Innholdsfortegnelse for January 2023 i The Artist

Want to comment on something you’ve read, or seen? Email me at theartistletters@tapc.co.uk or visit our website at www.painters-online.co.uk/forum Having returned from a week spent walking the South West Coastal Path around the coast of Cornwall, and during the journey taking the opportunity to visit Kurt Jackson’s amazing gallery in St Just, I was interested to learn how influential Kurt’s approach has been on Emma Chambers’ paintings. I am a great fan of Kurt’s work and, like Emma, our winner of The Artist Award in the Royal Watercolour Society annual exhibition and subject of our In Conversation feature this month, I love the range of marks and the space and light he achieves in his compositions. Kurt’s large-scale, plein-air paintings capture the raw power and natural beauty of the landscape.…

• The art gallery at the Brynmore Jones Library, University of Hull is showing a new exhibition of work by Scottish artists, working at the end of the 19th century. The Glasgow Girls and Boys focuses on a group of rebellious young Scottish artists who, in the 1880s, broke away from the confines of their Victorian elders to paint the unadorned realities of contemporary rural life. Originally dubbed the ‘Glasgow Boys’, the group is distinguished by female artists, such as Flora MacDonald Reid, Bessie MacNicol and Katherine Cameron, and the exhibition acknowledges their impact, bringing together more than 30 paintings and watercolours from the period 1880 to 1895 when the artists were at the height of their international acclaim. The Glasgow Girls and Boys can be seen at the art…

Unless we have the time, weather and patience to study a city location over a period of time, the chances of finding the perfect combination of circumstances to get those ideal photographs are virtually nil, and there’s even less chance with plein-air painting. While there is great merit in painting what was there on the day, the odds are that it had flat lighting in the middle of the day, it was overcast or even raining! We don’t all live in the locations that we want to paint so have to rely on photographs taken during a fleeting visit, taking a chance that the lighting and weather gods are in our favour. They rarely are! But we are painters not photographers, we can alter lighting angles, weather conditions, traffic, people,…

I discovered the potential of coloured pencils as an adult about 30 years ago while working in my local art shop. One day, into my hands came a tin of Derwent Artist Studio pencils (I did pay for them!). Up until that point I had always worked with wet media and pastels, considering them to be the tools of a real artist. I’ve always been passionate about drawing for its own sake, as the many shelves of sketchbooks in my studio will testify, but this new tin of pencils was a complete revelation. Not only could they be used as a dry sketching medium with colour, but finished work destined for exhibitions was possible. Over the years I have returned to the quiet relaxation of using coloured pencils many times…

Oil pastels: Filia oil pastel set. Oil paints: Michael Harding titanium white 2, unbleached titanium and burnt sienna; Winsor & Newton cobalt blue, ultramarine blue and magenta; Jackson’s Professional Oil Colour bright yellow lake. Mediums: Winsor & Newton Sansodor low odour thinners; Michael Harding PM1 oil paint medium. Brushes: Rosemary & Co No. 4 Ivory curved long flat, No. 6 Ivory long filbert, No. 6 Ivory curved long filbert and No. 14 Chungking round; Jackson’s No. 0 Akoya Egbert and No. 2 Akoya Egbert; Pro-Arte No. 5 Series A hog; Winsor & Newton No. 4 Winton hog round and No. 6 Winton hog round. Canvas board: Cass Art 12×10in (30.5×25.5cm) canvas board underpainted with Winsor & Newton Galeria pale umber acrylic paint.…

To create an initial overview of the three media I created a colour wheel in each Results Comparing the colour wheels I discovered The acrylic paint is the least opaque and the opacity is inconsistent across the range - this is down to the variation in pigment. The Acryla gouache is the most opaque and also the thickest to work with The acrylics and the Acryla gouache are both quite textured, whereas the gouache is very smooth. The lack of texture and therefore light and shadow on the surface of the gouache gives a flatter, more solid impression. Each paint was used with a tiny bit of water and I found that the gouache was by far the easiest and creamiest to apply. The acrylics and Acryla gouache are much…

Results The acrylics create the most texture with the dry brushing although not the most consistent. The Acryla Gouache is the most consistent whilst still maintaining plenty of texture. The gouache is consistent although the creamy consistency means that it’s more difficult to create significant texture. It creates a very subtle dry brushed surface, although I used the same brush throughout.…

Gouache is water based and is a thicker, more pigmented version of watercolour. I love it as it gives me the best of both worlds between watercolour and acrylic, it has the opaque thickness and vibrancy of acrylic whilst maintaining the ability to be reactivated once it has dried on your palette and it can be washed down to the viscosity of a watercolour wash. Before gouache was sold as a paint product, it was a technique in which white pigment was added to water-based paint to create an opaque consistency. The popularity of the gouache technique led to the production of gouache paint. Some manufacturers such as Caran d’Ache sell gouache in solid pans created with a natural vegetable binder with an accompanying white gouache tube but I prefer…

Time now to transfer the line art to your chosen support. Here are some of my preferred methods. It may be that you want to work smaller or larger than the original reference size, in which case you can scan or photograph your line art and reprint it at the size that you need. The most important thing with all of these methods is to ensure that you have the line art securely affixed to your support across the top edge only. This will keep the line art in place as you work and also allow you to flip it up to check progress. Tip Make sure you’ve got your reference photographs dose by when you’re transferring the image – they can help make sense of a confusing area, which allows…

LONDON Bankside Gallery 48 Hopton Street SE1. 020 7928 7521 www.banksidegallery.com The London Group at Bankside; November 24 to December 4. Mini Picture Show 2022; affordable work on a small scale by members of the Royal Watercolour Society and the Royal Society of Painter Printmakers, December 9 to January 29. Burgh House New End Square NW3. 020 7431 0144; www.burghhouse.org.uk Those Remarkable Carlines; work by siblings Sydney, Hilda and Richard Carline, until April 10 (see page 11). Mall Galleries The Mall, SW1. 020 7930 6844; www.mallgalleries.org.uk Royal Institute of Oil Painters; annual exhibition, November 24 to December 10 (see page 10). National Gallery Trafalgar Square WC2. 020 7747 2885 www.nationalqallery.orq.uk Winslow Homer: Force of Nature; until January 8. The Credit Suisse Exhibition - Lucian Freud: New Perspectives; until January 22.…

Email theartistletters@tapc.co.uk or write to The Editor, The Artist, Warners Group Publications, The Makings, West Street, Bourne, Lincolnshire PE10 9PH Please note we may have to edit letters for reasons of space Earning a living from painting Up until September 2021 I was working as a deputy headteacher in a school in Staffordshire. I handed my notice in and since then have been earning a living from my painting. As you can imagine, this was a huge risk for my family and me, and in the current economic climate has been challenging to say the least! However, I am still working hard to build my business and reputation as an artist and I'm slowly making progress. The decision to finish my job in education was not as rash as it…

Charlie Wrigley’s drawing, #46 (right), has been chosen as the public’s favourite at this year’s TALPOpen exhibition, winning The Artist's People's Choice Award, sponsored by Faber-Castell, and £250 worth of art materials from Faber-Castell. Charlie explains that the drawing took her around three weeks to complete,’…working through the evenings after coming home from my full-time job at a motorbike shop,’ she explains. ‘Some nights I stayed up until 3am. The piece is part of a collection I was working on, featuring portraits of my favourite racers. When I had little to no money, I would buy two Faber-Castell Polychromos pencils a week. I was gifted a tin of Faber-Castell 9000 graphite pencils that lasted me a very long time, but my entire collection was put in the bin during a…

Paper: 140lb (300gsm) medium rough watercolour paper secured with 50mm gummed paper tape. This painting could have a lot of water on it at the same time and would probably buckle if it wasn’t strong enough, allowing puddles of paint to form rather than a flat even wash. Uneven drying generates tidemarks of pigment called cauliflowers. Sometimes this can be used to good effect, but not today! So, I am using a lightweight 140lb (300gsm) medium rough paper, which I stretched first on my drawing board to keep it flat. Brushes: Natural sable watercolour brushes including a No. 10 round, No. 6 round and a rigger. Paint: This type of painting needs a good quality paint to ensure you get deep saturated pigment. I used Sennelier L’Aquarelle but any good…

For those who do not, or cannot paint plain air, painting from photos has a number of benefits. You should always take photos specifically for making paintings and not just select something from a pile of holiday snaps or pulled out from a magazine. There is a big difference between a nice photograph of a pretty scene and an image that will make a great painting. Seek out and find the right composition then collect liberal amounts of that subject matter, perhaps composing the scene in the viewfinder before taking wider shots and angles, as well as capturing individual features and details. Look for contrasting values, varied shapes and angles and some sort of focus to the picture. Working from photographs means you have all the comforts of the studio…

It takes a lot of courage to make a painting or drawing. All your skills, or lack thereof, are plain to see and open to praise or criticism. It’s hard and takes stubborn fortitude to keep going when things are not going your way. In this series of three articles I will suggest how to increase your confidence as a painter by developing your technical skills and learning from the artists you admire. I will then explore how to develop a reflective practice to enable you to set and reach your personal goals and finally how to maintain your confidence when things aren’t going well. Everyone knows that it is a good thing to practise drawing and painting every day, but how many of us actually do it? Daily drawing…

It all started with my grandma who was a traveller and a collector. I would spend many hours of my childhood looking through her tins of trinkets, postcards with exotic stamps, tapestries and dolls from foreign lands. I was always more fascinated by the yellowing newspaper wrapping a doll, than by the doll itself. This was the beginning of my fascination with papers. At art college I was immediately drawn to the dense flat colours of silkscreen printing and I found my place in the printmaking department. It was in Paris, on a travel scholarship, that I saw Matisse’s cut-outs for the first time. It wasn’t just the scale of his work but the intensity, the pin holes, crease lines and tom edges that fired my imagination. After leaving college…

Traditional acrylic paints are quick-drying, water based and available in different thicknesses, I buy the System 3 paint in tubes which is a medium body viscosity due to its smooth acrylic resin binder. I rarely use acrylics with great thickness, but when I have, I have used either the DalerRowney Cryla Artists'range of acrylics or the Golden heavy body range as I find they hold the best shape. Although I enjoy the thickness of acrylics, I find that some pigments are more opaque than others. This inconsistency is something I have to keep in mind as I paint - thick doesn’t always mean opaque. I personally find this tricky to work with and prefer to know that the opacity is consistent throughout. PROS Acrylics dry with a shiny satin finish…

It is possible to water the acrylics down into a wash although they don’t go very far - a large amount of paint would be needed. The acrylics also became streaky very quickly. The Acryla gouache and the gouache water down very well into a wash - the gouache would have watered down even further even with very little paint to work with. The gouache creates the smoothest, least streaky wash. The Acryla gouache maintains its vibrancy the best even when thinned out into a wash.…

THE WINNERS Sarah Bottjer and Tim O’Brien both won a variety of papers from Clairefontaine, a Frazer-Price Brass Watercolour Box and a Perfect Paper Stretcher from Ken Bromley WINNER Sarah Bottjer Sarah Bottjer Jubilations, oil on board, 10×8in. (25.5×20cm) ‘I wanted to convey the excitement and happiness of the Platinum Jubilee and how the celebrations were brought into the everyday lives of the British public. There’s nothing quite like bunting dancing in the breeze and the enticing comfort of your favourite chair at the end of the afternoon after being held hostage by the family pet.’ THE RUNNERS-UP WINNER Tim O’Brien Tim O’Brien The Platinum Party at the Palace, oil on canvas, 24×36in. (61×91.5cm) ‘I painted this in response to having been invited to the Platinum Party at the Palace in London…

Clairefontaine Pastelmat paper – white colour, 5½×5½in (14×12.5cm). Caran d’Ache Pablo pencils: 0001 white; 491 cream. Faber-Castell Polychromos pencils: 199 black, 169 caput mortuum, 157 dark indigo, 186 terracotta, 278 chrome oxide green, 174 chromium green opaque, 173 olive green yellowish, 268 green gold, 178 nougat, 172 earth green, 168 earth green yellowish, 270 warm grey I, 271 warm grey II, 103 ivory, 102 cream, 175 dark sepia, 189 cinnamon. Other materials including graphite transfer paper and stylus or sharp pencil to transfer the line drawing, pencil sharpener, glassine paper, soft dusting brush, small paintbrush or cotton bud and kitchen paper.…

Perspective issues I have just received my December 2022 copy of The Artist. Although I have a backlog of issues to read, a quick glance through it revealed an article that I just had to read immediately - I don't care about perspective! by Mike Barr, As an engineer I find the geometry of perspective very interesting (someone has to). In some of my own drawings I have thought that the perspective was strange. Careful examination revealed that the perspective was correct but indeed strange to look at. The reason for that was the unnatural field of view that I had chosen. Our natural field of view covers an included angle of around 45 to 50 degrees (22.5 to 25 degrees about the centre line). My pictures were trying to…

Stretching paper is always a good idea if you are using medium to lightweight papers. All watercolour painters will have their own system for this. I thoroughly wet mine in the bath, remove the excess surface water and position it on my drawing board. I then wet lengths of gummed paper that have been pre-cut to length and, using an overlap of about 20mm, I secure all four edges of the paper to the board. Don’t start painting until it is thoroughly dry. Some artists like to use an entire sheet of paper including the manufacturer’s deckle edge. If you want to do this then you will need to use heavier paper of about 300lb (640gsm), which is thick enough not to buckle with large amounts of water on the…

• Many line drawings stand perfectly well without colour but, of course, colour can, and often does, add interest to a drawing. If you don’t want to add colour, try using diluted Indian inkin varying strengths or neutral-tint watercolour to create your tonal values. • Use watercolour, acrylic, acrylic ink or the traditional soluble dye inks from Winsor & Newton. A word of caution here: don’t use too many different colours. It just doesn’t work. I’d say four at most, and only add to this if absolutely necessary. • Washes are best applied quickly and with confidence in one brushstroke where possible so that they stay fresh and transparent. Don’t worry about being too neat. We aren’t simply filling in pre-determined areas, we’re trying to create interest. Paint that exceeds…

Putting a price on your work can present a real challenge.There are so many factors to consider: your time, cost of materials, market forces, gallery commissions, framing and much more - all of which we will explore in this article. The aim should be to build a solid and sustainable pricing strategy that instils confidence in yourself and your buyers. By removing some of the emotional connection to the work and developing a more commercial mindset, you’ll be on track to make clear decisions. Pricing your artwork fairly and consistently will make you more credible as a professional artist. If you’re in it for the long game, it’s important to be strategic and give this aspect of your business your full consideration. Pricing your artwork too highly may not be…

1 Set an achievable goal to provide a focus for each activity. 2 Draw from direct observation; it is difficult and therefore good for you. 3 Keep your materials within easy reach to save time unpacking your kit. 4 Draw and paint on scrap card and paper. It’s less daunting than white paper, better for the environment and costs nothing. The back of greetings cards, cardboard packaging and offcuts of mount board all make good surfaces for drawing and painting (prepare card with primer for oils or acrylics). 5 Set a time limit, such as 20 minutes for a drawing, two hours for a painting. 6 Practise playful exercises such as drawing with your non-dominant hand, speed drawing against the clock and continuous line drawing. 7 Experiment with different drawing…

When I first started to use acrylics at school, I remember being so excited; the opacity, the thickness and the vibrancy were wonderful, plus the ability to be almost sculptural with the thick paint felt too good to be true. However, when I began working as an illustrator, I did a lot of research into different media and felt that acrylics weren’t necessarily the paint most suited to the work that I wanted to produce, and so I experimented with gouache and haven’t looked back since! Gouache swiftly became my favourite medium and in turn I also discovered Acryla gouache - Holbein’s answer to gouache and acrylics, meeting in the middle. In this article I plan to discuss the different qualities of gouache, Acryla gouache and acrylics, comparing them and…

Results Acrylics are the least opaque, whist Acryla gouache is the most opaque. The blue layer of Acryla gouache doesn’t show any red at all although the texture of the red line does show through, creating a shadow in the blue. This is down to the thickness of the paint. The gouache is the most consistent although not entirely opaque. It also has a very smooth finish. For each test I waited until the red line was dry before applying the other colours - this was vital particularly for the gouache to prevent it being reactivated by the water.…

Acryla gouache is Holbein’s brand name for acrylic gouache, a combination of acrylic paint and gouache mixed together. This paint is fast drying, water soluble when wet and the pigment is the most incredibly vibrant and consistently bright that I have ever worked with. Unlike with most paints, the colour on the tube is what you get inside and they are just as bright when they dry too. The paints dry matt, with a flat and almost chalky quality compared to the plastic consistency of acrylics. When painting straight from the tube the paint has a more dry and sticky quality than regular gouache. In most write-ups, the consensus seems to be that gouache has a chalkier finish when dry than Acryla gouache, however I tend to disagree. I find…

There are some simple things artists can do that will help their work and some are so obvious that we can easily do them. Cropping is one such thing. For artists, cropping comes in three forms: cropping a photo reference; mentally cropping a scene while plein-air painting; and cropping a completed painting. Cropping the photo reference Consider a photo of something we really want to paint. There’s a lot to be seen in photographs, probably too much, but we set about painting the whole thing anyway. There is a better way though. First, have a good look at the photograph and think for a moment if there is some portion of it that will make a better painting than doing the whole lot. Often, it can be found, and it…