Innehållsförteckning för February 2024 från Leisure Painter

Organised by the National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin, in collaboration with National Museum Northern Ireland and National Galleries of Scotland, Lavery on Location explores Sir John Lavery's impressions of the people and locations he encountered during his lifetime, featuring landscapes from Scotland to Palm Springs, France, Switzerland, Spain, Ireland and Italy as well as London, Venice, Cannes and New York. A companion book, Lavery on Location, written by the exhibition's curators Kenneth McConkey and Brendan Rooney, is published to accompany the exhibition. Lavery on Location continues at the National Gallery, Ireland, until 14 January. Booking is essential. For more information and tickets, visit www.nationalgallery.ie…

Inspiration Romila began her passion for sketching, oil painting and pastel as a child. She had to stop to pursue a long career in medicine but, on early retirement as an emergency physician in 2022, she couldn't resist the pull of creating art again. ‘In the past few years, before saying a final goodbye to medicine, I found myself joining local art classes in watercolour and oil painting to help with the stress of being a doctor. Gradually the attraction of painting became too much and I left medicine all together. I have never looked back,’ she says. ‘Now, I have all the time in the world to explore my passion and do what I love and enjoy.’ How have you learned to paint? ‘I have never had official training,…

Back to basics Most of my articles for Leisure Painter have involved the use of acrylic paint to create an artwork. Although I do use other media, I return to this versatile paint time and again, as I find that it suits my style of painting – that is, expressive, layered landscapes, usually on canvas. This hasn't always been the case, however. Like most people, I started my art journey at school with watercolour. I produced large, melodramatic paintings of fantasy scenes and pop stars, applying the watercolour thickly and building up the image in segments like a jigsaw. Fast forward 30 years, and, having worked as an attraction set designer, meeting tight deadlines with quick ideas and artwork, I find that my eyesight and patience have reduced considerably. In…

Unlike drawing or painting, scratchboard is a two-dimensional subtractive art form. It typically consists of a white kaolin clay-coated hardboard covered with black Indian ink. There are many tools that can be used to create scratchboard art, because any tool that is sharp can be used to scratch away the ink on the board. I use a variety of sharp tools to remove, or scratch, through the black ink, revealing the white clay underneath. Most of the values within my artwork are achieved by varying the amount of ink removed, or grouping or spacing scratched marks to give the illusion of depth. I use exclusively Ampersand Scratchboards as my surface, which have both incredible durability and smoothness. The materials used to scratch away the ink of a scratchboard, however, can…

What makes a convincing snow scene? Snow is every bit as directional as light, the wind blows and pushes the snow before it, drifting and building up against objects in its path. The front of a house with the breeze blowing in from one side or the other will cause snow to build up more on the side catching the wind while the other side may not have any build up, whereas if there is no wind the snow falls straight down and may build up evenly, but once you start to show a directional build up you must maintain it the same as you would shadows falling across a scene. From the photograph above we are going to create a snow scene adding just a touch of seasonal magic.…

NEAC members’ exhibition The Christmas exhibition at the Jerram Gallery in Dorset brings together recent work by popular gallery artists, all of whom are members of the New English Art Club. The work on show includes landscapes, still lifes and sculpture in a broad selection of subjects and styles. For more information and to view the exhibition online visit www.jerramgallery.com EXHIBITIONS LONDON ■ Bankside Gallery 48 Hopton Street SE1. 020 7928 7521 www.banksidegallery.com ‘Mini Picture Show 2023’: affordable works on a small scale by artists from the Royal Watercolour Society and the Royal Society of Painter Printmakers, until 1 February. ■ Dulwich Picture Gallery Gallery Road SE21. 020 8693 5254 www.dulwichpicturegallery.org.uk ‘Rubens and Women’, until 28 January. ■ Mall Galleries The Mall SW1. 020 7930 6844 www.mallgalleries.org.uk ‘Pastel Society: annual…

Painters Online, the go-to hub for all lovers of painting and art in general, is proud to announce the launch of Art Supplies, the brand-new shopping online destination for all your artistic needs. From paints to papers, pencils to panels, you'll find everything you desire from all your favourite brands including Daler-Rowney, Winsor & Newton and Caran d'Ache. The team behind the online store, the same team who puts together the popular Painters Online website, home of our Studio membership and The Artist and Leisure Painter, know the wants and needs of artists, whether professional or hobbyist, and have provided this, and more. ‘Our mission is to empower all artists with the finest materials and tools that enable them to explore their artistic potential fully. We understand that the right…

You will need ■ Surface • A Pink Pig A4 140lb Bockingford watercolour sketchbook ■ Brushes • Rosemary & Co. sable blend, Series 401, No. 6 • Pro Arte Series 100 Rounds Nos. 8 & 12 • Pro Arte Series 10, 6½in. flat ■ Winsor & Newton Professional Water Colour (tubes) • Raw sienna • Burnt umber • Light red • Alizarin crimson • Cobalt blue • Prussian blue ■ Miscellaneous • Mixing tray • Water container • 2B pencil I am always excited when I look out of the window and see those first snowflakes fluttering to the ground. The landscape turns from a dull, dismal grey-brown into a bright, white carpet. Then the cloud passes, and the sun breaks through to reveal a magical landscape. My first instinct…

KEY TAKEAWAYS • Don't drag your feet; just take out your paints and begin • Keep your creativity in focus by photographing and sketching regularly • Experiment and learn continually; look at the work of artists you admire • Enter painting competitions and take commissions • Enjoy the creative process rather than judging the results There is great satisfaction in being creative and making something beautiful from nothing. It's amazing to think that as artists we can take simple raw materials and, with the power of our imaginations, apply them to a flat surface and create the illusion of threedimensional objects or seeing for miles into the distance. To stay active, this creative force needs nourishment. So, for times when you feel depleted and no ideas are coming, here are…

What motivates your selection of media when there is such a vast range available to you today? Is your decision determined by the subject in front of you, or the effect you are seeking? Perhaps you have a favourite medium with which you are familiar, or you enjoy experimenting with something new to see what can be achieved. In the following short series, I will be looking at using a variety of sketching tools that may be new to you, and how and when they can be put to best effect. This month, we will be experimenting with flat-bladed calligraphy pens by Pilot and water-soluble ink, which have proved versatile, quick and easy to use when I am out sketching, once I mastered basic control and understanding of the pen.…

David Hockney: Drawing from Life Look out for a range of events organised at the National Portrait Gallery, London to coincide with its major exhibition of David Hockney's portrait drawings, until 21 January. Events include an evening life-drawing session inspired by the exhibition, on 1 December, 6 to 8pm, led by Sophie de Stempel. Tickets are £20/£16 members and concessions. On 18 January, between 1 and 2pm, Isabel Seligman will examine the impact that historic artists have had on Hockney's graphic portraits, particularly the work of Rembrandt, Ingres and Picasso, in Conversations with the Past: Hockney and the Old Masters. Tickets are £10/£8 members and concessions. A two-day self-portrait workshop, The Geography of the Face, will be held in the Art Studio on 20 and 21 January, from 11am to…

Despite their general attraction, snowy landscapes can often appear cold, with grey skies adding to the gloomy effect, but there is no reason why we should slavishly paint exactly what we see before us. One of the most obvious areas where we can introduce colour is in the sky, and this has the added advantage of allowing us to add correspondingly warm reflections in pools, and even of the snow and ice if the colour is sufficiently strong. Snow itself can take on many colours in this way, depending on the light, and by exaggerating the strength of the colour we can improve the appeal of the overall composition. My point here, in this short piece, however, is to illustrate how introducing warm colours into the snow areas regardless of…

TONY'S TOP TIP Don't be tempted to skip the thumbnail sketch, tonal plan and colour test stages. Together they are a road map towards a successful end result. Last month I suggested that rather than replicate my Lake District holiday photo (taken the day after the King's coronation) you enjoy the freedom and creativity of adding, omitting or changing whatever you wanted in order to create your own version of the lovely Eltermere Inn in Elterwater. Before I made a start, I thought through what changes I wanted to make and why. My first decision was to change the proportions of the building to suit the size of my sketchbook then to omit the cars and replace them with shrubs and the hidden section of the twin-sided stone steps leading…

This demonstration shows you how we as landscape painters can sometimes become a bit too preoccupied with the scene at the expense of simply producing a fantastic painting. It's easy to focus on detail, especially when we are painting an iconic scene, such as the one we are tackling today. We do this because we have been pre-conditioned only to be happy with a perfect replica of what we see in front of us and, as a result, we completely forget that painting landscapes is not supposed to be about that at all. It's about creating something that tells a story and captures the mood and atmosphere of a place. After all, if you want to create perfect replicas, why not just photograph the scene? Your subject Let's have a…

In this article we will be looking at four plein-air oil sketches done on location in Birmingham and the Chester canal. We will be going through the merits of each sketch and why I chose the sketch I did to help me produce a finished studio painting. We will then look at the process of putting this studio painting together. Initial oil sketches The four sketches I completed were based round Gas Street Basin in Birmingham and the city centre canal scenes of the network around Chester. All of these sketches look at reflections, locks and associated industrial and canal-based buildings. My usual source of sketching inspiration tends to be local landscapes so it was interesting to paint the buildings and water reflections you see in this article. I like…