Innholdsfortegnelse for September/October 2022 i Artists Magazine

ANNE BLAIR BROWN’S PAINTINGS evoke the quiet moments when, for a brief spell, the world pauses its hustle and bustle. A cat snoozing by a crock of flowers, cows in a field with an old shed, sun-drenched Adirondack chairs flanking a small table—each scene is depicted with loose, painterly strokes and restful color harmony. Fittingly, Brown describes herself as a contemporary impressionist. “My work is a modern version of impressionist painting,” she says. “My goal is to give less information with more impact, as was the case for French and Russian Impressionists.” Media Matters For many years, the Nashville, Tenn., artist painted in oil, but recently, she has also been using acrylic. “I was feeling a bit stifled and wanted to make broader strokes on bigger canvases,” she says, noting…

Simply put, assemblage is three-dimensional collage, but the authoritative definition used by Britain’s Tate Gallery describes it as an art form that’s “made by assembling disparate elements—often everyday objects—scavenged by the artist or bought specially.” The term was coined by French painter and sculptor Jean Dubuffet (1901–85), in the 1950s, though this particular approach to art-making predates him by decades. One of the most well-known artists to employ the technique was German artist Kurt Schwitters (1887–1948), who was an early adopter of using everyday, found objects—even debris—in his art. As critic George Melly put it in a BBC documentary, “Schwitters chose to make collages of rubbish, things picked up in the streets. He saw no need to make art with brushes and paint. Everything was art; everything was rubbish.” Dubuffet,…

ART THERAPY Spending even a few minutes engaging with a work of art can introduce new viewpoints, channel emotions and engender positivity. In How Art Can Change Your Life (Thames & Hudson) artist and art historian Susan Hodge demonstrates—through 72 works by as many famous artists—how readers can use art to realign thoughts and feelings in order to better deal with life’s challenges. Drawing on Grief (Leaping Hare Press) is an activity book designed to help readers navigate grief through simple art exercises and writing prompts. Author and illustrator Kate Sutton drew on her own experience of the loss of her mother to create this sensitive book, which can become a keepsake journal for those dealing with their own loss. Ukraine Across the globe, eyes have turned to the war-torn…

Bearden’s piece is a tour de force of collage-making and a highlight within his oeuvre. Pairing Cubist design elements in the rendering of the waves alongside passages that recall early Renaissance art (evident in the figure and pose of Noah, for example), Bearden also incorporates Black experience and culture in the Christian tradition. In the process, he creates an idiom all its own. The biblical story typifies the artist’s interest in exploring ritual, myth and narrative. The nautical subject matter and composition have much in common with the work in one of Bearden’s most ambitious series dedicated to the story of the wandering hero, Odysseus.KYLE MANCUSO Curatorial Research Associate, High Museum of Art…

it’s known that Édouard Manet worked on The Mother and Sister of the Artist, a double portrait by Berthe Morisot (1841–95). Descriptions of the painting have sometimes extolled Manet’s contributions while shading Morisot with faint praise. On its website, the National Gallery of Art compares Manet’s “suave shorthand” to Morisot’s “nervous refinement.” Morisot was anxious about exhibiting this, her first major canvas, at the Paris Salon. She invited her friend Manet to visit her family’s home and critique the painting on the day that it was to be picked up for the exhibition. Morisot described what happened next in a letter to her sister: “He took the brushes, put in a few accents that looked very well; … That is where my misfortunes began. Once started, nothing could stop him;…

“I keep stools and chairs throughout my studio. When I feel the work has developed, I step back and sit with it. When you take the time to live with a piece, you learn how to recognize what, if anything, it needs.”MIA TARDUCCI ARTIST “The overarching goal in my work is to celebrate the people and places I find remarkable. I’m less interested in a futile exercise of highly rendered realism for the sake of satisfying my ego. To this end, I’m not as inclined to chase every minute detail and risk overworking a piece. I must admit that this requires a conscious effort each time a painting is approaching its conclusion.”MARIO ROBINSON ARTIST “I work fast and avoid boredom. I remind myself that paper is cheap and that I…

When learning to write, a student typically begins with simple print letters before attempting cursive. Similarly, a student of classical drawing begins with simple views in outline—typically front and side views—before tackling more difficult, foreshortened views. SOLID CONSTRUCTION By viewing a subject facing forward or in profile, an artist can see the structure of forms with minimal consideration of perspective and foreshortening. In the engraving by John Gadsby Chapman (opposite), published in The American Drawing Book, the artist demonstrates a logical progression of drawing the mouth in a front-facing view. He begins with a horizontal line representing the space between lips and a vertical line to place the mouth’s center as seen in front view. (I’ll discuss later how the center-line moves as a mouth turns.) Next, he draws the…

These two exercises will help you loosen up and paint more decisively, particularly with oils. Note that “one stroke” doesn’t mean one quick mark. The paint you apply before lifting the brush counts as one stroke, which can last several seconds and fill quite a bit of space. Once you lift your brush, make a dot of that color somewhere to help keep count of your strokes. THE 40-BRUSHSTROKE PAINTING This exercise will help you paint faster so your work will become more painterly. You’ll see shapes more clearly, make faster decisions and use directional brushstrokes to get varied effects. Do this exercise from direct observation. TIP: A still life will be easiest. 1. Draw several thumbnail boxes (the more the better) and make contour drawings inside them. You can…

Each year since 2000, the editors of Southwest Art magazine have sifted through artists’ submissions and worked with art galleries, art schools, ateliers, workshop instructors and many other sources to find 21 up-and-coming artists who are under the age of 31. Check out this year’s crop of artists-to-watch in the “21 Under 31” feature of the August/ September 2022 issue of Southwest Art, available at artistsnetwork.com.…

recently I was lucky enough to take a trip to visit museums, something I’ve missed doing over the last few pandemic years. At the National Gallery of Art, in Washington, D.C., I wandered past a painting by Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot (1796–1895) of an Italian woman posed in front of a landscape, did a double take and stopped in my tracks. When I was in art school, my teacher Israel Hershberg took our class to the National Gallery to copy the masters. I had painted a copy of Agostina (left) then, standing at my easel for hours studying every color and brushstroke. Now, many years later, greeting her like a long-lost friend, I was grateful for all she’d taught me about Corot’s technique and palette and about composition and drawing. I learned…

Materials · 9x11-inch sheet of Rives BFKcotton rag paper· hard (2B) and soft (6B)charcoal pencils· vine charcoal· white charcoal stick or pastelpencil· blending stump· paper towel or soft rag· kneaded eraser· rubber eraser Demonstration: Portrait of a Woman, in Charcoal REFERENCE PHOTO My drawing is based on a photo by Teslariu Mihai that I found on Unsplash, an online resource for copyright-free photographs. 1 GESTURE Using vine charcoal, I first put down a gesture for the portrait. To do this, I focused primarily on large shapes of light and dark. Squinting your eyes to blur your vision at this stage can help you eliminate the details and see the large value shapes. Expect these initial marks to be inaccurate and simply work to build rough lines and shapes on your…

On occasion, a series of serendipitous events can dramatically alter an artist’s perception or direction. Such events have been the catalyst to change a medium or style. They’ve even spurred new artistic movements. For Virginia artist Kevin Chadwick, it was a painting gone wrong that culminated in the artist finding true north in his artistic vision and process. The result is as uniquely imaginative as it is aesthetically alluring. Fortuitous Events Chadwick spent decades of his career as an illustrator, first employed to copy nationally known artists’ work for silk-screening onto commercial glassware. “Having copied Dr. Suess illustrations as a child, re-creating other artist’s work came easily to me,” he says. Later, he worked as a full-time illustrator, eventually establishing his own firm with clients such as National Geographic, PBS…

A new platform features women artists of Eastern Europe. A long overdue resource called the Secondary Archive (secondaryarchive.org) is a Wikipedia-like platform featuring profiles of more than 300 female artists from Eastern and Central European countries. The archive includes 70 recently added statements from artists in Ukraine and Belarus. Despite some gains, the position of women in the art world, particularly in countries with machismo-leaning cultures, remains secondary—a situation reflected by the platform’s name. The concept is based on ideas introduced in the 1949 feminist manifesto The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir (1908–86). The focus of the archive, created in 2021 by the Katarzyna Kozyra Foundation, in Warsaw, along with international partners, is on the artistic activities of three generations of feminist artists, from the 1960s onward. While some,…

Artists never stop learning. Each new painting or drawing can bring another revelation, but when you want to learn more about a specific technique, medium or style, you can’t do better than to take a workshop.Start planning now. Check out the following listings for one or many workshops just right for you. Workshops Bob Ross Make that dream finally come true, take a Bob Ross painting class with a certified instructor, even if you’ve never painted before. These classes are local, virtual, or at the Bob Ross Art Workshop in Florida. Visit bobross.com and click Take-a-Class or call 1-800-262-7677. Year round for your convenience. Huntsville Museum of Art September 15–18, 2022, Donna Bland, Creating Beautiful Landscapes in Acrylic or Oil November 02, 2022, Donato Giancola, Composition & Composition November 04–05,…