The parent category for research and reflection posts.
When I copied this on Page 71/72 or Juliette Aristides’ book Figure Drawing Atelier (Monacelli Studio, 2019), I thought I was drawing an abstracted, blocky, illustrative figure of bare bones simplicity and I was totally taken aback by what came … Continue reading Heads, hands, and feet – from Aristides atelier
The Dynamite Gallery Trafalgar Street, Brighton This unique exhibition was the result of a suggestion, an idea, an almost passing thought – just trainers, by invitation, what if only one artist applied? In the end they had hundreds from all over … Continue reading Gallery visits, October 2019
The brief is to build on a project from an earlier part of the course while being guided by my own interests and inclinations in finding a subject. The process needs to include an objective and highly critical approach and … Continue reading Part 5: task remit, artist statement, supporting images – first thoughts
Flamepainter for iPad is a free app and it’s wonderful for quick, if somewhat erratic, sketches. The process is easy to work out – choose a brush, set the size and other parameters, change the colour if you want to, draw. The last part is the trickiest as the ‘light’ zooms around the canvas as if possessed. Best plan is to try one combination of brush and speeds and get used to it before altering anything else! The image above is made on a black canvas using a number of brushes to pick out the light that might be from … Continue reading Part 5 – personal project preparatory work, digital seas
This is a work book – guidelines, exercises, drawings to copy and a page next to each to do that. I have never copied other people’s work or tried for the photorealism some artists specialise in making so this was quite a challenge. Add to that the realisation not long ago that lefthanders make their marks in entirely the opposite direction to righthanders and I could see this was not going to be easy. Fortunately, the quality of the images to be copied – there are two da Vinci’s! – makes it clear that perfection is really not the … Continue reading Book review: Beginning Drawing Atelier – an instructional sketchbook by Juliette Aristides
For someone like me, doing a degree in art but having neither background nor interest in art history (actually, history of any sort if I’m being honest), this book is perfect. I have it on Audible and within a very short time, also bought it in paperback (to flick through) and for Kindle (for the links and notes facility). Gompertz, who I knew only as a film and theatre critic (who was not inclined to be pompous or obfuscating about it), writes with a refreshing lack of reverence for the art history schtick that so turns me off; and while … Continue reading Book review: What are you looking at? Will Gompertz
This is not a book for reading, it’s a reference book to keep to hand. Years ago, I saw Sister Wendy’s documentary series on TV and this book is an elaborated version of that. At the time I saw her as unexpectedly (for a nun, and that’s a judgment I probably wouldn’t make now) robust in her approach to the subject matter of many paintings and also the lifestyles of some of the artists. But watching them again as a refresher and I can see that she wasn’t entirely innocent of passing judgement herself. Some women in the pictures have … Continue reading The Story of Painting – Sister Wendy Beckett
Where can you see Banksy, Damien Hurst, Grayson Perry, Sir Peter Blake, Bob Dylan, Ronnie Wood, and Billy Connolly originals within a few yards of each other in right-on-the-street galleries? Yesterday*, a friend and I went to Brighton. *Yesterday is now several weeks ago, life having got between me and this write-up. Castle Fine Art Gallery Castle Fine Art is right slap bang in the middle of Brighton near The Lanes, and my goodness I had not expected to see so many originals by ‘names’ from both art and show business. First though were these metal sculptures, each of them … Continue reading Brighton galleries
Demonstration of technical and visual skills – materials, techniques, observational skills, visual awareness, design and compositional skills. These images are part of the road trip through Part 4 and the beginnings of understanding how to use materials and media to … Continue reading Assignment 4 – self evaluation
Held in St Nicholas Church, Bramber. All the work shown is for sale (with one exception) and wherever possible I will include links to the artist’s website or, if they don’t have one, to their page on the Steyning Arts site. Where possible I spoke to the artist about their work but many had taken a well-earned break on what was an extremely hot day. These photographs are by Wendy Ball who says she take them for her own pleasure and, although she has won a number of prizes, appears not to have a website. Some of them are printed … Continue reading Steyning Arts summer exhibition
