Artists Drawing and Inspiration Issue 36

KATHERINE APPLEBY I am interested in hyperreality as a result of contemporary scepticism in metanarratives that once acted as external referents for differentiating reality. My artistic practice addresses this concept through the depiction of nature interpreted by the imagination. In particular, my body of work became an investigation of a fictitious, invented place: Firdarrig. By fabricating a place such as Firdarrig I am able to create a frame through which I can examine and comprehend my own reality. Each viewer has the opportunity to do likewise and the view through the frame will be unique to each observer. Firdarrig is a place to which I can return to and explore as I wish. To the editor, Hi my name is Gemma. I have been encouraged to send a photo of…

The earliest thing I can remember is drawing dinosaurs, and being astonished at the magnitude of my accomplishment when I drew in a background: a third dimension! I always drew growing up. I stared at animals, cartoons, and people, studying their anatomy and the way they fit together. In a sense I don’t know why I do art; it’s just always been something that just needed to come out. As I got older and got better at all of the skill-sets necessary for living in western society, I refined my artistic skills at every opportunity, mostly out of a feeling that it was a basic need. Like many in my generation I was inherently skeptical of almost everything life seemed to offer, and most of the explanations offered as to…

MATERIALS • Paper (I used 160gsm)• Soft willow charcoal• Eraser• Knife• One piece of hard dark graphite• 2h pencil• One small piece of white pastel STEP ONE Any - - portrait essentially a two dimensional rendering exploring the different light/dark interactions of a three-dimensional face. To ensure that it’s aesthetically pleasing, preparation is all important. We spend incredible lengths of time looking at human faces, and are sensitive to flaws in their dimensions; this is why portraits are notoriously difficult to just “whip up” or to perfect. When selecting a subject and photo for reference, you are looking for a picture that captures the most interesting, diverse and dynamic interactions of light and shadow. For this reason, I always recommend that an artist should take their own reference photos. Always…

• Treat your preparation and your photo with significance and care, because the entire piece is going to build on these foundations. • Don’t focus on one area too much, work up the piece evenly. • Don’t get lost in detail; the idea is for it to look perfect from a distance, and look like charcoal up close. Fine details can wait until the final two stages. The eyes will be your main temptation. • Do not panic or freak out if it doesn’t’t look how you imagined it would at any stage along the way, it is YOUR decision as to whether the piece is bad, or just incomplete. Persevere. • Don’t just think of your eraser as a tool for fixing mistakes, as you could just as easily…

Born in Yorkshire 1943, I displayed some artistic talent throughout my schooling and my teachers suggested I might think about art school. But I wanted to follow the sun and after seeing the film ‘A Town Like Alice’, decided that would be a good start and at the age of 18 had saved up enough to buy a passage on a boat to Australia. Alice was more than everything I had hoped for and I knew instantly I was a desert person. The stunning colours and vistas of the inland in the midst of a drought reiterated my desire to paint, and those scenes remained in my head throughout leaving Alice seven times for good, before finally settling there in my 30s when I began to dabble with paint. I…

MATERIALS • Oil pastels• Hogs hair paint brush• Rag cloth• Fixative STEP ONE Using mid tone paper, put light and dark lines indicating flow of the painting and direction of light. Block in as much local colour as possible. This tells me if the balance is working. The circle reminds me of the focal point. STEP TWO Intensify areas adding a few more shapes using same colours. Work on background hills and middle ground. When in doubt I always use shades of caput mortuum as it is neutral enough to either warm up or cool down when necessary. I try to keep the whole painting working each step and often work inwards from the sides. STEP THREE Push in more detail and strengthen sky by pushing pastel into paper. A…