Innholdsfortegnelse for March 2022 i Artists & Illustrators

…and goodbye! This is my last issue of Artists & Illustrators after almost 15 years of working on the title in some capacity. In that time, I have been so lucky to collaborate with a host of incredible staff and contributors to put together every issue and I want to thank each and every one of you. No other job would have allowed me to snoop around Peter Blake’s studio, learn to paint with Anne Magill, judge exhibitions with Ken Howard, drink tea with Celia Paul, commission art from Quentin Blake, and be attacked by Derren Brown’s parrot. I hope you find my final issue every bit as useful and informative as my previous 188. I want to leave you with a pencil portrait of myself, drawn by my 10-year-old…

If you feel stuck in an artistic rut, mixing up your materials is a highly recommended way of firing up your creativity. There’s no better method for harnessing that spark than opting for art products that inspire with their innovation and originality. That’s where Edding comes in. The brand has revolutionised the acrylic painting scene with its exciting new range of acrylic markers. Compact, easy-to-use and hassle-free, these markers give artists the power to create paintings using a range of techniques. This month Artists & Illustrators has teamed up with Edding to offer 10 lucky readers the chance to sample the new acrylic marker range by winning a bundle of materials worth £130 each. This will include the highly versatile broad marker, which is capable of both thick 10mm strokes…

I was born in Uruguay and live there now, but London remains one of my favourite cities to visit – and, of course, to paint. I feel so inspired by London’s architecture; it is home to some of the most beautiful buildings on the planet, both old and new, which make walking around the city an awe-inspiring experience. The Palace Theatre, with its red-brick façade, is so beautiful and monumental, dominating the busy pedestrianised intersection of Cambridge Circus in London’s West End. As a subject, it had great energy – the light was hitting the building from the side, making it so striking and inviting to paint. I took several photos to use as a reference back in the studio. I was keen to portray the busy atmosphere and the…

As many of us have found ourselves unable to focus on bigger artistic statements during the pandemic and embarking on unexpected little creative projects instead, it is perhaps reassuring to find one of the western world’s leading painters has been doing just the same. Bill Jacklin is famed for his vast urban canvases that hang in the Tate, the Royal Academy and New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art and he has regularly completed major projects for the likes of the Bank of England, The Ivy restaurant and Washington National Airport, where a 24-foot mural graces the north terminal. Like the rest of us, however, he found himself scaling back his ambitions during the Covid restrictions and returning to more personal ideas closer to home. For years, Bill had been working…

I think about colour in terms of how it will impact a painting, maybe adding some drama using vibrant or contrasting colours, or using colour combinations to create harmonies. I am especially drawn to subjects with intense or vivid shades and less so to pale colours. However, I like to try to find colours within a subject that go unnoticed and particularly enjoy doing this with dried specimens. At first glance they might appear to be brown or grey but consist of so many other colours if studied very carefully. I’m currently working on a very simple piece of dried garlic skin that initially appeared to be a very light shade of grey. But when I actually looked at it in detail it revealed a huge variety of colours: blues,…

Felicia’s materials • Support A sheet of Arches oil paper, 12x16”, and a slightly larger foam core board • Brushes Series 2025 Chungking Bristle long flats, sizes 0, 1, 2, 4, 6 and 8; Series 2085 Chungking Egbert, size 4; Ultimate Bristle pointed round, size 6; Series 7320 Pure Sable one strokes, sizes ⅛” and ¼”; mooshing brush, large; all Rosemary and Co. • Paints Titanium White, Bright Yellow Lake, Cadmium Yellow, Cadmium Orange, Cadmium Red, Brilliant Pink, Quinacridone Rose, Ultramarine Blue, Yellow Ochre and Ivory Black, all Michael Harding Artists Oil Colours • Palette New Wave POSH Neutral Grey-stained wooden table-top palette, 15.6x19.6” • Palette knife• White spirit• Linseed oil• Masking tape• Paper towels or ragsI I am going to walk you through a three-hour still life study I made for a group…

Do you have a stash of art projects lurking in need of completion? One of the great pleasures of a creative mind is the endless flow of new ideas and plans, but this can have a downside if you’re constantly dropping work-in-progress in favour of an exciting new endeavour. Finding a way to balance the allure of new ideas with completing your work will greatly improve your chances of developing a coherent individual style and progressing your skills. Pursuing a brilliant idea seems so much more attractive and sensible than working on dull old projects, and occasionally it is the right thing to do. Make it a habit and the growing heap of uncompleted work will become a burden, spoiling your creative time. You’ll also risk a new idea morphing…

From Giorgione’s Sleeping Venus to The Dream by Pablo Picasso, great artists have been painting slumbering subjects for centuries, but there is still something wholly original about Shane Berkery’s offering to the tradition, Salvatore of Lucan. Surreal and subliminal, the oil painting depicts a figure fused with the rural landscape in which he sleeps. The green, grassy terrain is one and the same as his jacket, which clothes a torso of clouds and four lifelike arms, at the end of which one hand holds a lit cigarette. Topping off this fantastical vision is a handsome face in repose, rendered with a dreamy, delicate realism. The Tokyo-born, Dublin-based artist intended to simply paint his friend, Salvatore, but the concept soon grew to encompass themes of identity and belonging. “My friend is…

Jake’s materials • Sennelier oil pastels • Derwent Procolour coloured pencils • Derwent Lightfast coloured pencils • A plywood board • Winsor & Newton Galeria white gesso primer • A baker’s brush • Sandpaper • Drypoint needle • Sharpener • Eraser • Palette knife or razor blade • Kitchen towel When we first start to engage seriously with drawing, a willingness to explore unfamiliar materials often serves us better than an adherence to a limited range of media. While the range of potential tools at our disposal can seem overwhelming, a playful enthusiasm for the tactile qualities of our materials and a focus on process rather than outcome can help us to engage with as many ways of working as possible. It is through such experimentation that we learn which mediums…

Landscape composition is a subject with many moving parts. For example, we have to consider several forms of variation, such as intervals (the “pacing and spacing” between elements), and differences of size and visual weight – all of which add interest to the visual tapestry. We also have to consider the “picture window” – the rectangular paper or canvas that determines what will be included in our composition and what will be left out. Of the many aspects of composition, however, the one that brings the most dynamic quality to a painting is movement. Movement is what animates a composition and brings it to life. Our eye remains active and engaged as it moves around and through the picture. Only a blank surface, absent of any mark or shape, would…