colours, simplifying by economising the amount of visual information and number of brush strokes. For this masterclass, I painted a quick, wet-into-wet still life as an example of how I interpret the information in a subject. A common misconception, which I sometimes encounter among my students, is that a loose, economical application of the paint is somehow easy. I find that it’s not at all easier than a more literal, traditional painting approach. In…

Glazing is often treated as the holy grail of painting methods. At its core, glazing is a very simple process – a thin layer of transparent paint is added to an already-dry, more opaque paint layer. With oil paints, that transparency is achieved by mixing the paint with linseed oil or a similarly oily medium; with acrylics, water can be used alone or mixed with a glazing medium. Nevertheless, the art of glazing has become shrouded in centuries of myth, mystery and romance. Without having modern X-ray technology to give a definitive answer, artists in the 19th century would endlessly speculate about what it was that gave Old Master paintings such subtlety and richness. Was it the application of many, many thin glazes that created a greater sense of depth,…

• Paints Winsor Lemon, New Gamboge, Permanent Rose, Quinacridone Magenta, Winsor Violet (Dioxazine), French Ultramarine, Antwerp Blue, Cobalt Blue, Cerulean Blue (Red Shade), Cerulean Blue, Manganese Blue Hue, Winsor Green (Blue Shade), Viridian, Hooker’s Green, Green Gold, Naples Yellow, Naples Yellow Deep, Gold Ochre, Quinacridone Gold, Burnt Umber, Indian Red, Perylene Maroon, Indigo, Payne’s Gray and Neutral Tint, all Winsor & Newton Professional Water Colour pans; Permanent White, Winsor & Newton Designers Gouache • Paper Fabriano Artistico Traditional White 300gsm watercolour paper, 45x61cm • Brushes ProArte Prolene Series 007 round brushes, sizes 1, 3, 10 and 20; ProArte Prolene Series 008 flat brushes, size 1”; an old toothbrush • Colourless masking fluid • HB pencil • A selection of coloured pencils…

“Putting a light effect down is like trying to capture a gasp… When it works, I get a physical thrill” Lesley Dearn graduated with a BA in fine art from Sheffield Hallam University in 1989. She worked as a set designer for the likes of BBC Wales and S4C before a brief career as a civil servant. In 2011, she turned to art on a full-time basis, teaching life drawing and art workshops alongside her own painting. Her work is available via Cardiff’s Albany Gallery and the Queen Street Gallery, Neath. www.lesleydearn.co.uk LANDSCAPE  EXPERIENCE The Welsh landscape is an important part of these works. I spend much of my time on the West Wales coast at Newport, Angle, and Freshwater East or West, but I also walk the Preseli Mountains…

A drawn portrait is a collaboration between hand and eye – our eyes dart across the surface of our sitter’s face, taking in edges and shadow shapes, which our hand records in visible marks on the page. The relationship between hand and eye is reciprocal and sight is not the only sense which informs a drawing. As our eye roves over a subject, our own skin prickles with the empathetic projection of contact, informed by the memory of our tactile relationship with the world as much as by the observation of shapes and colours. As our lives become increasingly screen-based we can use drawing as a tool for reconnecting with the physical world, while simultaneously broadening the vocabulary of marks that we use to describe our perceptions. To bring a…

DEVON SOUTH WEST ART Old Fore Street Sidmouth EX10 8LP Tel: 01395 514717 info@southwestartmaterials.co.uk www.southwestartmaterials.co.uk Quality fine art materials, gallery and picture framing. GLOUCESTERSHIRE PEGASUS ART – suppliers of the  finest art materials Griffin Mill, London Road Thrupp, Stroud, Glos GL5 2AZ Tel: 01453 886560 info@pegasusart.co.uk www.pegasusart.co.uk GWENT THE ART SHOP & CHAPEL 8 Cross Street Abergavenny NP7 5EH Tel: 01873852690 admin@artshopandchapel.co.ukwww.artshopandchapel.co.uk Fine art supplies, exhibitions, workshops, talks, concerts and creative food from our Chapel kitchen. LONDON JACKSON’S ART The UK’s leading supplier of fine art materials 1 Farleigh Place London, N16 7SX Tel:+44 (0)207 254 0077 sales@jacksonsart.co.ukwww.jacksonsart.com Dedicated to sourcing and providing the finest art materials in the world, catering to the unique needs of every artist. ATLANTIS ART MATERIALS – UK’s largest and one…