Innholdsfortegnelse for July 2019 i Artists & Illustrators

This month: Readers share their most effective or unusual techniques for creating textures in paintings… Marion Boddy-Evans: My choice would be a texture paste on canvas, Golden Acrylics light modelling paste, to be specific. It dries to surface that's absorbent like paper, giving watercolour-like results. Tessa Spanton: Thickish watercolour paint on the side of a chopped-up credit card dragged across rough watercolour paper. Great for silver birches. Susan Woolley: Dried coffee grounds to represent ashes, and tiny wodges of kitchen paper to make pebbles. Dawn Spink: I used crushed eggshells for the rough look of Durdle Door in acrylic painting. Janice Taylor: @DawnSpink I think you’ve got to go a long way to beat your using wire wool in a landscape! Add your comments to our next topic via the…

6 July to 29 September Manchester International Festival (MIF) and HOME gallery will host the first major UK exhibition of the visual art created by David Lynch. Featuring drawing, painting and sculpture, it aims to provide a rare insight into the creative mind of the iconic film director. Before his career as an internationally renowned filmmaker, David Lynch trained as a painter at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. The exhibition will be presented in four chapters, including the dark narratives and characters of “Bedtime Stories” and also “Industrial Empire”, inspired by Manchester’s rich Victorian heritage. The exhibition is part of the wider David Lynch at HOME programme, which marks the first time the venue’s gallery, theatre and cinema spaces have all been dedicated to one artist. HOME, Manchester. www.homemcr.org…

After a month in Japan sharing a studio with three other printmakers, I’ve been reflecting on the balancing act of learning from my fellow artists, while at the same time staying faithful to my own approach and ideas. It can be easy to fall into a combination of admiration for another’s work and doubt about one’s own. Learning to absorb new ideas and techniques, while remaining true to yourself and the way you make art, is a very important skill in itself, no matter what stage you are at in your artistic journey. Whether it’s working in a group, a class or simply checking social media, you can be exposed to artwork of all kinds. On the one hand this is a marvellous resource for inspiration and growing ideas. On…

“My first commission for The Times was illustrating an article about loft insulation… There was a lot of potential for jokes” When did your passion for comic illustration begin? I made comics when I was really small. I can remember being really pleased drawing little men carrying buttons and writing in text balloons. I was so fascinated by comics because there were so many in my house when I was growing up, particularly ones by Ronald Searle and in old copies of Punch. [My comics] started out mostly of things like animals but, when I was about eight years old, they became really quite violent. I can remember one involving lots of people being bumped off called Bullet Vengeance. What inspired that particular strip? There was an American base close…

A siccative is an oil-drying agent. Typically derived from an ion such as cobalt or manganese, siccatives can be added to oil-based paints to accelerate drying times. They work by forming a film on the paint surface. C Roberson & Co produces good cobalt and white siccatives, while Sennelier’s Cobalt Drier also uses zinc and calcium salts, while having no obvious effect on glossiness or colour. Most siccatives are highly concentrated so should be used very sparingly (a few drops to a large blob of paint) – excess amounts can actually slow drying times.…

THE COLOUR A deep and shocking violet-red. Magenta dye was first discovered in 1859 by French chemist François-Emmanuel Verguin and named after the Battle of Magenta which was won by Napoleon III and took place in the same year. THE PROPERTIES Historically, violet-red pigments are among the most fugitive, yet Quinacridone Magenta is a good lightfast option. Quinacridone pigment is typically a pale yellowy-orange, though its particles are manipulated to create unique pinks and reds. The transparent undertone and cool red tinge make it particularly useful for glazes. THE USES This brilliant colour can overpower a mix, but it is incredibly versatile if used wisely. When mixing with blues to achieve purple hues, it is a more vibrant alternative to Alizarin Crimson.…

• Watercolour Quinacridone Gold, Cadmium Yellow, Quinacridone Magenta, Winsor Red, Cobalt Blue, French Ultramarine, Winsor Blue (Green Shade), Burnt Sienna, all Winsor & Newton Professional Water Colour • Gouache Permanent White Winsor & Newton Designers Gouache • Brushes Flat wash brush, size 1”; Chinese brushes, sizes 12 and 16; round sable, size 7; old sable, size 8 (for lifting out and softening) • Paper Saunders Waterford High White 200lb NOT paper, 51x38cm • 2B pencil…

This third painting of Scott was done in a 10-minute sitting, so it had to be succinct. It’s very good practise to limit your time and set up a direct source of light so that you can focus on pulling out and placing the shadows, while making the form convincing. This profile view allows you to see what the face looks like when lit from behind and above, as well as offering the chance to excavate the bumps and hollows of the face with carefully selected shadow shapes. Here the shadow on the underside of the jaw anchored the face. The dark area beneath the cheekbone is significant as it helped to sculpt the side plane, while the light on the temple and side of the nose emphasised the hollow…

French painter Edgar Degas hated the greasy quality of oil paints. He would habitually set out his palette on an absorbent surface so as to leech off the oil in his paints. This simple trick makes your paints much better for scumbling with, lending them something of a pastel-like quality. To replicate this, simply lay your colours out upon a sheet of unlacquered cardboard (the inside of a cereal box, say) and leave them for a while before starting to paint. It’s easy to tell when the oil has been leeched, as stains will appear around your blobs of colour.…

STUCK ON AN IDEA I have been using Pro 46 special coloured paper tapes to create my own art. These tapes I seal and mount behind styrene glass. There are many advantages to using these tapes, which can be painted over or used as a piece of artwork in their own right. I would like to know if anyone else is presently using this method of creating art? Mike Budd, via email TUMBLE THERAPY Seven years ago, I went through a very bad period in my life with work-related stress. For the first three three months, I did nothing at all. Then I started to doodle. I’ve always been comfortable with pen and ink, and these doodles began to grow into something else altogether. I began to get a sense…

29 June to 1 September In this exploration of human experience, portrait artist Colin Davidson considers the impact of trauma on individuals, their families and the wider community. Born in Belfast, Davidson first became celebrated for his series of large-scale portraits of actors, musicians, writers and other public figures, which featured everyone from Ed Sheeran to the Queen. It was during the creation of this series that he developed a fascination with the status of a being, focusing on their physical and emotional reality rather than their celebrity. Silent Testimony continues this theme of “common humanity” in a series of raw artworks that reflect on the Troubles in Northern Ireland, and how they continue to have an impact on the lives of those affected. The National Memorial Arboretum, Wales. www.thenma.org.uk…

• DECIDE WHAT YOU WANT TO SAY “When considering how to position a sitter for a portrait, you need to think about how much you want to say about that person, whether it’s about their style, status or personality. You can be very bold with close-ups or create more narrative with a setting. In terms of background detail, it really depends on how bold or suggestive you want to be. If you want your portrait to tell a story it helps to include a setting. However, the face might be striking and intriguing on its own.” • COVER THE CANVAS FIRST “To overcome the fear of starting, the best first step is to get the canvas covered so it’s not so daunting. Then, map out the larger shapes which might make up…

In the autumn of 1945, Lee Krasner and Jackson Pollock moved permanently to Springs, Long Island, where – with the help of a loan from Pollock’s patron and dealer Peggy Guggenheim – they bought a 19th-century farmhouse, with a view across the salt marshes to Accabonac Creek. Krasner had been suffering from a creative block, making nothing but what she called her “grey slabs”; now, suddenly surrounded by nature, she found that a new imagery was beginning to blossom. Turning the upstairs bedroom into a makeshift studio, she began work on her Little Image paintings. Positioning the canvas flat on a table or the floor, Krasner created vibrant, jewel-like abstractions that pulsed with an even rhythm across the surface. For some, she would layer the paint thickly with a palette…

Light for Visual Artists by Richard Yot A second edition of this informative guide explores the science behind how light behaves. With 15 practical exercises to try, as well as access to online video tutorials, it will help you add depth and interest to your artworks. Author Richard Yot has worked for the likes of Disney and Channel 4, so knows about producing top-quality illustrations with believable detail. Though the examples are mainly drawn from his own digital illustrations, the advice is applicable to any medium. Instead he focuses on subjects such as how different types of light can reflect or enhance the atmosphere of a portrait or indicate the time of day within an interior scene. Laurence King, £24.99. www.laurenceking.com…

The full-figure sitting took place in my living room. There are actually two windows here – one to the left and one to the right of Scott – but it helped that the morning light came through more strongly from his right side. This meant I could easily sculpt the form of the face early on, finding the shadow shapes on the unlit side and moulding the landscape of the face in this way. I decided to avoid alternating back and forth between two paintings and poses as we did in the last two articles, because I wanted the light to remain as constant as possible. I also wanted to keep the integrity of Scott’s quiet pose. Instead, I chose to work on a second, quicker pose afterwards. The second…

PAINT BOX I use a 12x10” pochade box adapted to suit the way I work. To make more space on the palette, I filled in the thumb hole with a piece of varnished mount board and added an L-bracket to the side so I could clip my metal dipper to it. I found that I didn’t always want to paint 12x10” so I made an MDF insert on which I could sit a smaller, 10x8” board that I fix in place with a couple of bulldog clips. The box stands on a carbon fibre Manfrotto camera tripod – I prefer this to a traditional French easel as it packs away very neatly. The tripod’s mounting plate is slightly set back from the centre (see below) to account for the rear-biased…

“There are no rules and it’s perfectly alright to break the ones that other people invented” 1 TURN TO THOSE YOU TRUST “My process for reviewing my art is simple. When I am pleased with a painting that, although not finished, has everything in it that I want to say, I ask my wife Brigit what she thinks. I can tell straight away from her reaction and her comments whether it’s any good or not.” 2 BE MYSTERIOUS “I haven’t done a commissioned record sleeve or book cover for over 20 years but when I did [George’s covers included albums by T Rex and David Bowie], I wanted my covers to convey a certain mystery so that this record or book has something in it that you hadn’t read or…

As one of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood of artists, Dante Gabriel Rossetti had a fondness for painting classical-styled women in nature settings. In this watercolour portrait, Lady Lilith, the artist uses the naturally-occurring golden ratio in his composition to further emphasise the theme. In fact, one could almost trace a perfect golden ratio spiral (imagine the curve of a seashell) around the key elements of the painting, starting with Lady Lilith’s left hand and curving around the mirror, her right hand, her hair and exposed shoulder, the blue jacket and out towards the window in the top-left corner. Whether deliberate or intuitive, it is this clever compositional device that adds to the swirling romance and focused intensity of the painting. When arranging your next portrait, see if you can do the…

When we think about shadows in a painting, we really should be thinking about accentuating the light. After all, it is those interfaces of dark and light that create the illusion of sunlight and shadows. It is easy to get so bogged down in thinking about shadows that we forget about the light. In watercolour it is always easy to darken something but if we lose the light then we are in trouble. For this demonstration, I chose a street scene in Tunbridge Wells near the Pantiles with quite large areas of both cast and form shadows. (A cast shadow occurs when one form blocks light from hitting another, whereas a form shadow occurs when a plane or surface curves away from the light source, usually resulting in a softer…

• Watercolours Alizarin Crimson, Cadmium Red, Winsor Orange, Cadmium Lemon Yellow, Yellow Ochre, Sap Green, Viridian Green, Cerulean Blue, Ultramarine Blue, Burnt Sienna and Vandyke Brown, all Winsor & Newton Professional Water Colour • Brushes Royal & Langnickel Flat brushes, size 2, 4 and 6; Rosemary & Co. Series 222 Flat One Stroke Synthetic brushes 1”, 1½” and 2” (available as the Aine Divine Brush Set) • Paper Bockingford 535gsm NOT surface, Imperial size (76x56cm)…

The basic definition of transparent and opaque is a simple one. Imagine a brick wall with a glass window in it. The sun will hit the wall with the same amount of light, but the result will be different. The bricks will absorb some of the light and reflect the rest, with no none passing right the way through. By contrast, the glass will let the light through with hardly any hindrance. This is because the bricks are opaque and the glass is transparent. In between these two extremes there is “translucent”. In painting terms, this is described as semi-transparent or semi-opaque, depending on the level of transparency/opacity. When it comes to pigments, the terms ‘transparent’ or ‘opaque’ apply to the behaviour of the pigments on the painting surface rather…

There is something magical about the fact that paint only runs where the paper is already wet. Here I drew the branches of a bare tree in water. While the surface was still glossy, I turned the support upside down and tilted it. I dropped in some very wet colour at the top of the page (the bottom of the tree as I looked at it) and watched as it ran along the predefined lines of wet paper. Used this way, water makes a useful ‘mask’. By keeping an area dry, you can paint around it freely, mixing colour by allowing the water to flow. Buckling paper or a tilted support will enable the water to move to areas you did not place it, taking pigment with it. If accurate…

1 Use an opaque oil paint and make it sticky and drier by adding chalk or soaking up the excess oil (see Degas box opposite). 2 Consider exploiting a textured ground to enhance the effect of your scumbling. 3 Always scumble over a dry paint layer and apply a colour that contrasts. 4 Always scumble with a broad brush or the flay of a knife. 5 Don’t scumble detail – this is an atmospheric technique. 6 Combine scumbling with glazing for that traditional look.…