Sommaire pour April 2022 de Leisure Painter

We have great pleasure in presenting the work of Stuart Johnson (pages 12-15), who won the LP Award at our TALP Open competition 2021. In an exhibition of outstanding work at Patchings Art Centre last summer, the painting of his son, Climbing Day, won unanimous praise from the judges. His passion for painting shines through every portrait as does his need to portray the emotion behind his subject and his response to it. He explains, ‘I am intrigued by the features of a face and how small variations can make a massive difference when painting a subject. I like working on the colours of the skin and the subtlety of skin tones. I am also interested in translating the different types of looks that people give you into a painting…

STUART’S TOP TIPS • Enjoy the escape that painting brings you. It doesn’t matter how good it is. If things don’t go to plan, just learn from it, and move on. • Manage your expectations. The better I have become at painting, the more pressure I put on myself to do better. It puts me off starting something, as I have such high expectations. • There’s a stage of a painting that doesn’t look very good at all. If you get past it, the painting does eventually come together. We all come to drawing and painting at different times in our lives and although Stuart Johnson enjoyed drawing as a child – and he certainly has a natural aptitude for it – he has no other background in art. In…

LEARNING OBJECTIVES ■ Try 12 techniques to make the most of gouache ■ Experiment and play to familiarise yourself with the medium I am a firm believer that the best way to learn gouache is by allowing yourself the opportunity to play and experiment. Understanding the possibilities of working with gouache can spark inspiration, highlight techniques you love, and make apparent the ones you hate. It’s a process of discovery, and a very exciting part of your journey as an artist. Here are a few ideas for techniques you can use to begin playing with your gouache paints: 1 Staining Some artists like to add a layer of colour as a foundation for the rest of their painting. Those of you who have used media like oil, acrylic or watercolour…

Visit www.painters-online.co.uk/store and click on the link to books to buy the latest practical art books available from LP’s online bookshop. There’s also 20% off all Search Press books in our bookshop this month! Ten-step drawings London-based artist, illustrator and graphic designer, Justine Lecouffe, brings us the next two instalments in the 10 Step Drawing series from Search Press, this time focusing on dogs and cats. In the style of the series, which is aimed at absolute beginners, there is no text, just geometric shapes and lines that build up to the final stage in ten easy-to-follow steps. 10 Step Drawings: Dogs by Justine Lecouffe. Search Press, (p/b), £8.99. 10 Step Drawings: Cats by Justine Lecouffe. Search Press, (p/b), £8.99. Atmospheric animals Prize-winning watercolourist, Jean Haines runs international watercolour workshops…

ON SALE 18 MARCH • Follow step-by-step painting projects from photographs • Watercolour flowers • Landscape in oils • All in the detail: draw & paint a fossil using line & wash techniques • How to paint reflections • Tips & techniques for drawing a still life using watercolour pencils • One subject, two media: Dunstanburgh castle in both acrylics and watercolour • Paint loose & lively daffodils using acrylics • Easy ways to paint trees using acrylics • ... and lots more! LEISURE PAINTER ON-SALE DATES Issue JuneJulyAugust On sale 14 April13 May17 June…

Extraordinary everyday Extraordinary Everyday at The Arc in Winchester features the art and design of Eric Ravilious. Ravilious was only 39 years old when he died on active service, but he had already left his mark on the history of art and design. This exhibition explores his achievements in detail, from paintings and designs to ceramics, book illustrations and wood engravings. A selection of the artist’s designs for Wedgwood will be on display as well as 24 colour lithographs of shops and other businesses located in London and Essex, which Ravilious created to illustrate his classic book of shops, High Street, published by Country Life Books in 1938. A full programme of events accompanies the exhibition. For full details visit www.arcwinchester.org.uk Extraordinary Everyday: The Art & Design of Eric Ravilious…

LEARNING OBJECTIVES ■ Working on tinted surfaces ■ Preparing your surfaces for watercolour ■ Paint a portrait on corrugated cardboard The closest many line and wash artists get to changing the surface they work on is to use Hot-pressed instead of Cold-pressed, or perhaps cartridge paper if out and about sketching, but by being a little more adventurous and changing your surface, you will bring a whole new dimension to your work. Most surfaces will need some preparation to accept watercolour, while the pigment inks will adhere to many untreated surfaces because of the shellac or other ingredients in the formula. Don’t be put off by the preparation, as that little bit of extra work will pay dividends. Using a tinted surface Simply changing the colour of your surface will…

LEARNING OBJECTIVES ■ Practise pressure control on your pencil for shading ■ How to draw realistic-looking fabric ■ Understand the value of lost and found edges We continue our drawing series with the development of lost- and-found edges by practising greater fine motor control over the pressure applied on a pencil when shading. How the edges of a subject are treated will determine the look of your drawing. Lost edges are soft and fuzzy and tend to merge into the background, while found edges are hard and crisp, and strongly define the subject. Found edges are commonly used in two-dimensional design pieces, where objects are heavily outlined. To create realistic three-dimensional looking drawings, it is necessary to use a combination of both lost-and-found edges, which will be determined by lighting…

LEARNING OBJECTIVES ■ Understand your choice of pens and ink ■ Tips and techniques for using pens ■ Follow a simple step-by-step process There’s something very enjoyable about sketching with ink. The simplicity of using just a pen and sketchbook is a delight in itself. Whenever I use a pencil, I find myself constantly making errors, because I know how easy they are to erase. You can’t do that with ink and yet, surprisingly, I find my marks more accurate. Whether it’s a subconscious effort or a deliberate attempt to be more careful, I don’t know, but the lines flow freely in the right direction more often than not. There is an almost unlimited choice of pens. Many of you will, no doubt, have some in your art bag already.…

LEARNING OBJECTIVES ■ Paint using a colour and shape method ■ How to handle sponge rollers with acrylics ■ Experiment and play Does using a roller to paint with acrylics sound rather crude and too much like decorating a wall? I think you may be surprised by what can be achieved with this tool. I began experimenting with sponge rollers when painting large abstracts, but as with many explorations, I soon found other possibilities. I also started using smaller rollers with watercolour, but I found most success when using acrylics. Today, my favourite is a 1in. roller, the smaller one in the illustration below left. You will also find textured and patterned rollers; in fact, all sorts are available. At first, I used them to paint large abstract backgrounds, but…

WWW.PAINTERS-ONLINE.CO.UK Sarah Stanley paints pet portraits to commission in pastel but her favourite subjects are still life and plein-air painting. Here she describes how she used oils on a wooden panel to paint this joyous jug of spring flowers. To see more of Sarah’s work, post a comment or upload your own images, visit www.painters-online.co.uk Sarah Stanley has always had an interest in art and, in fact, undertook an art foundation course when she left school, but she didn’t pursue a career in art. ‘I have been a member of the Stafford Art Group since 2011,’ she writes. ‘I enjoy the interaction with like-minded individuals as well as their sketching and painting days out in the summer. I like to paint from life, in natural light. I enjoy plein-air painting all…

News Stafford Art Group Stafford Art Group held its first physical exhibition for two years last December in St Chad’s Church. Visitors, who were invited to vote for their favourite exhibit, chose Doug Blanks’s mixed-media work (above) as the outright winner. When asked about inspiration, Doug wrote: ‘Sammy Cahn, the famous American songwriter, used to say that his inspiration came from the telephone – when someone called him asking him to write a song! In this case I received an email from a company offering the blackest paint ever made. By the time it arrived I had shortlisted four possible photographic images to use as reference material and, for the white, chose Winsor & Newton Artist oil colour in titanium white. It took me three days to paint and when…

LEARNING OBJECTIVES ■ Refine your watercolour technique ■ Hone your observation skills ■ Learn the properties of painting contre-jour I will be looking at contre-jour in this, my fourth article in the series, because it throws up several issues which, if properly dealt with, will go some way towards refining and sophisticating your process. Although literally translated as ‘against day’, contre-jour is more familiar to artists when sunlight or some alternative light source is behind your subject. Painting in this way is popular, because of the type of simplified information it often presents. The thumbnail exercise in the illustrations of the house and figures (above right) was completed to explain to a class the role of white paper in a watercolour painting, but it serves to illustrate some features of…