Tabla de contenidos para Issue 10 Volume 1 en Artists Back to Basics

Artists Back to Basics|Issue 10 Volume 1

Traditional Landscape and Still Life Artist

With a garden full of blossoming roses, camellias and azaleas, South Australian artist John McCartin never needs to look for inspiration to paint. Red brown chooks and white ducks fossick free range in nearby farmyards. Around the corner are country lanes and paddocks full of gnarly gum trees, grazing cattle with misty mornings and hazy golden sunsets – daily life is indeed a canvas. The similarities between John’s paintings and those of Hans Heysen are unmistakable, but not intentional, when you discover that John resides in the Adelaide Hills on the outskirts of the charming village of Hahndorf, half an hour from Adelaide. It’s Hans Heysen country. Indeed one of John’s favourite trees is a beautiful old white gum tree, and the first one John painted when he moved to…

7 min.

Artists Back to Basics|Issue 10 Volume 1

HINTS AND TIPS

• Try to stay fresh throughout the painting if you don’t want the painting to appear as tired as you are. • Stepping away from the painting for a few days is helpful. Looking at the painting upside down or in a mirror will show any obvious faults that would otherwise be easily overlooked. • Use good quality brushes. They will keep their shape and spring for longer. Somewhere in the middle between the cheapest and most expensive should do the job and make accurate brushwork easier to achieve. • I always use a large flat brush for large areas particularly at the block in stage. I use smaller ones as required.I prefer medium to long bristle length as these hold more paint and a more flexible. • Cleaning Brushes…

1 min.

Artists Back to Basics|Issue 10 Volume 1

Back to School and University

LEARN ABOUT A BRILLIANT AND INNOVATIVE ARTISTS’ PRODUCT Get the feel, opacity and translucence of traditional oils minus the drying time, ‘hard to clean’ mess, and that smell … Genesis Heat Set Oils are an easy to use painting system. They are similar to traditional oils in feel and application, yet the paints and their mediums are non-toxic, cadmium free and odourless – making Genesis great for the many artists who are allergic to oils and solvents. They can also be dried on demand. Time to discover Genesis Heat Set Artist Oils – an artist’s dream come true! Genesis Artist Colours have gained the respect of many international painters. They have been used daily for many years internationally. The pigments used have all been selected for their lightfastness, vibrancy and…

22 min.

Artists Back to Basics|Issue 10 Volume 1

Temple entrance at Tirtagangga Water Palace, Bali

STEP ONE Border & Sketch Draw a light pencil border the size you would like your sketch. This is particularly helpful if you want to do several small sketches on the one page. The border also prevents you sketching to the edge of your paper and the sketch becoming a finished painting. The border also allows you to extend your sketch if you have run out of space. STEP TWO Adding Colour Using a travelling palette and waterbrush begin adding colour. Areas in the front have more detail, are stronger in colour and are warmer. Colours in the rear do not have pen outlines. They are cooler (more blue) and lighter in intensity. STEP THREE Texture & Focal Points When painting the brickwork, drop in more colour to achieve the…

1 min.

Artists Back to Basics|Issue 10 Volume 1

Spotlighting Patrick’s Exhibition Crash Paintings Contributed

Born in Melbourne in 1985 and raised in Sydney, Patrick attended The College of Fine Arts, experimenting with several mediums including film, video, sculpture and sound, before settling on painting. With two solo shows, both in 2008, Patrick discussed personal issues relating to death, grief, love and life. Taking some time off to focus on musical pursuits with his band tortoiseshell, he has returned with a show focusing this time on life, and the celebration of it. Crash Paintings emerged from an accident Patrick was involved in June 2011, in which he could have been seriously injured. This close call spurned a new creative direction, moving to the abstract and colourful. It also began him on a new foray into the world of ceramics; painting colourful bowls to compliment the…

4 min.

Artists Back to Basics|Issue 10 Volume 1

Wash Away the Doldrums

We all suffer from inspirational block during our artistic lives and sometimes the lulls are just too long: “So what do we do about it”? To get out of this type of rut, I visit galleries for inspiration then wander off to some beautiful part of Australia, sit down and start to relax the mind, start to draw and hopefully end up with some unique bit of work. These inspirational places do not have to be a new town hundreds of kilometres away, it could simply be in the microcosm that lives in your back yard or in the local park…you will know it when you see it, but firstly you have to get up and go searching. Well, the three particular works in this article (Black and White and…

5 min.

Artists Back to Basics|Issue 10 Volume 1

Onkaparinga Morning

Charcoal Drawing The complexity of this composition calls for a detailed charcoal drawing in preparation for the large painting. This process highlights potential pitfalls and avoids the problem of having to rework the composition if things go wrong. Colour Study A small colour study was made to compensate for the camera’s shortcomings eg diminished hues, colour distortions and tonal deficiencies inherent in photos. STEP ONE A transparent monochrome block in (from the charcoal drawing) is a good way to map out the basic composition on a larger scale. I use a mixture of transparent oxide red and ultramarine or indigo. A warm underpainting is preferable to a cool one in that the latter has a tendency to produce a dirty or muddy appearance in the shadows. STEP TWO “The complexity…

2 min.

Artists Back to Basics|Issue 10 Volume 1

The Bare Bones

Before any toning of a drawing can begin you have to first get to what I call the ‘bare bones’ stage (the bare bones of the drawing) which is laying down all the features of the composition that can reasonably be represented by an outline as accurately and lightly as possible (fig 1). It’s up to you how far into the subtly detailed areas you go with this but the aim is to get all the proportions as close as possible before you even try and tone (hatch) anything. The sharper and more precise the lines used in the latter stages the easier it is to judge the subsequently finer proportional adjustments as you go along. In the initial stages of laying out any freehand drawing that you intend to…

10 min.

Artists Back to Basics|Issue 10 Volume 1

The Ben Roberts Cafe and Gallery

The Ben Roberts Cafe and Gallery is a new art venue in the Blue Mountains. Owner Carolynne Skinner has a long history of arts publishing and running galleries. She tells here how her new gallery came about … Many people, including those living here, do not realise that we in the Blue Mountains live in the oldest land on earth. When the Grand Canyon in Arizona was just a few centimetres deep, the dissected sandstone plateau which is the Blue Mountains looked much as it does today. Aboriginal peoples lived here during the last Ice Age (22,000 years ago), hunting and performing their rituals. It is probably not so surprising therefore that many creative people feel a strong attraction to this place and that we number many more practising artists…

6 min.

Artists Back to Basics|Issue 10 Volume 1

Heading The Desire to Experiment

Ian Reardon first became interested in art through his grandfather who worked in pencil and watercolours and also painted window-front signs for shops in Grafton. Ian took art as a subject at the Southport school on Queensland’s Gold Coast when he was 12 years old. Art was always his favourite subject. During his school years, his grandfather entered two of Ian’s works in the Jacaranda Art Exhibition. He was delighted and encouraged to receive a first prize in the Under 14 section for a watercolour, and a ‘highly commended’ in the Open section for a pastel picture. “I left school at 16 years of age to work on the family farm,” Ian relates. “I am still there today; and now run the property with my son Dan. Those early years,…

4 min.

Artists Back to Basics|Issue 10 Volume 1

Drawing What You See

In this article I want to explore one of the all time and most important golden rules of freehand drawing, which is “draw what you see, not what you think you see or want to see”. It all comes back to your own perceptions of reality and gaining a deeper understanding of what you are doing and why as you develop a freehand drawing. There is a very large difference between just seeing, and looking at the entire world and everything in it as an artist. Everyone except the profoundly blind can “see”, very few indeed look at their surroundings as an artist, nowadays it seems even fewer again look at it as a freehand artist. Your perception of the actual abstract shapes that make up all the objects and…

9 min.

Artists Back to Basics|Issue 10 Volume 1

Repeatability

The keyword for this issue is “repeatability”. The FreeOnlineDictionary gives as one of it’s explanations – “To do, experience, or produce again”. Have you ever had one of those moments when you have looked at your work and said, “I really like that little bit there”? I have. Then I’d rack my brains trying to remember how I did it, and finally, put it down to a “happy accident”, and move on. A friend of mine runs weekend workshops occasionally. I was with him on one particular occasion when I noticed one student creating remarkably Turner-like effects. I asked him how he did it, but he obviously didn’t have any idea. I asked if he would mind my watching him work for awhile. After some time, he managed to repeat…

5 min.

Artists Back to Basics|Issue 10 Volume 1

FOR YOUR INFO

Featured Artist’s Statement My work is influenced by the extraordinary light and natural beauty we have here in abundance. I have a deep passion for all of nature, including man, and am very inspired by living textures created as paint, pigments, oxides, glazes etc interact on the canvas. This means working flat, not always the best angle to get a true perspective of the picture, which will come later as the picture gets tweaked towards a final product. Many times like the leopard below, I allow the process to guide the imagery that ends up on the picture, and I had no idea at the time that the large superimposed head which arose, would eventually dominate the entire picture. David Kantey, Plettenberg Bay, South Africa…

1 min.

Artists Back to Basics|Issue 10 Volume 1

MATERIALS

• Brushes – Select the right size and type of brush for what it is you are painting. Filberts are good for general brushwork and for softening edges. I often use them in portraiture and still life painting. Flat brushes are useful in achieving a bold blocky treatment as well as for hard edges. A half a dozen of each from very small to large should do. • Palette Knifes – These are very useful not just for achieving very sharp edges but also for creating textural and other effects not possible with the brush. What they lack in accuracy that more than make up for in versatility. • Paints – I use artist quality paints of various brands: Art Spectrum, Rembrandt, Old Holland and Michael Harding. The latter two…

1 min.

Artists Back to Basics|Issue 10 Volume 1

Art Tours

Art tours combine a holiday with art tuition and travelling with like-minded people. They are suitable for all skill levels and for all ages and are done at a relaxed pace with some free time to enjoy as you wish. The tours cater for small groups and all your needs are taken care of, leaving you to focus totally on local scenery and a relaxing holiday combined with drawing and painting. For solo travellers who would feel more comfortable painting in a group and travelling with like-minded people, art tours are ideal. I have been taking holiday sketching art tours overseas as well as in Australia for many years. On my tours I teach how to visually record your travels and holiday experiences through pen and watercolour wash sketching. All…

3 min.

Artists Back to Basics|Issue 10 Volume 1

Handling the Tools

I’ve noticed in my freehand drawing workshops lately that although I supply and explain the use of all six of the essential tools required for freehand drawing the same basic handling errors come up over and over again. Despite their having been two articles already concerning the actual drawing gear (Materials and Equipment- parts 1 & 2) it occurred to me that an article devoted entirely to very specific details on the actual handling and use of the tools themselves could be very helpful to a wider audience. To do the hyper-realistic representational style I favour most there are only six tools. They are; 2B pencil, pencil extender, pencil sharpening knife, scratch board, vinyl eraser, and rubber trimming knife. 2B pencil To hold the pencil for sketching (off the shoulder)…

11 min.

Artists Back to Basics|Issue 10 Volume 1

Images of Heat and Dust

THE PROCESS Most of my subject matter comes from my immediate environment, memories and photographs. Firstly, I take a picture ‘in my head’ of the subject matter. Then I try to imagine it in my head as a finished work. I use my sketch book to try different compositions of the subject, to see which one strikes a chord. I next produce an A4 sketch – trying to get things as accurate as possible – sometimes doing a watercolour wash to attempt to get a feel for the subject and an insight into how it might look as a completed work. Most of the time (although not always), I will use the image from my sketch and square it up onto a larger surface. I like using Tinted Spectrum Sanded…

1 min.

Artists Back to Basics|Issue 10 Volume 1

Brush Strokes

There’s something about making discoveries artistically that leads to discovering that waste is not at all attractive. For those of you who are afflicted with that same sentiment, this article is for you. There comes a time that we must say goodbye to even our most favourite paintbrush. I can’t casually throw mine aside without a second thought. So, given that I hate waste and that I’m fundamentally lazy, these old paintbrushes can often live again. The beautiful thing about an old paintbrush, is that it no longer owes you anything, and so you can brutalise it in any way you see fit. You can experiment with an old paintbrush, trim bristles, or pound it into your desktop to discover new opportunities for making marks. Before we get to the…

7 min.