Innholdsfortegnelse for Summer 2021 i Artists & Illustrators

Dedication is a wonderful thing. Every artist may have a different reason for why they want to create, yet that irrepressible urge to make art is always an inspiring thing to see. For this issue, leading arts writer Andrew Lambirth has explored the work of Diana Armfield, the Royal Academician who continues to paint stunning landscapes and still life in oils at the age of 101. At the other end of the scale, Kirsten Britt is really just beginning her artistic career, despite having drawn and painted in her own time for many years now. Via Zoom, she spoke of being drawn to portraiture since she was little and admiring artists who have signature styles, seemingly unaware that she has already developed a striking one of her own, seen on…

Kurt Jackson The past year has inspired many of us to slow down and reconnect with nature, yet one artist who was ahead of the curve in that respect is Kurt Jackson. Over the course of a 40-year career to date, the Cornwall-based painter and Oxford zoology graduate has used his vast canvases to tackle equally big issues. “The environment underpins everything I do and make in terms of how I work, live and what interests me,” he explains. “It steers my research and understanding of what makes the world tick. “Every aspect of the natural world, the great outdoors and how we collide, coexist or rub along with our surroundings is of interest to me and my art making; land-use, workplace and nature are all intertwined. Whether I paint…

Parks can be as inspirational as anywhere for the landscape painter. My local park has everything I need: sky, trees, water, fields of grass and other foliage. The sky can change frequently, sunlight continually moves altering highlights and shadows, and seasonal changes significantly alter the scenery. Un-mown summer fields are a gift to the artist. I could paint a different park picture every day. Painting outdoors – or en plein air – challenges our ability, creativity and perception of the world around us. We need to look for what we can actually see not what we think is there; interpreting what we see into a painted image in our own unique way. React to the light and try to forget about local colour (the colour which we know an object…

WALK THE LIONS I was delighted to discover one of our favourite walks featured in Artists & Illustrators [Issue 430]: the views enjoyed and recorded by LS Lowry of the old town of Berwick-on-Tweed. The harbour, river and coastline are always changing depending upon the weather and tides. Part of the walk, along the Elizabethan ramparts, passes “The Lions”, an austere house [above] built in 1807 facing the sea, that Lowry once contemplated buying. It is intriguing to find the exact image of the same house in an oil painting by Lowry entitled An Island. A fascinating example of a sketch of a house in a border town in Northumberland appearing as the subject in an industrial landscape. Carole Robson, via email PICKING A POCKET In response to Steve Pill’s…

Born in 1920, Diana Armfield was a late starter as a painter. Although she attended three art schools (Bournemouth, The Slade, and the Central School of Art and Design), she studied to be a designer, not a painter. She duly set up a successful design practice, in 1947, with Roy Passano, designing and printing textiles, both by block and screen, and designing wallpapers. In the 1950s, she also found work as a teacher, first at the Central in the textile department, and later at Byam Shaw School of Art teaching drawing – landscape, mostly. But it was not until 1965, when she was asked to teach painting, that she herself began to paint – at the age of 45. Before that, remarkable as this seems, she had never even experimented…

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1. Consistent light Natural light changes fast, which might result in a loss of consistency when you are painting over an extended period of time. This is where the tone study comes in. It allows us to observe and put down the tones quickly, without worrying about aesthetics or neatness of stroke. Whether working in natural or artificial light, a tone study gives you a consistent reference in terms of both timescale and accuracy of tonal placement throughout the subsequent painting. The primary light source is the beacon that guides the artist through the meanderings of light and dark. When working outdoors in daylight, that primary light source is the sun. Depending on the weather, it can be pronounced or hidden. But even when clouds obscure the sky, there is…

Hashim's materials •Paints Azo Yellow Lemon, Azo Yellow Medium, Pyrrole Red, Primary Magenta, Ultramarine Violet, Permanent Blue Violet, Brilliant Blue, Cobalt Blue (Ultramarine), Phthalo Blue, Greenish Blue, Prussian Blue (Phthalo), Phthalo Green, Yellow Ochre, Burnt Sienna and Titanium White, all Amsterdam Standard acrylics •Brushes Daler-Rowney Skyflow large flat brushes, sizes ½”, 1”, 1.5” and 2” •Support Stretched cotton canvas, 60x75cm •Kitchen roll •White plastic tray •Water pot 1 Apply a base colour Painting a street scene in acrylics can be tricky, as you contend with rapid drying times and trying to capture too much detail. If your pictures look flat or confused, try to remember that acrylic suffers if you excessively blend or layer it, and that overly diluting the paint can also flatten the colour. Confidently placed brushstrokes are…

AIM This project is an introduction to making a reduction linocut. It includes instructions for a simple jig you can make yourself to keep the linocut’s colour layers neatly aligned while you print. SUBJECT Linocut printing is a relief print process: it is the surface of the lino that prints and any cuts you make into the lino will not print. A reduction linocut is made using a single piece of lino. The lino is gradually cut away and printed. In this project, the print has three colours so you will be cutting and printing your piece of lino three times in all. You will need to print all the prints you want to make from the start as you will be cutting away the block as you go. You…

Fresh from sponsoring the inaugural British Art Prize 2021, Viking Cruises has launched its latest ocean ship, Viking Venus. The launch took place in the English Channel, with celebrations led by the ship’s ceremonial godmother, the journalist and broadcaster Anne Diamond. Viking Venus joins a fleet of more than 70 state-of-the-art ships in the Viking portfolio and while each regularly visits some of the world’s most cultured locations, they all boast a fantastic gallery of work on board as well. The art collection on the new Viking Venus includes a rare etching by Edvard Munch, the Norwegian painter and printmaker famed for works such as The Scream and Madonna. Alongside this will be pieces by some of Scandinavia’s greatest living artists too, including Ida Lorentzen’s recent masterpiece New England As…

Whether you’re a printing pro or a complete beginner, Schmincke’s aqua-Linoprint products are perfect for following in the footsteps of magnificent linocut printmakers. That’s why we’re offering six lucky readers the chance to win a bundle of materials from the go-to range worth £172.20 each. In total, there are 18 water-based aqua-Linoprint colours with the natural binder gum Arabic, three of which are metallic options – gold, silver and copper – in an aluminium tube for adding even more radiance to your work. Offering maximum lightfastness and excellent colour intensity, the products can be applied directly, mixed with each other or thinned with water. The results are even, sharp prints that are wipe-resistant only 15 minutes after applying the inks. Thanks to their fluid consistency, aqua-Linoprint colours are not limited…

AERIAL PERSPECTIVE Watercolourist GRAHAME BOOTH explains this tricky concept and how it can be used to give a sense of depth to your paintings Painters frequently talk about “depth” in their paintings which is slightly ironic as paintings in general are completely flat with absolutely no actual depth whatsoever. Of course, what we all mean by depth is really the illusion of depth. Our paintings are optical illusions that try to fool the brain into believing that our two-dimensional flat sheet of paper has a third dimension. Aerial perspective – also known as atmospheric perspective – refers to a combination of various methods we can use to enforce that suggestion. Aerial perspective is real. Distance has a neutralising effect on all of the main attributes of the subject: detail is…

MEDIUM The first question to ask is a simple one: with which paint medium do you intend to use the brushes? Art materials manufacturers will often tailor brushes to suit oils, acrylics, watercolours and more, so it pays to know up front. Watercolour brushes tend to have shorter handles to suit artists sitting at a table or inclined board, whereas acrylic and oil brushes have longer handles designed for standing at an easel and allowing the whole arm to be used. Broadly speaking, oil and acrylic brushes are stiffer too, as you don’t want them to soften in warm water, whereas watercolour and ink brushes need to have a good “snap” so that they spring back into shape. HAIR The big choice when it comes to brushes is whether to…