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The healing power of art and nature

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Contents A R T I S T S & I L LUS T R AT OR S • J U LY 2022

Regulars

5 SKETCHBOOK Quick tips, ideas and inspiration, plus the UK’s top art shows in July 13 HOW I MAKE IT WORK With illustrator Love From Lexi 15 PRIZE DR AW Win £700 of Gamblin paints and mediums 32 WE PRESENT... Portfolio Plus member Alan Watters 79 YOU TELL US Write in and win a £50 Atlantis Art voucher 82 PICTURE THIS Derwent Art Prize winner Femi Ikotun on what his drawing means to him

Inspiration 16 IN THE STUDIO Oil painter Zoey Frank invites us into her Colorado-based work space 22 HOW I PAINT Christabel Blackburn shares the techniques behind her figurative works 28 THE BRITISH ART PRIZE Our art competition opens for entries

40 ART HISTORY Why there’s more to Edvard Munch than his iconic painting, The Scream

46 EXHIBITIONS Oxford’s link to The Pre-Raphaelites

Techniques

52 IN - DEPTH Jake Spicer on life drawing with Conté Crayon 58 TECHNIQUE Madeline Morrow shares the skills needed to paint a Manet-inspired rose 62 MASTERCL ASS Learn how to paint fast-flowing water in this easy-to-follow demostration 68 TIPS Discover the healing power of art and nature with botanical artist Anna Mason 72 SERIES Ann Witheridge shows you how to add colour into your plein air landscape paintings 76 STEP - BY- STEP Follow Helen Hanson as she draws a summer’s landscape in coloured pencil

ASHMOLEAN MUSEUMW

34 THE BIG INTERVIEW George Butler on illustrating scenes from the Russo-Ukrainian War

E DITOR' S L ET TER

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THIS MONTH’S COVER ARTWORK By Christabel Blackburn

Dive in...

… to the July issue of Artists & Illustrators, packed full of arty inspiration and practical advice. Now the sun is out, Anna Mason encourages you to schedule regular times in your diary to take your sketchbook, pencils and travel paints with you out into the fresh air and into nature. The combination of both nourishes your emotional wellbeing as she found out after going through a difficult period in her life. Ann Witheridge also encourages you to go outside with your art. The beauty of en plein air landscape painting is that you become part of nature, the birds sit with you, the flowers scent the air and the scenery changes as the day progresses.We may sometimes take nature for granted, but it’s one of the greatest free gifts life offers us. Edward Munch may be best known for his iconic - and perhaps widely overused - painting The Scream. Now, a collection of his work will be shown for the first time in England this summer. We feature a selection on page 40 and look into the life of Norway’s most celebrated painter. We’re thrilled to launch our annual art competition, The British Art Prize 2022 in partnership with edding. It’s open to artists of all abilities, whether you are a hobby painter, an emerging artist or a seasoned professional; all ideas, mediums and techniques will be considered. As well as a prize fund worth more than £10,000 ( which includes editorial coverage) the competition will provide winning artists with an important platform to gain valuable exposure and recognition for their work, including extensive coverage in this magazine and their work being exhibited at a major London gallery. It’s a brilliant opportunity to get your work and name out into the wider art community. So, what are you waiting for? Don’t delay: get your entries in today!

EDITORIAL Editor Niki Browes Art Editor Stuart Selner Assistant Editor Rebecca Bradbury Contributors Martha Alexander, Eileen Clark, Helen Hansen, Anna Mason, Madeline Morrow, Adrian Morby, Jake Spicer, Ann Witheridge

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GET IN TOUCH Artists & Illustrators, The Chelsea Magazine Company Ltd, Jubilee House, 2 Jubilee Place, London SW3 3TQ Phone: (020) 7349 3700 artistsandillustrators.co.uk

INTRODUCING

REBECCA BR ADBURY

Contributing to both the magazine and its digital platforms, our Assistant Editor gets to combine her passions for publishing and the visual arts. “One of the best things about my job is being able to chat with artists about what inspires their work – and then share it with you.” 4 ARTISTS & ILLUSTRATORS

ANNA MASON

Anna has been working as a professional botanical artist for 15 years. Best known for her vivid, realistic watercolour paintings, she is the founder of Anna Mason’s Online School and has taught to over 45,000 artists worldwide. Take her free class at AnnaMasonArt.com

SANDRINE MAUGY

Sandrine is a botanical artist, author and illustrator, fellow member of the Society of Botanical Artists, the Association of Illustrators, the Society of Authors and the Société Française d’Illustration Botanique. She is a regular contributer for Artists & Illustrators.

CHRISTABEL BL ACKBURN

Ten years after becoming a professional artist, Christabel won Sky Art’s Portrait Artist of the Year in 2020. Of her style of work, she says, “I enjoy the challenge of finding movement in posture and body language. I’m fascinated by my fellow humans and love to observe.”

Write to us! Send us your latest paintings, tips or artistic discoveries and you could win a £50 voucher: info@artistsandillustrators.co.uk @AandImagazine /ArtistsAndIllustrators @AandImagazine @AandImagazine

Sketchbook T I PS • A DV ICE • EX H IBI TIONS • NEWS • R EV IEWS

E D ITE D BY R E B ECC A B R ADB U RY

Things we love...

MARK DEMSTEADER

Starting out as a butcher at Manchester’s Meat Market, Mark Demsteader hasn’t had the most conventional journey to becoming one of the most popular figurative artists working in Britain today. But this doesn’t stop us admiring his atmospheric and ethereal paintings of the human form rendered with thick, textured marks of raw pigments. You can catch his show-stopping work from 6 to 10 July at the Henley Festival. henley-festival.co.uk

ARTISTS & ILLUSTRATORS 5

ADVERTORIAL

Drawing digitally on the go with

VIKTORIA GAVRILENKO

CLIP STUDIO PAINT

Tips & advice for drawing nature outside! DR AWING TREES

DR AWING LE AVES Objects in the foreground should be painted in more detail, so sometimes the leaves in the foreground need to be drawn individually. To draw individual leaves, start with a centre line of action. Different plants have different patterns and structures. Below are some examples of where to find these lines. With these lines it is easier to distinguish the upper und under side of the leaves when thinking of them in 3D space.

1 First, sketch out the main forms of the tree.

2 Paint the clusters of foliage with a large brush.

3 Start adding shape with highlights and shadows, still with a large brush.

4 With a small brush, paint in details like leaves. In this example, we added some gaps between leaf clusters too.

ANN MAULIN

ne benefit of drawing digitally is that you can draw anywhere as long as you have your tablet or smartphone with you. Whether sketching on your phone to fi nish painting at home, or painting full artworks on your iPad, you can easily paint and draw instantly without any preparation or tidying-up! The painting app Clip Studio Paint is available on all major platforms including iPad, Android, and iOS, giving you freedom to draw on the go. And with a wide range of brushes mimicking natural media such as watercolors and oil paints, as well as pattern brushes and stamps, you don’t have any limitations on your creativity. Experiment with various media to fi nd your perfect painting style. In this mini tutorial, we’ll look at some techniques for drawing various foliage types, such as trees and leaves that you can use when drawing outside on your tablet. When drawing from life, you don’t have to make everything detailed. Add details mainly on the areas you want to focus on. Usually, the focus is located in the foreground or middle ground, but never in the far background.

Different leaves have different kinds of shapes, but they usually have a central line just like the spine of the human figure. This line can be used as a line of action to draw a leaf. Above are some leaves in different angles and poses that can be drawn from just one similar central line.

Conclusion What do you think? Ready to start drawing outside? You can enjoy painting outside digitally with Clip Studio Paint on your iPad, Android tablet, or smartphone, as well as Windows and macOS computers. Get up to three months free on any device when you sign up for a free trial; scan the QR code to learn more and start drawing with freedom on your tablet!

Sketchbook

Don’t miss... Shout out to...

T H E R O YA L COLLEGE OF ARTS The results are in! For the eighth year in a row, London’s Royal College of Arts has been ranked the number one university in the world for art and design by the QS World University Rankings. This helps cement the UK’s status as a top creative hub, and with the college opening a new Battersea campus later this year, even more emerging artists based in the capital will be at the forefront of global creativity. rca.ac.uk

PL ANTAE AT THE MALL GALLERIE S For the ultimate in art related to plants be sure to visit The Society of Botanical Artists Annual Exhibition, running at the Mall Galleries in London from 15 to 18 June. Encompassing the entire plant kingdom, the showcase features work in all mediums, from watercolour and coloured pencil to gouache, oil and acrylic. soc-botanicalartists.org

BOOK OF THE MONTH

Join us online!

BRILLIANT INKS by Anna Sokolova Modern inks are far more versatile than you might imagine and proving just what the medium is capable of is this colourful guide from Skillshare teacher Anna Sokolova. Covering painting, drawing and printing, the book's step-by-step demos show how to capture florals, animals, still life and figures, with tips on mixing colours, spattering and creating textures. The Quarto Group, £18.99. quarto.com

THE DIARY Open calls, prizes and artist opportunities

3 JULY Glyndebourne’s Tour Art Competition challenges new artists to create an artwork on the theme of ‘disguise’. Entry closes today at midnight. All mediums welcome. glyndebourne.com

8 JULY Have you created any artworks inspired by the sea recently? Submit them by today and they could appear in the Royal Society of Marine Artists’ annual exhibition. mallgalleries.org.uk

If you love the magazine’s redesign, you’re going to fall head over heels for the new look Artists & Illustrators website. Don't fear, it’s still one of the biggest resources for artists on the internet, but a fresh new feel makes our how to guides, competitions, news and interviews even more enjoyable for visitors to read. artistsandillustrators.co.uk

19 JULY Cymru Gyfoes (Wales Contemporary) invites artists worldwide to enter work of any subject matter by today. Prize fund totals £14,000. walescontemporary. artopps.co.uk

31 JULY Enter your works on the theme of ‘escapism’ into the debut Theo Paphitis Art Prize by today for a chance to win a top prize of £5,000 or be voted the People's Choice winner. londongraphics.co.uk

ARTISTS & ILLUSTRATORS 7

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Sketchbook

Be inspired! It might not seem like the most obvious connection, but 18th-century French art very much influenced some of the most popular animations of the 20th century. Proof of this comes in the form of works on paper and hand-drawn production artworks from the films Beauty and the Beast and Cinderella, which are now on show in the exhibition, Inspiring Walt Disney: The Animation of French Decorative Arts, at London's Wallace Collection. wallacecollection.org

Why not try...

T H E RI V E R LA N D S CO L L E CT IO N When you buy one of Derwent’s five new sets of pencils you can help protect the UK’s rivers and wildlife, as 10% of each product sold goes to the National Trust’s Riverlands Conservation programme. The range features a sketching wallet, as well as graphite, Chromaflow, watercolour and pastel sets – all designed for drawing on the move. derwentart.com

Don't miss...

TH E F O O TB A LL A RT PRIZE EXHIBITION Before the 2022 FIFA World Cup kicks off in the autumn, this showcase of football-themed artworks will be touring the UK. The highlight is sure to be Toby Michael’s winning submission, Roy Keane [right], which captures the player-turned-pundit painting a self-portrait of himself as a devil. Running at Touchstones in Rochdale until 26 June, the 69-artwork strong exhibition will then move to Sheffield’s Millennium Gallery on 23 July and continue at the Sunderland Museum & Winter Garden from 5 November. footballartprize.com

If you don’t know what art materials to pack for some sketching on your summer holiday, take some advice from Matthew Rice. In a small leather briefcase, the illustrator and author packs a watercolour box of Schmincke paints, two sable series 7 brushes, some lumigraph HB pencils, Rotring Tikky pens and a small jam jar. You can see some of his wonderful travel sketches in the new book, Venice: A Sketchbook Guide. Particular Books, £18.99. penguin.co.uk

T OP TIP

ARTISTS & ILLUSTRATORS 9

Sketchbook

Exhibitions T H E B E S T A R T S H OW S T O V I S I T T H I S J U LY

THE BFG IN PICTURE S 23 July to 4 October You might think you know The BFG, one of Roald Dahl’s most iconic stories. Yet, before the much-loved children’s book was published, the eponymous gentle giant underwent several guises, as 10 ARTISTS & ILLUSTRATORS

charted in this touring show. Neverbefore-seen drawings by Quentin Blake go on show alongside the final versions, giving an insight into the collaboration between author and illustrator. Grosvenor Museum, Chester. westcheshiremuseums.co.uk

HOWARDENA PINDELL: A NEW L ANGUAGE 2 July to 30 October African-American artist Howardena Pindell has spent six decades developing a unique visual language. By adding scent, glitter and paper circles made from hole punchers to her paintings, she has broadened the confines of modernist art, while her more recent work challenges racial and social injustices. This solo show will explore her incredibly varied output. Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge. kettlesyard.co.uk

COURTESY OF THE ARTIST, GARTH GREENAN GALLERY, NEW YORK

MARY FEDDEN: SIMPLE PLE ASURE S 9 July to 16 October World War II caused Mary Fedden’s artistic career to come to an abrupt halt. Serving as a driver for the NAAFI in 1944, she returned home determined to make up for lost time and began to paint the simple pleasures denied to so many throughout the conflict. This round-up of work shows how she captured subjects such as foreign fruits, distant landscapes and abundant flowers in graphic panels of bright colours. Victoria Art Gallery, Bath. victoriagal.org.uk

GLY N PHILPOT: FLE SH AND SPIRIT Until 23 October A headline in the Scotsman on 30 April 1932 read, ‘Glyn Philpot goes “Picasso”’ – a phrase that sums up the Londoner’s transition from painting routine portraiture to taking on a more modern aesthetic after moving to Paris for a year. Eighty paintings, drawings and sculptures will demonstrate this shift, with an emphasis on Philpot’s portraits of dancers, lovers, poets and society hostesses, as well as his sensitive representation of Black sitters. Pallant House Gallery, Chichester. pallant.org.uk

MILTON AVERY: AMERIC AN COLOURIST 15 July to 16 October Creating paintings too abstract for academics but too representational for the Abstract Expressionist scene, Milton Avery was often overlooked during his lifetime. Today, however, he is considered one of North America’s greatest 20th-century colourists, an accolade celebrated in this showcase of 70 works. Capturing scenes from daily life, including portraits of loved ones and landscapes from his visits to Maine and Cape Cod, he painted in broad planes of poetically juxtaposed colour. This is your chance to marvel at his signature style in celebrated works including Little Fox River [pictured]. Royal Academy, London. royalacademy.org.uk

COURTESY AGNEWS AND STEPHENONGPIN FINE ART, LONDON

THE SINGH T WINS: SL AVE S OF FASHION Until 11 September The Singh Twins – two artist sisters who work as one – are best known for fusing the traditions of Western and Eastern art to create provocative and sharply political images. Such work can be expected in this exhibition, which explores the hidden narratives around empire, enslavement, conflict and consumerism connected to the Indian historical trade in textiles. Light box artworks, preparatory work and satirical paintings on paper will go on show, providing a unique insight into the creative process behind the Slaves of Fashion series. Firstsite, Colchester. firstsite.uk

ARTISTS & ILLUSTRATORS 11

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Illustration by Helen Carter

G UE S T CO LUMNI S T

H OW I M A K E I T WO R K

Love from Lexi The pandemic pushed this illustrator to realise her dreams. Here’s how she went from comfort drawing to drawing commissions

B egan to rethink my career at the start of the pandemic. I studied art and illustration at university, but I ended up working in design and marketing for 10 years. Then when Covid hit, I threw myself into drawing as a way of escaping from the unknown. I soon went from illustrating for comfort to launching my own illustration business. Deep down becoming a professional illustrator was always something I had wanted to do, but I never felt good enough. However, I have grown my confidence by channelling my creativity through Instagram, connecting with like-minded creatives and building up a list of contacts. Now I take on commissions and design bespoke stationery and prints. The Chocolate Gift Company, Domenica Marland, Wardrobe Icons and Kin House are just some of the wonderful businesses I have worked with. All my jobs have been enjoyable, but one particularly memorable one was with Christie’s Auction House. I got to illustrate scenes for their online Picasso ceramics sale and my work graced the walls of the gallery; it was such a great feeling and experience. My favourite part of any project is when I see it developing. I feel a sense of achievement and relief, as the self-doubt and impostor syndrome slowly disappear. I’ve recently moved from my kitchen table to my own studio, which has been liberating. Closing the door at the end of the working day is so important. lovefromlexi.com

LEXI ’S TIPS ON SURVIVING AS A FULL -TIME ILLUSTRATOR

Practice and experiment whenever possible. I always have a sketchbook to hand to record ideas.

Remember, it’s perfectly normal not to feel creative all the time. Some days I feel like I can’t draw anymore. When this happens, I’ve learnt how important it is to step away from my desk and do something different in order to gain some clarity.

T O P Commission for Kin House, watercolour A B OV E Illustrated Product Edit, watercolour L E F T A Care Chair illustration, watercolour

My mum has always said, “You can’t pour from an empty cup”, which is a hugely important piece of advice for creatives like me who are working for themselves. It’s a reminder that we can’t give to others if we are not taking care of ourselves. ▫

ARTISTS & ILLUSTRATORS 1 3

David Hockney Drawings 1963–1977

The exhibition has been generously supported by:

27 May to 18 September HS282_HM_Hockney_Artists & Illustrators_202W x 129H P_AW.indd 1 14 ARTISTS & ILLUSTRATORS

29/04/2022 11:31

PR I Z E DR AW THE PRIZE Two winners, chosen at random, will each win a Gamblin Gift Package worth £350, including: • 15 x 37ml tubes of Gamblin Artist’s Oil Colours in various colours • One x 150ml tube of Gamblin Artist’s Oil Colours in Titanium White • Seven Gamblin mediums, including 250ml Galkyd Lite, 118ml Cold Wax Medium, 125ml Refined Linseed Oil, 125ml Galkyd, 150ml Solvent-Free Gel, 125ml Solvent-Free Fluid Medium and 150ml Galkyd Gel • One x 500ml of Gamsol odourless mineral spirits • One x 236ml of Gamblin Oil Painting Ground • One x 250ml of Gamvar Gloss varnish • A 50mm Varnish Brush • Extra Gamblin goodies, including an apron and hat

WIN!

A BUNDLE OF LUXURY OIL PAINTING PRODUCTS Experience luscious colours and contemporary mediums with a GAMBLIN gift pack, put together with the oil painter in mind

il paint has been the most popular painting medium for 600 years. No other product gives artists the same intensity of colour and varied range of mark-making possibilities, and paying tribute to the medium’s centuries-long reign is Gamblin, the US-based manufacturer that combines the best historical properties of oil paint with the latest technical innovations. In this month’s issue, we’re celebrating Gamblin’s Artists Oils by offering two lucky readers of Artists & Illustrators magazine the chance to each win an expertly curated gift package worth £350. Not only will the bundle contain hue-packed pigments, but it will also feature mediums and tools to diversify your oil painting.

Gamblin is on a mission to lead oil painting into the future. All paints are created with the finest grade pigments. Artists can pick between ‘mineral inorganic colours’, made from metals such as Cadmium, Cobalt and Iron, and ‘modern organic colours’, made from organic carbon-based pigments. There is also an impressive line-up of 10 whites and high-quality inks for printmaking. The small team at Gamblin are dedicated to forging the right balance of oil, history, science and emotion in every batch of paint. They have also made it their mission to help artists select and master the materials best suited to their artistic intentions. www.gamblinstore.com

HOW TO ENTER Enter by noon on 8 July 2022, either at artistsandillustrators.co.uk/ competitions or by filling in the form below and returning it to: Gamblin Prize Draw, Artists & Illustrators, Chelsea Magazine Company Ltd., Jubilee House, 2 Jubilee Place, London SW3 3TQ TERMS & CONDITIONS Prize is non-transferable. No cash alternatives are available. For full terms and conditions, visit chelseamagazine.com/terms

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Pool Party, oil on canvas, 290x 244cm

HENNA TAYLOR

H O W I W O R K I N T HE S T UDI O

Zoey

Frank Challenging conventional methods while seeking inspiration from Caravaggio, the Colorado-based oil painter has established a style like no other, as Rebecca Bradbury discovers

ARTISTS & ILLUSTRATORS 17

HOW I WORK IN TH E S TUDI O

hen you look at one of Zoey Frank’s complex figurative scenes, it’s impossible not to feel part of the action. Take Wedding, for example: the bride and groom’s hora dance is in mid-flow as granny watches on vicariously, a pigtailed bridesmaid steals a slice of cake and a drunk uncle passes out across a table nearby. It’s the sort of celebration we’ve all been to before and, with no one person stealing the limelight, it’s easy for an observer to imagine being there, filling in the blanks with their own recollections of special occasions. Evoking a similar sense of nostalgia is the artist’s series of poolside paintings, where all 18 ARTISTS & ILLUSTRATORS

generations of a family gather in bathing suits on a hot summer’s day. Yet despite this wistful affection for the past, the subject matter – neon inflatables, bucket hats and bikinis – clearly point to the 21st century. Added to this contemporary feel is the artist’s unique stylisation and abstract flourishes, which see forms overlapping in unusual ways, flat blocks of colour playing with perspective and patches of pattern to rival the Azulejo tiles of Portugal filling in blank areas such as the sky and swimwear. Throughout the series, however, Zoey’s paintings become increasingly more abstract. It begins with Pool Party, the most representational, and finishes with Swimming Pool #2 – a loose, free-flowing amalgamation of fleshy forms. With such a

modern and varied aesthetic, it’s surprising to learn that inspiration is often sought from Renaissance and Baroque masters like Raphael, Caravaggio, Velasquez and Titian. “Some are directly quoting historical paintings by these artists,” Zoey explains of her busy figurative scenes. “But more broadly I’ve been thinking about how their compositions work. Like how the figures repeat each other’s gestures and how they relate to each other on the canvas. “It seems like magic when I see those paintings and I want to figure out how I can make that happen in a way that feels satisfying to me,” she adds. The mix of realism and abstraction reflect Zoey’s art education. In 2011, she graduated from the Gage Academy of Art, an atelier in

H O W I W O R K I N T HE S T UDI O Wedding, oil on linen, 244x356cm

Egg Plant, oil on linen panel, 102x79cm

The abstract elements are one of the devices I’m using to make the composition work Seattle focused on traditional painting methods. Armed with these four years of academic training, the artist went on to study at the Laguna College of Art and Design in California, which introduced her to different ways of painting and the notion that these processes, rather than just the image depicted, can contribute to the meaning of an artwork. The purpose of Zoey’s abstract elements – which arrive instinctively as she paints – is to solve representational problems. “They are one of the devices I’m using to make the composition work,” she explains. “It’s bringing these representational elements into a larger, more abstract structure that holds them on the surface of the canvas in a different way.

“I like how they play with the depth of field, so there are both elements of illusion creating depth and space, and other parts pulling the viewer right back to the surface of the canvas,” she adds. “That confusion of space, it tricks the brain. It feels confusing and makes me what to look longer as I’m having to pass my way through the image and figure out how the shapes relate.” We as humans are drawn to faces. Therefore, to ensure the viewer doesn’t linger on one person for too long, Zoey averts the gazes of her subjects or obscures their features. These components are all part of the compositional choices the artist plans in a series of “chunky” gouache studies, at which point figuring out the value structure and colour palette is also key.

When it comes to laying down the paint, Zoey begins by massing in the big shapes, replicating the values in her plan. “Then I’ll start dialling in and getting increasingly specific, breaking down those shapes into smaller shapes until I start to have actual faces and bodies,” she says. “It’s about getting more detailed and more specific.” To master the realist elements of her figurative work, the artist works from photographic references she’s taken of her family and friends. A lot of the time she achieves this while working on a large scale, which also maximises the impact of these complex group paintings. Some of the artist’s supports – either canvas or linen – measure over three metres wide. Paintings this big require a huge space ▸ ARTISTS & ILLUSTRATORS 19

H O W I WORK IN T H E S TUDI O

Swimming Pool #1 oil on canvas, 168x183cm

(and stepladder) and Zoey has found a light and airy purpose-built studio near her home in Colorado that fits the bill. Although, currently working on a larger-than-life piece measuring 549cm tall, painting across two canvases is sometimes still required. Also in progress in Zoey’s studio are some experiments with a restrictive colour palette. “I had all these pigments I never used, so in one, the whole painting is made from 12 different greens and Cadmium Orange,” she explains. “Having these constraints feels really exciting to push up against. I’m having to think more specifically about intensity and colour temperature because I can’t just match the colour that might be there in the room.” These investigations follow others where she cranked up the chroma on some paintings of her nieces, swapping, for example, a dull red for a fire engine red. It’s a process the artist believes has led to her endowing each painting with a colour language of its own – and this includes her 20 ARTISTS & ILLUSTRATORS

My way into still life was painting these messy scenes that just happened to be there still life, a genre that Zoey took a little while to warm up to.“I wasn’t interested in still life at all originally,” she admits. “I think it was because setting up a still life, having to arrange a perfect set of objects on a table, just felt miserable. “I found my way in by painting these messy scenes that just happened to be there and that were changing over time. It was a way to track daily moments. You know, like on a kitchen counter that other people are using, so every day it looks a little bit different. I’d come in and just paint a little bit. This way, other people are making my composition for me, and it feels exciting and dynamic.”

The artist now offers an online art course on ‘still life in motion’, where she shares her strategies for representing change over several weeks, using an aubergine plant growing in her backyard as an example. It’s a process that challenges the conventions of representational painting and rebels against the atelier method which, Zoey says, taught her to “solve the whole painting first and then execute it section by section”. Combining an investigative, responsive, and ever-evolving mindset with an arsenal of traditional painting methods is, in fact, representative of Zoey’s entire strategy. It’s an approach that leaves the viewer wanting more, but she does have a back-up plan: “I joke with my partner that if the whole painting thing doesn’t end up working out, I’d be really happy to work in a tile factory and hand paint the tiles,” she says of her penchant for these patterns. “There’s this meditative quality to putting them in; it just feels really satisfying to my brain.” zoeyfrank.com ▫

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Nile Rodgers, oil on linen, 130x150cm

EDD HORDER

H O W I W O R K HO W I PA I NT

Christabel Blackburn L With a fascination for fellow human beings and a natural disposition to observe,

CHRISTABEL BLACKBURN’S

atmospheric scenes focus in on the interplay between people and spaces, finds Niki Browes

ike any profession, not all teachers are A+ at their job which can have devastating effects on a student’s confidence. Christabel Blackburn was one of them. Despite winning an art scholarship at her previous school, when she moved to sixth form, her new art teacher didn’t show her any encouragement and even put her off applying to art school. Demoralised, she followed her brother into a Classics degree. Upon arriving at Newcastle, she saw the art students coming out of their building and, with a sinking heart, knew she’d made a mistake. But she pushed through and attained a 2:1 before jetting off to Florence for a year to a school which taught figurative drawing. After returning to Britain, she enrolled at the London

Atelier of Representational Arts and from there became a professional artist at the relatively young age of 23. Ten years later and with a number of accolades under her belt (including a shortlist nomination for the BP Portrait Award), one topped the lot: winning Sky Art’s Portrait Artist of the Year in 2020. Her winning episode aired the night before the first lockdown and the public clearly found her work a welcome distraction from the doom and gloom. With the world largely housebound for the next several months, she was suddenly inundated with commissions and even had to hire a staff member to help her juggle her enquiries, something which continues to this day. Wonder what her A ‘Level art teacher makes of that? ▸

ARTISTS & ILLUSTRATORS 2 3

H O W I WORK HOW I P A I N T

You, Me and Peter Doig, oil on canvas, 170x130cm

2 4 ARTISTS & ILLUSTRATORS

Candy Stripes and Clouds, oil on panel, 32x39cm

I’m very grateful for growing up in London and being exposed to the galleries, museums and theatre. I was lucky that my parents were supportive of my liking art and took me on inspirational trips to Paris, Greece and Rome. My mother is a fashion designer, yet our styles are very different. We both like to draw the figure but, while hers are elegant fashion models, mine are messy and organic. I’m sure my love of visual art came from her; she would set up still life for us when I brought friends home and she taught me to use watercolours on holiday. Artists paint what obsess them and people watching is something I do very well. To be observant is probably to be overly nosey but being curious about people and their stories comes as an instinctual second nature to me. I often wonder how many strangers we’ve seen twice without realising. I will register ordinary people in the street and remember them for days to come; what they wore and how they walked or spoke on the phone. ▸

I Learned to Love Myself, oil on linen, 130x150cm

H OW I WORK HOW I P A I N T

Whispers of my Past, oil on panel, 40x30cm

I’m fascinated by my fellow humans and love to observe. The geometric backdrop of London is the perfect structural background for framing the figures and I can’t walk 10 feet without being distracted by a potential composition. Certain locations have provided material for multiple paintings, such as the Southbank’s National Theatre and Hayward Gallery, The Barbican Centre and Tate Modern. Fellini said all art is autobiographical. I see myself in the people I paint and I think viewers also see themselves reflected in my work. A city can be a lonely place. Even though we’re surrounded by other individuals, we’re ultimately alone. I hope that by exchanging places with the people in my paintings, viewers can absorb their sense of calm, bringing a stillness we all crave so much. This is illustrated literally in my paintings of figures in galleries, where they are, for a small window of their day, taken away from their phones to be with the art and therefore with themselves. It’s all a kind of meditation.

26 ARTISTS & ILLUSTRATORS

I rent a gorgeous studio from a friend in Barons Court. You may have seen the row of studios driving west out of London on the A4. They were purpose built for ‘bachelor artists’ in 1891 and are still primarily occupied by artists. I have north light which makes life much easier and it’s big enough that, in the two years since I’ve been there,

I see myself in the people I paint and I think viewers can also see themselves I’ve been able to work on a bigger scale. I’d like to say it’s beautifully tidy but most of the time the floor is peppered with paint smeared rags and strips of masking tape. It is well populated with plants as it’s on a busy road, so I try to counteract some of the pollution with foliage.

If you ask my friends or my husband they’ll tell you I’m disorganised and messy. So I think I must have adopted my minimalist style as a way of balancing my chaotic mind. I’m a colour junkie and I get a nerdy kind of high when I come across a good colour combination. This can be in nature, in an inky blue sky against an acid green field, or a sun-drenched concrete wall with a woman wearing a red jacket walking by. Once I’ve recreated these colours in the studio, I find joy in their true, flat form, so it’s against my nature to want to break it up with tone. I used to paint and draw tonally but I don’t get any joy out of painting the folds of a coat anymore. I enjoy the challenge of finding movement in posture and body language, rather than a lot of extra brushstrokes. One of my favourite quotes is by the architect Louis L. Kahn who said, “The sun never knew how great it was until it hit the side of a building.” In nature the structures I’m attracted to are minimal, flat and are ideal for capturing the sun’s rays. It is this light which I wish to paint and it is all the information I need.

H O W I W O R K HO W I PA I NT

Hayward View, oil on panel, 46x56cm

Bathroom Sink, Pink, oil on canvas, 170x130cm

I’ve always painted in oils not only because of the slower drying time but because I just prefer the finish. I love the colours from Michael Harding – I use a limited palette – and get very carried away in the handling of oils. I literally love the oiliness, and the smell. I look at a lot of photographers from Henri Cartier-Bresson to Phillip Lorca diCorcia and Franco Fontana; their street photography inspired me to start taking my own photographs. In my portraits I’m very much influenced by Berkley L. Hendrinks and Amoako Boafo. Both give as much importance to the clothes as to the faces whilst still keeping the treatment of the clothing minimal. Their garments, shoes and accessories do not come secondary to the faces and hands. They believe fashion is part of the portrait and biography of that person. Alone with Yellow, oil on panel, 32x39cm

Finding the right composition comes largely instinctively but I’ve come to know what will work and what doesn’t. It always helps to have strong shadows and

not too much fussiness. There needs to be balance between straight and curved edges, figure and structure, building and sky, and most importantly, colour. The viewer’s eye needs to be led around the picture, so depth is important too. I mostly find the composition with my camera at the start, then sometimes I’ll chop up multiple images and mix and match them on Photoshop. I came out of an artist’s block about two weeks ago. I think all creatives get this and it’s part of the process. If we didn’t have despondency, then we would rely on complacency and never grow. I’m at my most prolific when I’ve just emerged from a creative rut and that tends to be just before a show. Usually getting out of it means locking up the studio and going to galleries or just walking around. You have to get distance from the work and come back with fresh ideas. Christabel’s next exhibition is at Alex Eagle Studio, 6-10 Lexington Street, London W1 from 16 May to 26 June. christabelblackburn.com ▫ ARTISTS & ILLUSTRATORS 27

rıtısh B

FLETCHER SIBTHORP

ART rıze P

PAUL MARLOR

The

2022

CATHERINE McVEAN

I N PA R TN E R S H I P W ITH

e’re delighted to be back with our annual British Art Prize in partnership with edding, the go to specialists in writing, marking and visual communication. This major national art competition will expose winning artists of all levels to a far-reaching platform to gain valuable publicity and recognition for their work. Open to everyone - whether you’re an amateur, emerging artist or a professional all styles, media and techniques will be considered. To celebrate our joining up with edding, this year there will also be a one-off extra prize: the edding acrylic prize where the only requirement is that the submitted painting 2 8 ARTISTS & ILLUSTRATORS

is completed in the medium (for more details, please see overleaf). The British Art Prize offers an unprecedented level of national exposure over three major magazine brands and the chance to sell their artwork to a combined audience of almost 1,000,000 art lovers and collectors. There is also a whopping prize fund worth more than £10,000 which includes cash prizes, art supplies, editorial coverage in Artists & Illustrators and the chance to be included in an exhibition at a major London art gallery in autumn of this year. Shortlisted artists will be invited to a prestigious opening evening reception alongside artists, collectors and other VIP guests.

ELIZABETH PARRY

Artists & Illustrators is pleased to be back with The British Art Prize 2022. Enter today for the chance to win some great prizes, have your work exhibited at a major London gallery and feature in this magazine

CO MPE T I T I O N MICHAEL SOLE

Prizes

The British Art Prize has five fantastic prizes. They are:

IN PARTNERSHIP WITH

RICHA VORA

FIRST PRIZE

The overall winner of the British Art Prize will receive a £3,000 cash prize, a six-page feature in a future issue of Artists & illustrators and the winning painting will be shown at an exhibition at a major London gallery.

SUPPORTED BY

SECOND PRIZE

A £500 cash prize, a Derwent Lightfast Wooden Box (including 100 Lightfast pencils), a Lightfast Paper Pad 12 x 16 worth (together worth £520) and inclusion in the Artists & Illustrators British Art Prize winners’ special issue. The winning painting will be shown at an exhibition at a major London gallery. derwentart.com

THIRD PRIZE

MEDIA PARTNERS

A £500 cash prize and inclusion in the Artists & Illustrators British Art Prize winners’ special issue. The winning painting will be shown at an exhibition at a major London gallery.

ABI WHITLOCK

THE EDDING ACRYLIC PRIZE

The only requirement is that your painting(s) are completed in the medium. The winner will receive £500 worth of edding acrylic materials and inclusion in the Artists & Illustrators British Art Prize winners’ special issue. The winning painting will be shown at an exhibition at a major London gallery. edding.com

PEOPLE’S CHOICE AWARD

A £1,000 cash prize, a Pegasus Art voucher worth £500 and a feature in the January 2023 issue of Artists & Illustrators. The winning painting will be shown at an exhibition at a major London gallery. pegasusart.co.uk

LINDA ALEXANDER

How to enter Entering The British Art Prize couldn’t be easier. Simply visit artistsandillustrators.co.uk/britishartprize and fill out the online form. Attach digital photographs of your artworks when requested and click the submit button to complete your entry. The entry fee for the first artwork is £18 and £15 for any additional artwork. * Terms and conditions apply. Please visit: artistsandillustrators.co.uk/britishartprize

Selection process Submissions close at 5pm on Thursday, 4th August. Our panel of judges will select a shortlist of 50 artworks, including the three top prize winners and the edding acrylic prize. The People’s Choice Award will be decided by a public vote. The British Art Prize 2022 shortlist will be announced online on Friday, 30th September and in the November issue of Artists & Illustrators. If you’ve entered, visit artistsandillustrators.co.uk after that date to see if you’re work has been shortlisted. Readers will also be able to vote for their favour shortlisted artwork at artistsandillustrators.co.uk/britishartprize.

Enter for free

Portfolio members can enter The British Art Prize 2022 free of charge Portfolio is an exciting online community that allows you to share, showcase and sell your artwork for as little as £2.49 per month. As well as free entry to The British Art Prize, other membership benefits include:

• The ability to sell your artwork commission free to an active audience of more than 100,000 monthly visitors • Access exclusive competitions, opportunities and offers • The chance to appear in Artists & Illustrators, social media, newsletters and more! Sign up to Portfolio at artistsandillustrators.co.uk/ portfolio

ARTISTS & ILLUSTRATORS 29

C O M P ETITION

Making a mark

We’ve teamed up with EDDING for this year’s British Art Prize. To celebrate, enter your acrylic paintings into this year’s one-off category

e’re delighted to partner with edding for this year’s British Art Prize. A family operated business, edding have been producing an unrivalled range of marker pens and other art materials since their formation in 1960. Based in Hamburg, Germany, edding products are manufactured to an exceptionally high standard and their creative pens and markers are widely used in art environments. Started by Carl-Wilhelm Edding and Volker Detlef Ledermann, the two school friends launched the business with just 500 Deutsche Mark and a single typewriter. Just ten-years later, almost 100 million eddingfelt and fibre-tipped pens had been sold across all five continents. As well as whiteboards, fl ipcharts, and presentation and display systems, this extensive product range also includes interactive solutions for schools and businesses. Care for the environment has been part of edding’s corporate philosophy since the very beginning. Not only do the group take 3 0 ARTISTS & ILLUSTRATORS

ecological considerations into account when planning products, packaging and materials, the forward-thinking founders have been keen on alternative fuels since the 1960s. So much so that by the start of the new millennium, edding already had a solar-powered car in use at its Ahrensburg site. In 2009, the company bought its fi rst electric car and installed its own charging station. Fast forward 10 years, and edding’s fleet now features a number of latestgeneration electric cars and several more charging points. edding may have become a big name thanks to its permanent markers, but today the company represents so much more than those familiar thick black pens. Over the past few years alone, the brand has successfully undergone continuous development. Suitable for all-rounders, hobby crafters or professional artists, their long lasting and high-quality paint markers, acrylic range, fi neliners and gel rollers (and more) will always be a useful addition within your art arsenal. ▫

To celebrate our partnership, we have launched the edding acrylic prize. The specifications are simple: the topic can be of your choosing; the only requirement is that the painting be in acrylic! The winner will receive £500 worth of edding acrylic products. Entry details can be found on the previous page

Brushes shown in original sizes

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K AG A LOVS K A ARTISTS & ILLUSTRATORS 31

We present... This m o n t h ’s spotlight on a Portfolio Plus member

AL AN WATTERS A pencil artist whose work went viral

Alan Watters, Highland Cow, coloured pencil, 38x34cm

an you imagine waking up tomorrow and learning that tens of thousands of people have seen one of your paintings? It’s the sort of publicity most up-and-coming artists could only dream about, but it was Portfolio Plus member Alan Watters’ reality when his coloured pencil drawing Highland Cow went viral on social media. “I must say, I was pleased with the result, but I wasn’t prepared for what happened next,” the Wiltshire-based artist says. “It was quite late in the evening when I completed it, but I took a quick photo on my iPhone and posted it just before going to sleep. The next morning, the ‘likes’ were going up at an alarming rate. I thought at first there must be a glitch. “By the following day, the ‘likes’ were rapidly approaching 50,000 and the comments, which were all favourable thankfully, were nearly up to 1,000,” he adds. “Since then, I have been inundated with requests for pet commissions – people have even asked me to draw their cows!” Alan’s experience demonstrates the positive impact of social media for an artist. But a striking image is required first, and with that adorable, floppy-fringed face poking its head into view, it’s no wonder Highland Cow charmed the internet. Eyes cannot help but be drawn to the main subject, its fur expressed with flowing strokes of white and orange coloured pencil. Much of the impact is down to the powerful simplicity of the composition. Deliberately left bare, the dark background ensures the animal gets all the attention, with the fence anchoring it in the scene. The support is also important on a practical level. “I draw mostly on light or dark grey Clairefontaine PastelMat card,” Alan says. “I find it has a velvety tooth which gives the ability to use lighter colours on top of darker ones. It holds multiple layers of colour and reduces the need for a fixative.” When it comes to pencils, the artist opts for the Faber-Castell Polychromos range, but what’s the one art product Alan couldn’t live without? “I often need a very sharp pencil and I find the Rapesco 64 mechanical sharpener gives an excellent long point.” portfolio.artistsandillustrators.co.uk/alan-watters ▫ ARTISTS & ILLUSTRATORS 3 3

PORTRAIT OF GEORGE BY MAURICIO GRIS

GEORGE BUTLER has been illustrating what happens in war zones, refugee camps

and conflict situations since he embedded with the British army in Afghanistan after leaving university. Niki Browes caught up with him on his return from Ukraine

‘Drawings are gentler than

T HE B I G I NT E R V I E W

E Children playing on a burnt out tank, Syria

photos’

ven though his mother is an artist and teacher, George Butler wasn’t actively encouraged to draw as a child. The thinking, perhaps, was that if you encourage little boys to do something too much they tend to do the opposite. Today, his mum likes to think he learnt by osmosis. But the artistic gene was truly in him. At school, he liked to draw animals and started a comic called The Bubble for his other classmates. But it was in his third year at Kingston University – where he studied illustration – that external tutors, with backgrounds in art direction for national newspapers, set the students a project based on reportage illustration. In that moment, George had found his passion and ultimately his profession. Since graduating, he’s been documenting war and conflict from all over the world. His beautiful, delicate ink and watercolour paintings are rich in detail but also minimal; his use of white space is deliberate, allowing the figures to breathe. Stylistically, his work manages that rare achievement: to appeal to lovers of both contemporary and traditional illustration Ever since beginning my career, I’ve been determined to prove that reportage illustration is a thing. Fifteen years later, I’m still working hard and establishing it as a viable and valuable way of recording stories. I’ve been building up different drawings from all over the world, including in the oil fields in Azerbaijan, I’ve drawn refugees fleeing the conflict in Syria, been to Gaza with Oxfam and I have just returned from Ukraine. I witnessed all the things that you’ve seen on the news. It’s sad, horrific and much more. Lots of people I spent time with are now facing renewed, enforced attacks on their cities. It’s awful. War is not all about tanks and helicopters being blown up. It’s about what happens at the fringes of atrocity. Whilst in Ukraine, I think I drew one soldier. My drawings are of more common ▸ ARTISTS & ILLUSTRATORS 3 5

THE BIG INTERVI EW

Madame Olga, Ukraine

experiences than those on our front pages, where there might be a picture of a bomb blowing up and someone covered in blood. Obviously, that’s horrific, but these kinds of things have to capture your attention and sell newspapers. I want to show the reality of war, the scenes I witness. I think drawing perhaps is a gentler way of telling those stories even if they aren’t necessarily ordinary life. I have just returned from Ukraine. I witnessed all the things that you’ve seen on the news. It’s sad, horrific and much more. Lots of good people and small children I spent time with are now facing renewed, enforced attacks on their cities. It’s awful.

I use pen and ink because it is immediate and fluid, it demands concentration and it works well with watercolours. When I’m in an area of conflict, I keep my art materials in an A2 folder. I have paper, a little Winsor & Newton watercolour set, lots of ink and various pen nibs. The great thing about pen and ink is, wherever you are in the world and whatever culture, pen and paper are mostly always available. The value of illustrations over photographs might be that it’s more valuable because I sit with someone and take the time. That person might have had their picture taken a million times but have

never been drawn before. And, whilst it’s not going to stand up in a court of law, it does act as a record. When you’re drawing someone, people will then take photos of the finished thing on their phone. But, when I was in Ukraine, I drew a man called Serge who was an architect and he wanted to draw me as I drew him. So, we had these 15 minutes in a hospital ward where we drew each other. He was a sweet man and we swapped drawings. Afterwards, I drew him again. I think drawing someone as opposed to pointing a camera in their face is less threatening; we all know how that feels.

T HE B I G I NT E R V I E W

My drawings are of more common experiences than those on our front pages

Burnt cars, West Mosul

That’s certainly not the case with pen and paper. Kids use it, it’s cheap and cheerful, and people can see what you’re doing.

it’s an example of a drawing being a gentle way of sitting with someone and listening to what they’re saying.

Whilst in Ukraine, I met this extraordinary lady called Madame Olga. She was 99, lived with her 79-year-old daughter in a fourth-floor apartment block and was unable to get downstairs when the air raid sirens went off. She was very nervous about anyone coming into her flat as she thought they might take her away. She survived The Holodomor, which was the great famine in Ukraine, and in the Second World War, was taken prisoner and used as a slave. And now she’s going through this. It was very moving being with her and I think

Some of my drawings can look unfinished. I guess the aim is to tell the story in as few lines as possible. I’m looking for the things that I think are important and then, obviously, time is an issue, too. I always think I draw for roughly an hour, but I think people waiting for me always think it’s longer. In dangerous places I try and make it less than 40 minutes. Then it’s usually about the same amount of time back in the hotel. I’ll usually do the line drawing in situ and the colours back at wherever I’m staying.

My book, Drawn Across Borders: True Stories of Migration, was about humanising the story of the refugee. When you meet migrants and begin talking to them it very quickly becomes a personal relationship, if only for a moment. The point of the book is to relate. To show you situations and people you would never have met, people I would never have met if I wasn’t a reportage illustrator. The population of the UK won’t necessarily have to move around the world seeking a better future but that isn’t the case in many parts of the world. But it’s a natural thing to want to move to better your life, to keep those you love safe. I’ve certainly seen that in Ukraine in the last month. ▸ ARTISTS & ILLUSTRATORS 37

TH E BIG INTERVIEW

It’s ordinary to want to move to better your life. I’ve certainly seen that in Ukraine

Bassam and his father, Abid, in the children’s hospital, Syria

Refugees trying to keep warm, Serbia

Some of the scenes around Kiev, Irpin and Mariupol will stay with me for a very long time. Quiet, leafy suburbs whose homes, churches, schools and parks have been turned into battlefields. They are scenes of total destruction and a reminder of humanity’s ability to cause devastating pain on itself. We would never have known about these places before the Russian invasion which is why it’s important to draw them as a reminder not to do it to ourselves again in 100 years’ time. That’s not to say it can’t be done with a camera, but it’s not the snap of a shutter and then walking away. You can’t ‘steal’ a drawing. Everything has to be done with the permission of the people in the image. I hope that drawings offer a different dimension. ▫ Drawn Across Borders: True Stories of Migration by George Butler (Walker Studio) is out now

3 8 ARTISTS & ILLUSTRATORS

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ART HISTORY

More than The Scream: beyond Munch’s most iconic painting To fixate on EDVARD MUNCH’S iconic The Scream is to do a disservice to his huge body of work, says Martha Alexander ▸

40 ARTISTS & ILLUSTRATORS

Self Portrait, 1909, 98x108cm

A R T HI S T O R Y

AR T HISTORY

Four Stages of Life, 1902, 130x100cm 42 A R T I S T S & I L L U S T R A T O R S

KODE, BERGEN, NORWAY

he trouble with creating one of the most famous paintings of all time, is that the artist becomes synonymous with it, to the point where all their other endeavours appear to fade into the wallpaper. It’s easy to see how Edvard Munch could be seen in this context: The Scream is so famous and iconic it has inspired countless images in film whilst there is even an emoji based on it. That only one of his creations is so widely lauded is wholly unfitting for the man who loved his paintings so much he called them his children and died surrounded by thousands upon thousands of his works – from paintings and drawings to a broad range of prints. Now, a collection of his works will be shown for the first time in the UK this summer at The Courtauld Gallery in London, laying bare exactly how much more there is to Munch than a singular image of twisted terror. Edvard Munch: Masterpieces from Bergen will consist of 18 paintings, all of which belong to KODE in Bergen, Norway – Munch’s homeland – and were collected by Rasmus Meyer. “We are incredibly lucky that we have been lent such a great group of pictures,” says Dr Barnaby Wright, Deputy Head of The Courtauld Gallery and specialist in late 19th-century and 20th-century art. “Meyer was brilliant at putting together a collection where each picture marked a particular seminal moment for Munch. This is why the collection is so important.” Visitors will be taken on a visual journey through Munch’s career, from his early ‘realist’ period of the 1880s which launched his career, through his most prolific and turbulent phase of the 1890s. One of the aims of Masterpieces from Bergen is to showcase paintings that audiences might not be familiar with. “Many of the works are from that same period as The Scream, a series of paintings that would deal with these profound themes of human existence,” says Dr Wright. Munch’s childhood in Kristiania (now Olso) was underscored by illness and death: his mother suffered with tuberculosis, passing away in 1868 when Munch was only five years old. His favourite sister, Sophie, also died of tuberculosis aged only 15, and the grief this caused Munch was something he never recovered from. His only brother died of pneumonia aged just 30. Mental illness also blighted the family, with one of Munch’s sisters living permanently in a specialist institution. On top of all this, his father, a doctor, was obsessed with God, death and the afterlife. When you consider these circumstances, it is little wonder that themes

A R T HI S T O R Y Melancholy, 1894-96, 80x100cm

Summer Night, 1889, 124x162cm

of mortality and psychology were so prominent in Munch’s works. It didn’t help that Munch himself suffered from tuberculosis as a child and had inherited what he referred to variously as “insanity” and “madness”, as well as battling alcoholism. Munch poured his feelings into his painting, never shying away from personal or painful subject matter. In fact,

he believed that sorrow was a key ingredient to his paintings’ success. But it’s too simplistic to say that Munch was purely governed by emotion and an interior world of feelings and fears. His paintings had stylistic influence, largely from the Impressionists he was inspired by while living in Paris in the 1880s – from Cézanne to Van Gogh to Toulouse-Lautrec to Manet. ▸ ARTISTS & ILLUSTRATORS 4 3

ART HISTORY

KODE, BERGEN, NORWAY

Evening on Karl Johan, 1892, 83x120cm

One of the most interesting things about the forthcoming exhibition is where it is placed within the building, and the context this will provide. “It is on the same floor as the Impressionist galleries,” Dr Wright explains, citing the Courtauld’s world famous collection of paintings by the likes of Monet and Degas. “That journey from Impressionism into Munch will be something people can make in a very real way.” Dr Wright admits that he found himself surprised at the extent to which Munch’s work was rooted in Impressionism. “His earlier works clearly show him working through Impressionism and the handling of light,” says Dr Wright. “But then he is able to totally radicalise the use of light in different ways in his later work when his predominant interest isn’t depicting the natural effects of light. Instead it’s using light and colour expressively to convey emotion and mood.” Evening on Karl Johan Street is the perfect example of Munch rejecting natural light only to embrace the low glow of interior gaslights instead. The overall effect is spooky and somewhat unnerving. Munch continued to take slices of Impressionism and used them throughout his career. His Self Portrait in the Clinic from 4 4 ARTISTS & ILLUSTRATORS

The Scream becoming so part of popular culture wasn’t something that happened at the time 1909 clearly borrows from the Impressionist ideal of visible, bold and expressive brushstrokes. “Maybe we think of Munch as someone who just paints out of his imagination but for me it’s the fusion of his imagination with his depiction of light and colour that he learns from Impressionism which is really the thing that characterises his art throughout,” says Dr Wright. Dr Wright notes Summer Night/Inger on the Beach as a particularly notable painting from the show – and was one of Munch’s earlier works. “It is one of those standout pictures where you really feel Munch has started to find his own voice and anticipates such a lot of what Munch became well known for,” he says, explaining that looking at this painting in relation to Melancholy, another picture of

a figure in profile on the shore, provides an acute sense of growth. Melancholy demonstrated that Munch had fully embraced what we now might say is a characteristic use of paint to demonstrate mood. “But actually the seeds for that were really sewn in [Inger],” says Dr Wright. “The relationship between those two pictures really speaks volumes about the collection itself because it is exactly those sorts of transitional moments in Munch’s career that the collection demonstrates so well.” Munch’s father died in 1889 when the artist was living in Paris. They had never been close but his death caused Munch terrible grief anchored in guilt for being a rather absent son. It also precipitated the most dynamic period of Munch’s career. During the 1890s Munch created The Frieze of Life, a series of works which were essentially reflections of his inner world, his mindset and his mental stability. The titles alone are fairly depressing – Anxiety and At The Death Bed among them. The Frieze of Life also includes The Scream, but it wasn’t the star of the show then. The entire series was critically acclaimed. “It’s important to remember that The Scream becoming so part of popular culture

A R T HI S T O R Y Morning, 1884, 96x104cm

Bathing Boys, 1904-05, 70x91cm

wasn’t something that happened at the time, it is something that has taken decades to develop and actually its ubiquity as an image is a post-war phenomenon,” says Dr Wright. Munch never married but women both fascinated and potentially frightened him. Various paintings of his that feature women also feature men in anguish and pain. He had an extraordinary, dramatic and toxic affair with a woman called Tulla Larsen. This was characterised, essentially, by her uncompromising advances on him, including literally following him across Europe and buying him an antique wedding chest as something of a hint. However, Munch was having none of it: he described relations with her as akin to kissing a corpse. The relationship ended after a spat which saw Munch shooting himself in the hand with a gun and Larsen marrying someone else. In the early 1900s, with Larsen out of the picture, Munch’s drinking went from prolific to frenzied. He was a bad drunk – prone to rages – and yet his work didn’t seem to suffer. He painted consistently pouring all his feelings into the paintings. However, in 1908 Munch sobered up in a private clinic near Copenhagen. Following his convalescence, his life was much less chaotic, despite being rich and famous. He lived in complete isolation on a large countryside estate near Oslo and this had an effect on his paintings. It is arguably fair to say that the most dramatic, arresting and interesting of his pictures were all painted when he was ill, drunk or depressed. Still, he continued to document his own image, no matter how undignified or unflattering: he once painted a burst blood vessel in his eye. He never stopped working, making or learning right until his death at the age of 80. He taught himself how to use a camera and took experimental photographs that had the same eerie, anguished quality as many of his paintings did. His output was vast – original, inspired, flawed, perfect or shot through with misery, peace and whatever lies between, which makes it all the more extraordinary that people still associate him with just one image. “It does Munch a massive disservice for people to fixate so much on The Scream,” says Dr Wright. “It is an extraordinary work, but it is one work among many extraordinary paintings and works on paper that Munch produced.” How lucky that we are given the chance to see the masterpieces so many of us never knew existed. Edvard Munch: Masterpieces from Bergen will run from 27 May to 4 September at The Courtauld Gallery, London ▫ ARTISTS & ILLUSTRATORS 45

EXHIBITIONS

Band OF Brothers Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum has had a long connection with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. It’s well worth a visit, says Adrian Mourby

A B OV E The Ashmolean Museum R I G H T Charles Allston Collins, Convent Thoughts, oil, 84×59cm

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ASHMOLEAN MUSEUM

he museum was founded in 1683 and moved into its current superbly neo-classical premises in Beaumont in 1845, a few years before the foundation of Britain’s new, radical artistic brotherhood in 1848. Two years later in 1850, Thomas Combe, one of the partners in Oxford University Press, invited a number of these ‘Pre-Raphaelite’ young men to his house at the press. The meeting was so successful that Combe began collecting paintings and drawings by the brotherhood until his death in 1872. His widow Martha subsequently left his collection to the Ashmolean after her own demise in 1893. A number of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood had close connections with Oxford and the Ashmolean Museum. William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones were undergraduates at Oxford when they took up the Pre-Raphaelite cause of ▸

A R T HI S T O R Y

ASHMOLEAN MUSEUM

E XHIBITIONS returning British painting to the sincerity and simplicity of Italian art before Raphael. And it was in Oxford in 1857 that Morris met Jane Burden, the strikingly beautiful daughter of a stableman whose premises were opposite the Holywell Music Rooms. Morris, Burne-Jones and Pre-Raphaelite founder Dante Gabriel Rossetti were working together on Arthurian murals for the Oxford Union. Jane who became the definitive, strong-jawed face of Victorian womanhood became a model and muse for all three of them, as well as wife to Morris and mistress to Rossetti. John Ruskin, Oxford’s first Slade Professor of Fine Art, was not a member of the PRB but he defended their work in 1851 when they were under attack from opinion-formers like Charles Dickens for being disrespectful. Ruskin later established a school of drawing in the city and donated many of his own exquisite pictures to the university that found their way to the Ashmolean. Today the museum displays its collection of Pre-Raphaelite oil paintings in a room that is vivid with so much colour; pictures that remind us what a blast of fresh air the PRB breathed into Victorian life. Here are hung historical canvasses like Converted British Family Sheltering a Christian Missionary from the Persecution of the Druids by Holman Hunt [1850] as well as the enigmatic Convent Thoughts by Charles Allston Collins [1851] and Millais’ famous portrait of Ruskin. Scandalously, the painting was begun while Millais was in Scotland, falling in love with Ruskin’s wife whom he later married. The museum also owns a huge collection of Pre-Raphaelite sketches, drawings and watercolours and will be on show from 15th July in an exhibition entitled Pre-Raphaelites: Drawings and Watercolours. The Ashmolean’s new exhibition does justice to Thomas Combe, the childless godfather of the PRB, who even invited some of these young men to spend Christmas with himself and his wife Martha in 1859. A charming portrait of Combe in red and black chalk dominates the exhibition. It’s dated 1860 and signed by William Holman Hunt. The larger-than-life study was sketched that summer when Holman Hunt was a houseguest and shows a lovely, avuncular man aged 64 with a full Victorian beard and a twinkle in his eye below bushy eyebrows. The portrait is a fitting tribute to Hunt’s skill but also a tribute to a man without whom the whole Ashmolean-PRB connection might never have been established. The complex Rossetti-Morris-Jane Burden emotional triangle is represented here by 48 ARTISTS & ILLUSTRATORS

Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, The Knight’s Farewell, pen and black ink over graphite on vellum, 17.6×24.2cm

John Ruskin, Study of a Velvet Crab, graphite, watercolour and bodycolour on grey-blue paper, 24.5×31.5cm

A R T HI S T O R Y

A B OV E William Holman Hunt, Thomas Combe, red and black chalk on paper, 67.6×47.9cm L E F T Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Reverie, coloured chalk on tinted paper, 86×72cm

Reverie (1868), a chalk on paper portrait by Rossetti of the rather masculine-looking Mrs Morris with her resolute chin, full lips and Grecian nose, staring blue-eyed into Rossetti’s besotted lens. Four years later Rossetti began another portrait of Jane, The Day Dream, that is a simple sketch in pastel and black chalk of Mrs Morris in an enforcedly languorous pose with a tree branch supporting one of her arms while her beautifully rendered hand holds a sprig of honeysuckle over a book. There is probably no more perfect PRB image of what Rossetti called “a stunner” (his word for a beautiful woman). One does wonder however if Jane ever wished to be depicted smiling or playing tennis. All she ever does for the PTB is yearn. Both pictures were bequeathed to the Ashmolean by Jane and William’s daughter, May Morris, after her death in 1938. The work of the brilliant if controversial (for anyone who has seen the film Effie) John Ruskin is represented by a Study of a Velvet

Crab (1870). It’s beautifully executed as a watercolour ‘on grey-blue paper’ with the claws underplayed to create a gentler, more balletic creature than exists in reality. Ruskin, a brilliant aesthete but never the world’s best husband, famously said that he could not paint nor draw anything that was not in front of him. Which is why he can create such detail but not a scene like the haunting Covent Thoughts. This painting by Millais’ friend, Charles Allston Collins, depicts a nun distracted from her psalter by a single flower that embodies, we assume, some sensual memories of long ago. Sadly, Collins – whose pen portrait of Millais (1850) is also included in the exhibition – was not accepted into the PRB when Millais proposed him. Rossetti’s brother William opposed his candidacy and, sadly, Rossetti’s sister Maria refused his offer of marriage, preferring to become a nun after being rebuffed by Ruskin. What incestuous lives these ‘brothers’ led. ▸ A R T I S T S & I L L U S T R A T O R S 49

EXHIBITIONS

Elizabeth Eleanor Siddal, Two Men in a Boat and a Woman Punting, pen and ink, 11.6×18.3 cm

ASHMOLEAN MUSEUMW

Frederick Sandys, Nepenthe, black and white chalk on tinted paper, 32×24.5cm

Burne-Jones’s work is represented by The Knight’s Farewell (1858), a small and extraordinarily detailed pen-and-ink, faux mediaeval drawing that embodies the anguish of the armoured knight, embracing his lady love for perhaps the last time. To the right of the picture an insouciant young man witnesses the scene but prefers to read about moments of valour in Malory’s Morte Arthur. The picture was originally bought by William Morris but found its way into the Ashmolean Collection via the Bryson Bequest. Oxford is fortunate that in 1977 the collector, John Bryson, bequeathed a large number of PRB letters and journals, drawings and paintings to the Ashmolean. The Pre-Raphaelites had a high opinion of drawing as an art form in its own right and the collection features some sketched portraits of delightful candour. Millais, aged 21, draws Collins at the same time that Collins, aged 22, draws Millais making it clear that the young man’s hairline is already receding. Both portraits were presented to their ever-generous hosts, Thomas and Martha Combe. The Pre-Raphaelite’s muses are also commemorated in the Ashmolean collection, not just by the endlessly repeated tributes to Jane Morris’ arresting beauty but by a number of drawings by Elizabeth Siddal. Not only was ‘Lizzie’, Rossetti’s wife, and alternative muse she also famously posed for Millais’ Ophelia in 1852. The Ashmolean’s collection contains a number of Lizzie’s works including a witty riposte to her future husband’s Boatmen and Siren (1853) in which a Rossetti-like figure almost overturns his coracle as he yearns after a beautiful nymph passing him in her boat. Siddal’s Two Men in a Boat and a Woman Punting (also 1853) shows the ‘siren’ (Lizzie) actually pushing Rossetti and his friend away from her punt with a pole. Once again, the picture came into the Ashmolean’s collection via the Bryson Bequest to the museum. While the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood only lasted as a unified movement from 1848 till 1853 its impact on British, European and American art lasted into the 20th century. Many galleries around Britain have splendid collections of Pre-Raphaelite painting including Tate Britain, the Victoria & Albert Museum, Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery and Manchester Art Gallery but only the Ashmolean has such a wide collection of accompanying drawings and watercolours. Pre-Raphaelites Drawings & Watercolours runs from 15 July till 27 November at Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum ashmolean.org ▫

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A R T HI S T O R Y Dante Gabriel Rossetti, The Day Dream, pastel and black chalk on tinted paper, 104.8×76.8 cm

Life drawing IN CONTÉ I N-DE PT H

CRAYON

In his fourth instalment on life drawing, JAKE SPICER focuses in on the firm, square-profiled sticks that are Conté Crayons

N this penultimate instalment of the life drawing in pastel series, I’ll be looking at one of my favourite drawing media, Conté Crayon. Throughout the rest of the series I’ve avoided dwelling on brands so that I can focus on the fundamental properties of each medium, but this month I’ll be making an exception. The Carré (square) Crayons made by Conté a Paris, colloquially known as Conté Crayons, are by far the most ubiquitous hard pastel and the form of hard pastel on which most equivalents are based, so I’ll be focusing on them specifically over the next few pages. Slimer than their soft-pastel equivalents, the firm, squareprofiled sticks come in a range of different colours with black, white and sanguine being the most common. Drawing with these three colours on toned paper is sometimes referred to as

drawing ‘aux trois crayon’. The toned paper stands in for the midtones of the subject while the white crayon is used for impactful highlights, the black for a wide tonal range and the earthy red of the sanguine introduces a saturation of colour that is sympathetic to the warmth of skin. Historically the method is best exemplified in the drawings of Peter Paul Rubens and Antione Watteau, but it has more recently been revived in the raw and expansive drawings of contemporary artists like Jenny Saville and Paula Rego. Developments in the production of art materials have given us access to a wider range of colours than our predecessors and the traditional sanguine can easily be swapped out for a Turquoise, Magenta or Cyan crayon to give a modern inflection to an enduring process. I’ll be sticking to a palette of sanguine, black and white for all of the drawings here. ▸ ARTISTS & ILLUSTRATORS 5 3

IN -DEP TH

Advice for working in soft pastel 1 VARY YOUR MARKMAKING

The eponymous hardness of the squareprofiled pastels allows them to maintain a consistent edge for longer than soft pastels. They can be shaped with sandpaper, snapped to give sharp edges and are capable of a wide range of different marks. It’s always worth buying the pastels in sets rather than as single crayons so that, as they break or wear down, you can accumulate a range of longer and shorter sticks to use for different marks.

SUPPORTS, FIXATIVES Hard pastels like Conté Crayon contain more clay and binders than their soft pastel and pastel pencil counterparts, making them stronger, waxier and a little less powdery than their cousins. Of those media, Conté Crayon is the most versatile, its strength enables it to retain a point like a pastel pencil while its square shape allows it to be used side-on, end-on or point-on. It can be used on most paper surfaces and doesn’t require the heavy paper texture that a soft pastel does, opening a wider range of paper options. Conté Crayon and other hard pastels will smudge easily, so if you are using them in a sketchbook, it is advisable to leave the opposite page blank. Working on any paper, it is always a good idea to fix your drawings with a professional quality of fixative as cheaper alternatives like hairspray are not always effective and can discolour over time.

Marks made with the vertical edge

Horizontal edge

Snapped point

Sanded point

Broad end of the pastel

2 ERASE AND OVER - DRAW

While Conté Crayon is less malleable than a soft pastel and can’t be moved around as easily with a stump, it can still be erased and re-drawn. The stain that its partially erased marks leave behind has a different surface quality and colour to a raw mark; explore the interaction between these edited and un-edited marks and see if you can find ways to incorporate the erased mark into your drawing. ▸

Before partial erasure

Raw mark

Erased mark

Over-drawn mark

After partial erasure

ARTISTS & ILLUSTRATORS 5 5

3 BALANCE COLOUR AND TONE

When you are making a monochromatic drawing on neutral white or grey paper, you are limited to considerations of shape and tone in your drawing. As soon as you introduce a chromatic crayon, like sanguine, or a coloured support like the cream paper in this drawing, you will have new qualities of colour to navigate. Think about how saturated colour will draw the eye in your drawing: do you want it to be everywhere, or localised to areas of interest? Notice how the midtone achieved with a sanguine crayon is warmer than one achieved with a black crayon and think about how you will balance tone, saturation and temperature of hue in your drawing.

4 ADD LIGHTS LAST

As a rule of thumb, add white last in pastel drawing to make sure that it isn’t contaminated by other colours. While white Conté Crayon will cover toned paper and earlier layers of pastel particularly well, it will also mix with other colours on the page, combining with black to make cools greys and with sanguine to create pinks. Be selective with your addition of white and let the paper itself work for you to ensure the highlights are as impactful as possible. 56 ARTISTS & ILLUSTRATORS

I N-DE PT H

Exercise

▹

L AYERED DR AWING

The short poses that introduce a life class are often used as a warm-up, a series of sacrificial drawings that serve to remind your hand and eye how to cooperate. I often choose to layer my drawings over one another, partially erasing the one that has gone before to provide a coloured ground for the next. Try it yourself in any erasable media, noticing how the collage of overlaid poses becomes more than the sum of its parts.

Stage 2: Erase Sweep the broad edge of a plastic eraser across the drawing, varying your pressure depending on how much or how little of the drawing you want to remain on the page. This ghost of an image will form the foundation of your next drawing.

▹

▹ Stage 4: Change colour ▹ Continue to layer drawing upon drawing. Start a new set at any point and allow parts of earlier layers to remain visible distinguishing between later layers by introducing new colours of Conté Crayon.

Stage 1: First pose This exercise works best with a series of two- to five-minute-long poses. Make a swift, energetic drawing of the pose from top to toe, leaving room for more drawings on the same page. In this drawing I used the broad edge of a short Conté Crayon to establish tonal shapes, introducing an energetic contour with the snapped end of the same stick.

Stage 3: Repeat Make another drawing over the top in response to the next pose, using the same process as before. Place the second pose deliberately over the first, thinking about the relationship between the trace of the earlier sketch and this new figure. ▫

NEXT MONTH

Life Drawing in Oil Pastel

ARTISTS & ILLUSTRATORS 57

5 8 ARTISTS & ILLUSTRATORS

S T E P-BY-S T E P

roses Coming up

Inspired by seeing a still life by Manet many moons ago, MADELINE MORROW shows you how she painted these pale roses in oils

he pleasure of seeing a painting of flowers never seems to go out of style, and can bring a sense of calm, serenity and joy. On a visit to Paris for business years ago, I took a morning to go see the Impressionist paintings. The museum was not crowded at that hour and, upon entering a room full of glorious canvases, I was absolutely transfixed by a small, glowing still life by Manet, Flowers in a Crystal Vase, directly opposite on the far wall. I loved it for many reasons; the little bunch of modest, mixed flowers looking freshly picked from the garden, the glorious glass and the small size. It was so accessible, appealing and totally relatable. That visit has stayed in the back of my memory, surfacing as my love for painting modest still life

subjects. However, I only began focusing on flowers after having enjoyed an online painting course by the late Dennis Perrin. After the course I set myself a task of painting a small bouquet every month for a year, using seasonal flowers. I dubbed this excercise my Posy Project. This charming arrangement of mixed-variety pale roses has a sweeping flow from the single rose at the bottom left to the delicate foliage at the top right. The flowers are simply set in a small glass to give the feel of having been snipped from the garden. Before beginning, I visualized in my mind how I wanted the completed painting to look; soft and glowing with delicate colours set off against some darks. madelinemorrowart.com @madelinemorrowart ▸

MADELINE' S MATERIALS

Canvas Board 25 X 25cm Paints Cadmium Yellow Light, Cadmium Red Medium, Cadmium Red Dark, Alizarin Crimson, Cerulean Blue, Cobalt Blue, Ultramarine Blue, Ivory Black, Titanium White, all Winsor & Newton Artisan (water mixable) oils Brushes Rosemary Shiraz short flats sizes, 10, 8, 6, 4, 3, 2, filberts size 6, 2 Zest-It Solvent Winsor & Newton Artisan Safflower Oil HB pencil, ruler Kitchen towels Fixative or hairspray

ARTISTS & ILLUSTRATORS 59

SKETC H AND UNDERPAINT After setting up the flower arrangement and lighting, I lightly divided the board into thirds and sketched in the shape and placement of the composition with a pencil. When I was pleased with it, I gave it a light spray of fixative and waited until it dried. The design was then painted over with a thin mix of Cadmium Red Dark and a touch of Zest-it, and the shadows scumbled in using the same mix.

LOOKS FOR THE DARKS Next, I looked for the darkest values, which were the leaves and dark stems. Using the size 8 brush, I blocked them in using a mix of Ivory Black, Ultramarine and Cadmium Yellow Light with a touch of safflower oil. This included the very darkest bits in the glass vase, too. Painting in the darks shows a nice movement around the painting, helps give framework to the composition and enhances the light roses.

ADD IN THE BAC KGROUND A slightly darker warm neutral colour was mixed and painted over the entire background, leaving some areas around the delicate foliage to be worked up later. The mix here was Cobalt Blue, Cadmium Red Dark, Cadmium Yellow Light and a touch of Titanium White with some safflower oil.

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CORRECT AS NECC E SSARY A start was made on the peach tinted rose, adding lighter notes. However, it all became too light, too quickly and was in danger of going nowhere. And I realised the light had changed too much to continue. Thankfully, oil paint can be scraped off, wiped and replaced if you’re not happy with it, which is what I did. I then put the rose arrangement in the refrigerator to keep overnight.

S T E P-BY-S T E P

ADD COLOUR While these were all very soft coloured roses, one had a very definite pink centre, one leaned towards a peachy colour and the others were slightly yellow. With that in mind, the two front roses in the arrangement were given swipes of stronger, but not too intense, colour notes. It is interesting how abstract the painting looks at this point.

TIME FOR COLOUR NOTE S I then mixed up a neutral mid-tone for the shadow sides of the flowers using Cerulean, Cadmium Red Medium, Cadmium Yellow Light and Titanium White, with a dab of safflower oil. Some simple colour notes were also applied to the rose in the bottom left as it was out of water and likely to begin to wilt. These very simple colour notes gave enough form to the rose so very little would be needed to finish it.

WARM IT UP The next day, out of the freezer and after a 10-minute warm-up, the painting can be worked on again. Quite a bit was done at this point. First, I reinstated the shadow definition and peachy notes then left it for a while. Instead, I worked on the pink rose with a slightly smaller brush, adding some selective lighter indications to the petals to help shape the personality of the flower.

THE FINAL DETAILS The peachy rose and the pale-yellow background roses were further developed keeping in mind the shadow sides and adding a few very light touches for the places catching the light. The darkest value in the bottom of the glass vase needed to be strengthened with some definition of the stems. Finally, to complete the painting, all the finishing touches were added using smaller brushes as needed. ▫ ARTISTS & ILLUSTRATORS 61

Big river ru

nning

MAS T E R CL AS S

In an edited extract from her book, Painting the Mountain Landscape, EILEEN CLARKE shows you how to paint fast-moving water in oil or acrylic

ORIGINAL I M AG E

osedale Beck takes rainwater from the high fells. It is fed by run-offs from some of the most famous peaks in the Lake District: Pillar, Steeple and Red Pike. At this point in its journey down to Wastwater, at Ritson’s Force, the beck takes a steep plunge over the basalt rocks. These dark rocks, which line the stream, have been formed from solidified lava and are worn into rounded shapes by the constant passage of water through time. The course of the beck sometimes runs calmly, and then quickly becomes turbulent as it drops and moves along the rapids. This image provides some excellent practice in tackling fast-moving water. Work as much as you can on a variety of brushstrokes; the building up of tonal layers, the use of Titanium White as highlighter, and the creation of strong contrasts between rock and water.

EILEEN' S MATERIALS Paints Quick-drying oils or acrylic paints: Titanium White, Ultramarine Blue, Prussian Blue, Winsor Yellow, Naphthol Red, Burnt Sienna Brushes Medium-size flat brush, fan brushes: 2 medium and 2 small, 2 or 3 round brushes, size 4 to 6 filbert brush, small round brush for fine detail, size 1 to 2 Support I have chosen a small (9× 6in) pre-prepared smooth board already tinted with a colour Walnut Alkyd Medium (using this will mean your oil paints will dry much quicker), or Palette for mixing Chalk or soft pastel Brush and equipment cleaning materials: paper towels, white spirit for oils or soap and linseed oil ▸

ARTISTS & ILLUSTRATORS 6 3

BASIC GUIDELINE S ON COLOURED BASE Sketch in the basic guidelines on the coloured base, using either chalk or pastel. This is only a simple outline, as any careful detail will soon be lost when strong strokes are applied to establish rock faces and moving water. Have a number of fan, round, filbert and flat brushes of different sizes at hand, so you can choose the size you need. If you are painting a larger picture than the one chosen for this exercise, as usual, use correspondingly larger brushes than those specified.

MIX SOME MID - TONE GRE YS Look at the mid-tone greys in the rock surfaces. Mix some greys using Ultramarine Blue, Burnt Sienna, Naphthol Red and Sap Green. Add a little Prussian Blue for a richer tone but be sparing as it is powerful. Lighten the greys using Titanium White. Choose one or two for the basic mid-tone shades of the rocks, which will be painted in Step 3. This entire exercise could be completed in one go, but it is safer to allow each stage to dry before going on to the next step.

PAINTING THE WATER BASE Mix a light mid-tone, as a base for the water. Here the mid-tones are reflecting both the sky and the grey/brown/ green tone of the rocks and vegetation, and this basic layer will establish a tone on which to develop these. Paint in the area of the water using a medium round brush for the edges, and a medium fan or flat brush for the centre. Do not worry if there is an overlap onto the rocks or vegetation. Sometimes this can be a lucky mistake which looks like water flowing over the rock.

SHADOWS IN THE WATER Mix greys as in Step 2 but add much less Titanium White to make darker tones. Using both a size 4 to 6 round brush and a fan brush for blending, paint in the darker areas of the water. Include any dark areas where the rocks are just visible underneath the surface. Try to pull the paintbrush in the direction of the water flow, using a smaller brush if necessary. Do not be afraid to experiment with the brushwork. Try a twisting movement with a fan brush and flicking motions with a round or filbert brush.

6 4 ARTISTS & ILLUSTRATORS

MAS T E R CL AS S

ROC KS AND VEGETATION Using a size 4 to 6 round brush, paint in the areas of rocks and vegetation. Do not try to paint in the exact shape of every single rock. More important is to consider the general shapes of rocks and how this reveals the shape and flow of the water. The course of the water through the rocks should be as clear as possible. Look carefully at the shapes of the rocks. In this case they are mainly rounded in shape, having been worn down by the rise and fall of the flow of running water.

DEFINING THE ROC KS, LIGHT AND SHADE Use a size 4 to 6 round or filbert brush (or a smaller brush if you find this more accurate). Mix two or three darker greys, using the same mixes chosen in Step 2, adding less Titanium White. Use these shades to paint in the darker areas of the rock faces. Try to build up the three-dimensional shapes of the rocks and think carefully about the light source.

COLOURS IN THE WATER Identify and paint in more saturated areas of colour in the water. Mix these shades using Sap Green, Ultramarine Blue and Titanium White, with a little amount of Prussian Blue. Mixing in a little Naphthol Red will tone down the green colour, and more Prussian Blue will create a strong aqua hue. Look for areas where the rocks underneath are visible. Paint in one or two of the light brown rocks that are catching the light under the water, but avoid strongly defining these.

LIGHT ARE AS ON THE WATER The lighter areas of the water can be mixed using mostly Titanium White with a limited range of other colours, but save really bright whites for the lightest highlights. Add a little Ultramarine Blue, Sap Green or Prussian Blue to produce two or three different light shades. Light areas of water are very rarely one colour only. Paint in these areas, again noting the direction of flow and level of disturbance, using a size 2 to 4 round brush and a small fan. Do not try to paint in large blocks of light, as this will appear static. ▸

ARTISTS & ILLUSTRATORS 65

MASTERCL ASS

FINISHING THE ROC KS Have a careful look at the rocks to locate the highlights, and also the darker well-defined areas. Using a small round brush, define any dark edges that should be clearly marked. Emphasise the light areas, which are noticeable mainly on the edges of the rocks. Use similar tones to those you mixed in Step 3, lightened with white – but keep in mind, lights on wet rocks are rarely as strong as the lights on the water. Too much light on the rocks will detract from the water.

THE BRIGHTE ST WHITE S ON THE WATER Use either pure Titanium White, or Titanium White tinted with a tiny amount of Lemon Yellow, to pick out the brightest lights on the rushing water. Using a small size 2 round brush, make small flicking or stabbing motions in the roughest areas of the water. As in previous steps, try to follow the flow of the water and to mimic its behaviour with the paint strokes. Thicker paint will help to emphasise the brightest lights on the water.

FINAL CONTR ASTS Stand back from the exercise and consider whether or not you are happy with the final balance of the darkest and lightest tones. Beware, as always, of the danger of over-working at this stage. If you are satisfied, leave well alone. If not, use thin glazes of Ultramarine Blue and Burnt Sienna to darken any areas, and very limited touches of Titanium White to emphasise lights.

Painting the Mountain Landscape by Eileen Clarke is published by The Crowood Press (£18.99) ▫

66 ARTISTS & ILLUSTRATORS

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ARTISTS & ILLUSTRATORS 67

The

healing power of art and nature Artist ANNA MASON explains how connecting with nature through art has been a lifesaver for her, and gives you tips on how to make it a regular practice for yourself

ne sunny morning in November 2008, I stared out of the window in disbelief as I sat in the consultant’s room, taking in the two words no 28-year-old expects to hear. “It’s cancer”. During that eventful year, my connection with nature was a lifesaver in the truest sense of the word. A couple of years earlier I’d started gardening and found myself observing the plants I was growing with a fascination bordering on love. I was inspired to draw and paint these plants, ending a seven-year hiatus

68 ARTISTS & ILLUSTRATORS

from making any art at all, whilst I pursued a ‘sensible’ career in local government. After winning an RHS botanical art competition and having a successful exhibition at Chelsea Flower Show, I made the bold decision to switch careers and turn pro with my art. I quit my job, moved to the countryside, got a puppy, and began to spend my days walking in the Surrey hills and painting botanical subjects. I felt connected to nature in a way I never had before. So far, so idyllic. Except that connecting with nature is really connecting with ourselves. It’s easy to forget,

T I PS

Rose Summer Wine. I observed and photographed this rose one beautiful summer day at RHS Wisley. I was so taken with it I planted one in my own garden. This was a full botanical-style flower portrait I painted in watercolour from those photos, remembering that glorious day as I did so.

but we are nature. And for me, spending so much time in connection with it meant I came to realise something I’d been doing my best to avoid seeing: my marriage needed to end. So slowly I’d hardly noticed, it had become abusive and I was lonely. There was a relief in gaining this clarity, but the very next day, before I could make my plans to leave, I got the thyroid cancer diagnosis. It was too much to cope with at once and I put those plans to leave out of my mind whilst I embarked on treatment. It took me another three really difficult years to begin to feel well again and finally end the marriage. From the vantage point of much happier times now, with my new husband and young children, I can look back on the artwork I created during that time, and remember the daily nature walks with such gratitude. I really feel they got me through. The instinct to seek out nature during hard times was something society experienced en masse during the pandemic. Feeling stressed and anxious, people flocked to the nation’s beauty spots and the city’s parks. But we don’t even need to physically be in nature to feel its benefits. Scientists have found that just looking at a photo of something in the natural world can relieve stress (Brown, Barton and Gladwell, 2013). So what is ‘nature connection’? To me, it’s a feeling of one-ness, aliveness, clarity and calm. The Nature Connectedness Research Group at the University of Derby have identified five pathways to nature connection; through our senses, our emotions, appreciating its beauty, finding meaning in it, and caring for it. Studies have found that creating art from nature deepens our connection and intensifies the benefits. In my experience, capturing nature’s beauty through art brings appreciation, energy and calm. There’s a profound benefit to exposing ourselves to these positive feelings. Neuroscientists have discovered these experiences physically change our brain; an effect called ‘experience-dependent neuroplasticity’. This impacts how we experience life, building our inner strengths so we’re ready to cope with life’s challenges. To enjoy these benefits for ourselves, we need to make a regular practice of creating art from nature. ▸ ARTISTS & ILLUSTRATORS 69

Years later I worked from the same rose photos, together with rosehips I was observing in my own garden during autumn, to create these nature journal entries. I created them on my iPad and, as I drew, I asked myself how the change in the subject over time made me feel. The short poem was what came up and by writing it I felt a closer connection to nature.

70 A R T I S T S & I L L U S T R A T O R S

T I PS

Anna’s tips on how to create art from nature

C AP TURE YOUR MOMENTS IN NATURE Schedule regular times to take your sketchbook, pencils and travel paints with you into nature. Observe and record what you see in the form of sketches and colour mixes. To make this easy, keep your kit ready to go in an easy-to-carry bag at all times. You could even go digital and take an iPad with Apple pencil when you go for a nature-observing session. However, as I so often find, nature inspiration can strike at non-scheduled times: when you’re walking the dog in the park, or as you pass somebody’s front garden on the way to work. When it does, pause. Absorb the moment. Engage your senses. Closely observe the details. Then make use of the modern artist’s best friend: your phone. Take photos. Record sounds. Create a video. Make notes. What does it remind you of? How does it make you feel?

REPL AY YOUR NATURE MOMENTS When you’re ready to create, look back over what you’ve recorded. Use your sketches, photos and notes as jumping off points to explore, research, draw, paint and write. Connect deeply with the subject. These nature moments can be a bottomless source of inspiration. I’ve revisited mine years later to create from them.

KEEP A NATURE JOURNAL Tune in to the way nature changes over time and keep a record of it in a nature journal. I create my nature journal on my iPad. It brings me endless joy to reflect back on my nature journal entries and I hope you’ll experience that too. ▫

ARTISTS & ILLUSTRATORS 7 1

IMPROVE YOUR LANDSCAPE PAINTING Part two of five

Colour h

In this second article, ANN WITHERIDGE shows you how to move into colour with oil paints, limiting the variety of colour to use in each landscape sketch

N the first article we worked with a pencil in our sketchbook to focus on composition and values. Our goal is to build up to a full-scale landscape painting in colour. But we can do this sequentially so that each step builds a little information from the previous. When we are landscape painting, our light source is the sky and this has a harmonising and unifying effect on the colours and values in the landscape. Have we not all stopped in front of a sunset or

7 2 ARTISTS & ILLUSTRATORS

sunrise mesmerised by the colours this gives? I love early mornings – when the mist softens the subject matter – and early evening when there is a unifying golden light. The concept of atmospheric perspective, which renders the distant landscape a value pattern of blues, was shown to us as early as Leonardo in the 15th century. When looking at landscape painting through the centuries it is really fun to think about what colour the artist was using to harmonise the picture plain. ▸

armony

SERIES ANN' S MATERIALS Panel Canvas or gessoed wood. Circa 8x10”. Working on small boards allows us to work quickly and helps us simplify Linseed oil and turpentine We use turpentine sparingly at the start so that it can quickly evaporate and this allows us to tone the panel. Use the linseed oil as the medium or the vehicle to help move the paint around the panel Brushes 3 x size 6 filberts, 1 x size 2 round. You can work with any brushes. Filberts are the most traditional and I also like to use rounds. For the hair I like a mixture of hogs and synthetic brushes. I think it is best to work with bigger brushes so we remember to keep the subject simplified. You can have a small brush for the accents at the end; I use one brush for the accents and clean it as I work with a kitchen roll Oil paints It’s really about how we mix colours rather than the specific colour, as there are endless possibilities of what we can mix with a limited range of colours I like to have a warm and cold of each primary colour (blue, red, yellow) and a white. Avoid black and browns as they can deaden and muddy the colours. For these exercises I am going to try to reduce my palette even more Ultramarine Blue Cadmium Red Light Yellow Ochre Titanium White

ARTISTS & ILLUSTRATORS 7 3

When we move onto oil paints, we can reduce our colours. Look at the landscape in front of you and decide, if I were to only pick one colour, which would it be? Does my subject matter have an overall sense of blue, yellow, pink? Use this colour to tone your canvas. In the previous article we considered the drawing, the overall composition and the focal point. I think reducing our colour palette helps us think of the value pattern and unifies the composition. The limitation of colour forces us to impose atmosphere and harmony into our landscape. Here are three panels I painted with turpentine in Ultramarine Blue, Cadmium Red and Ultramarine Blue and a tiny bit of Ochre.

I have painted three landscape sketches. They are all small and I have chosen three unifying colour schemes.

BLUES

In this first one I have chosen blue. I am painting the water and conveying distance so a blue harmony can really help. There is such a variety of colours in the trees and information that I see, but in just using a harmony of blue, I have to simplify and therefore spend more time focussing on the effects of the water and the value patterns in the trees. Here I have used Ultramarine Blue, a touch of Cadmium Red Light in the dark accents and Titanium White. 74 A R T I S T S & I L L U S T R A T O R S

SERIES PINKS

In this one I have chosen a pink colour harmony. Street scenes are often really busy and there is so much information in front of us. If I reduce the information to the perspective of the road, the rooftops, and the cast shadows across the road, and then paint the sky different pinks, we are drawn by the perspective and the warm glow of city light, so we don’t even question the need for cars, people and signposts. At the end I like to put a couple of accents of street signs or lampposts to anchor the painting. This painting is Cadmium Red Light, Titanium White and a touch of Ultramarine Blue to dull the chroma.

The Masters As landscape painting developed over the 19th century, many artists simplified their colour palettes. The Barbizon school in France focused on values and mood as exemplified in this painting by Rousseau.

The Forest in Winter at Sunset by Rousseau

The tonalist painters in America, inspired by the Barbizon school and Whistler, continued in this vein; by reducing the variety of colour, their works seem to intensify through colour harmony. In this painting by Twachtman, we can see the harmonious use of colour and the greying down of the landscape.

Arques-laBataille by John Henry Twachtman

Landscape by George Inness

GREENS

Apparently, we see more greens than any other colour, so it can be very overwhelming. We can reduce the colours so that we see first the beauty in the shapes, then the values, before we step into the colours. I have used more blue in the background and a little more yellow in the foreground to help with the atmospheric perspective. This painting is limited to Ultramarine Blue, Yellow Ochre and Titanium White.

My palette layout with the value steps for the different paintings Ultramarine Cadmium Red Yellow Ochre Titanium White

Following on from the tonalists, the Impressionists continued to push the sense of colour and harmony, exaggerating the purples and soft hues to express tone and mood. We can recall Monet’s haystacks and views of the Thames River. Landscape painting can really help us with studio painting; choosing the background for a setup NEXT is so important and can have a unifying effect MONTH on still life, portrait and figure. Colour contrasts and colour notes Ann Witheridge teaches landscape painting at London Fine Art Studios. londonfineartstudios.com ▫

ARTISTS & ILLUSTRATORS 75

THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART

George Inness was a great exponent of this style as shown here in his study of greens. Where Twatchman’s unifying techniques reduce the chroma, Inness’s paintings have the opposite effect of intensifying the colours.

Reflections In her first book, Landscape in Ink and Coloured Pencil, professional artist and printmaker HELEN HANSON likes to paint the natural world near to where she lives ORIGINAL I M AG E

A mphire

Hoe is one of my local nature reserves, which stretches below the white cliffs to the sea. On a hot July morning, the air was scented with restharrow and other grassland plants. I set off early, hoping to work on a larger, portrait version of Flowers at Samphire Hoe, done a few summers ago. Apart from the distinctive green and white of the chalkcliffs, the colour palette was quite muted. Bleached grasses dotted the area and fringed the water. Beyond them, at ground level, were large expanses of more colourful grassland flowers that I wanted to use as foreground. For this image, I worked predominantly with Caran D’Ache ‘Pablo’ pencils, using many of their ‘in between’ shades, which were perfect for the late summer grassland. I also added Faber-Castell and Prismacolor shades if they were ideal for a particular feature.

76 A R T I S T S & I L L U S T R A T O R S

HELEN' S COLOURED PENCILS Faber-Castell Polychrome in Oxide Green, Pine Green, Junpier Green, Green Olive, Light Magenta, Light Ultramarine, Clous Blue Caran D’Ache Luminance in Moss Green, Olive Grey, Brown Ochre, Cream, Olive Brown 10%, Brownish Beige, Brown Ochre, Hazel, Cocoa, Naples Ochre, Yellow Orangish Yellow and Vandyke Brown, Purple

S T E P-BY-S T E P

My preliminary drawing was minimal, with just enough markings to indicate the different sections of the image. I did pay close attention to the structure of the cliffs, lightly sketching in the chalk formations and the green areas so that I could apply coloured pencil later with confidence. This was not an image with tall foreground features, so I started at the top, choosing to set down a first layer for the white cliffs to establish their form, tonal values and distance. I used a blend of Oxide Green and Pine Green for the darkest areas and patches of foliage on the cliffs, applying these first to give some form. I then put down a first layer of colour using Moss Green, Olive Grey and Brown Ochre, carefully following the contours as they changed and steering round the chalk sections. Working from the tops downwards, in preparation for embossing, I used a base of colours designed to suit bleached grasses.

I introduced the cycle track connecting the two areas of grassland, making it a focal point. Although the terrain was similar throughout the landscape, I used more browns on the left-hand area, adding Moss Green, Olive Grey and Cocoa towards the water’s edge. This suggested a more exposed, sunbleached expanse and distinguished the two areas of grassland. I built up a blend of colours, shaped them into clumps, then lightened and roughened their appearance with a battery eraser without adding too much detail. For the stretch of grassland on the right, I used some light ink lines, sketched in a few thistles, and added Naples Ochre to the palette for the highlights. To complete the section on the far side of the track, I needed to finish the hillside behind; I applied Oxide Green using downward linear strokes to feather the pale grasses, reverting immediately to ellipses and ink markings to create the foliage behind. ▸

ARTISTS & ILLUSTRATORS 7 7

STEP -BY-STEP

For this image, I worked predominantly with Caran D’Ache Pablo pencils, using many of their in between shades, which were perfect for the late summer

In the foreground I followed the areas of base colour established in stage one, embossing all the pale grasses using a fine line tool for the stalks and the smallest circular one for the heads. I then worked round them with more colour, using Moss Green, Olive Grey and Hazel and introducing Orangish Yellow and Vandyke Brown. This warm brown created shadow, and when scumbled over the lighter colours, picked out the embossing in pinkish brown. Grass shapes emerged where I had embossed earlier once I applied darker pencil. I left some clear areas at the front for foreground plants, which would be introduced at the next stage; these would gradually give way to grasses closer to the water.

I based the foreground on close-ups I had taken of the grassland, identifying the species that were growing together at the time. These were mainly bird’s foot trefoil, wild carrot and restharrow, interspersed with blades of new green grass and pale bleached grass. I scattered Caran D’Ache Yellow in clusters for the bird’s foot trefoil, tinting the edges with Reddish Orange; I then trailed leaves and flowers of restharrow across the area, using Faber-Castell Juniper Green and Permanent Green Olive, with Light Magenta and Caran D’Ache Purple for the flowers. Once the different species were in place, I added a light background in Moss Green and embossed more grasses on top; these would eventually show up under more coloured pencil layers. I also introduced leaves and stems for the wild carrot and bird’s foot trefoil where visible, including touches of ink for definition and tufts of shorter grass. This is an edited extract from Landscape in Ink and Coloured Pencil by Helen Hanson, published by The Crowood Press (16.99). Available to pre-order from crowood.com ▫ 78 ARTISTS & ILLUSTRATORS

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M E S S AG E O F T H E M O N T H John Herron

I live close to Lake Michigan, so I’m hooked on the changing skies and colours of the lake for reference for my watercolours. Whilst online, I recently discovered the Normandy town of Etretat in France. This picturesque spot attracted many Impressionist painters, who sought to capture the cliffs on canvas. I then saw the work of Beatrice Cloake and that convinced me I should travel there in June to paint, where I hope to find some inspiration. I did some digging to see if Etretat had an art club, museum or other place where I could

David Raison Since I started painting in earnest in 2000, my wife Lorna always turned her nose up at my art, sometimes understandably. One painting, of a vase of sunflowers, passed the test and hung in our hallway, albeit behind the door. My wife died in March. A day or two before she left us, she said to me, “I like your paintings.” This

set up and work. I even searched for local artists who I could contact for some guidance. No luck. I wonder if there are there any readers of Artists & Illustrators who can provide some information about Etretat from an artist’s perspective? I’ll be traveling from Chicago and will stay at a local hotel. Thanks very much in advance for any and all suggestions. The Ed says: If anyone has any information about Etretat for John, get in touch and we’ll pass it on or connect you!

was the best and most unexpected praise I could possibly have received. Once my head is back together, I‘ll be painting away with Lorna watching me from afar.

Roger Thomas I’m an amateur painter in oils and acrylic. I trained as a draughtsman a long time ago and am an avid reader of Artists & Illustrators.

In your May edition, your piece about art in Yorkshire didn’t mention the superb Ferens Gallery in Hull, which is a great city. Perhaps you were put off by its terrible web site but it’s well worth a visit. The ArtUK website describes it as ‘one of the finest regional art collections in the country.’ I would urge readers to visit if ever in the region.

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SUFFOLK / NORFOLK GOSLINGS 50 Station Road, Sudbury, Suffolk C010 2SP Tel: 01787 371932 A family run business specialising in Bespoke Picture Framing and Artist Materials THE ART TRADING COMPANY 55 Earsham Street, Bungay NR35 1AF Tel: 01986 897939 TheArtTradingCo@btinternet.com www.thearttradingcompany.co.uk “...a truly excellent art materials shop” East Coast Net

NORTH YORKSHIRE THE ARTIST’S PALETTE 1 Millgate, Thirsk North Yorkshire YO7 1AA Tel: (01845) 574457 Independent stockists of fine art materials by Winsor & Newton, Sennelier, Golden, Faber Castell etc; Wide range of papers, crafts, kits and models. Friendly knowledgeable service from experienced art tutor.

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FRAMING DIRECTORY FELLOWS FRAMING Make your artwork sing Brook Cottage, Ayleford, Soudley, Cinderford GL14 2UF Tel: 07800 666094 www.fellowsframing.co.uk FATG Member & Guild Commended Framer. Specialising in box, conservation & museum framing. The difference is in the detail. THE PICTURE GALLERY Unit 17 Kingfisher Business Park Bedford MK42 0NY www.picturegalleryuk.com Picture Frames and Mounts Made to Measure. Printing and Framing of artwork, photos etc. Canvas and art board frames

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Painful Expression, pencil and charcoal, 20x28cm

Picture this

In every issue, we ask an artist to tell us about a piece of work that means a lot to them. This month, we speak to Nigerian graphite artist and Derwent Art Prize winner FEMI IKOTUN My drawing Painful Expression represents the struggle we face daily as human beings. In my work, I hope to capture the continuous battles we fight within our minds and the way we show it through our facial expressions. On a personal level, the piece relates to the difficulties I experienced when people would voice their lack of confidence in my career choice to be an artist. Friends and family members would tell me that I should quit art and get a proper day job, and it was this constant attack from people, who never believed in me, that inspired the drawing. 82 ARTISTS & ILLUSTRATORS

What I like most about my artwork is the expression I have captured. It’s the look of an emotional being going through a hard time in their life. I hope the piece inspires people who are tempted to give up on their dreams to keep on pushing through the difficult things they are experiencing. Like all my work, the drawing was created in stages. First, I photographed the model, then back in my studio, I started sketching out the face using graphite pencil. Next, I used applications of charcoal and graphite to build up the black-and-white photorealism effect, which has always been my goal as an artist. ▫

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