Artists & Illustrators October 2023 - Sample Issue

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SKETCHBOOK Quick tips, ideas, inspiration and exhibitions

PRIZE DRAW Win £1,000 to put towards art tuition

WE PRESENT… British Art Club member Sandra Pond

HOW I MAKE IT WORK

Landscape artist Richard Blades shares his art journey

YOU TELL US Write in and win a £50 Atlantis art voucher

PICTURE THIS This month, with oil artist Naimal Khawar

Inspiration

IN THE STUDIO with American landscape and still life painter Bryan Mark Taylor

HOW I PAINT Still life artist James Gillick shares his rich family history in the arts

THE BIG INTERVIEW with landscape artist Charles Stuart Callis

RETROSPECTIVE A look into J. M. W. Turner’s now-open home in Twickenham

THE BRITISH ART PRIZE Last chance to enter!

ART THERAPY Sarah Graham is fundraising through art for mental health awareness

THE BRITISH ART FAIR

A must-see event for anyone interested in contemporary art

Techniques

WORKSHOP Luca Indraccolo paints an oil piece using the wet-on-wet technique

STEP - BY - STEP Igor Lukovic shows you how he drew an adorable Staffordshire terrier

HOW - TO Create a vibrant portrait using Derwent’s Inktense

XL Blocks with Jake Spicer

TECHNIQUE Paint a fruit still life with Tracy Goldfinch Elson

DEMONSTRATION Penelope Kirk demonstrates how to paint a pet portrait

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British Art

…that art is good for your emotional wellbeing. Study after study has shown that making art can reduce stress, lower anxiety and improve overall mood. It validates our ideas and ability to turn ideas into something tangiable and physical.

This is something that Hitchin based artist, Sarah Graham – who has become renowned for her fun and joyfully kitsch paintings – can relate to. She has struggled with her mental health over the years and had a severe breakdown in 2017.

Fortunately, she has been in remission for four years but cites very honestly that “art saved her life” and helped her on her path to recovery. But it wasn’t just art. In her times of great need, the Samaritans were always there for her. Which is why she’s decided to pay it back with her ‘Samarivans,’ fundraising initiative, raising money for the organisation so close to her heart, by inviting other artists and celebrity friends to create art of Camper Vans. The artworks are joyful, varied and spectacular. Read more about Sarah and her campaign on page 42.

Elsewhere in the issue, we’ve got lots to keep you inspired and uplifted. There are two fabulous tutorials on how to paint your pet pooch, How-Tos on painting portraits – using very di erent methods – and riveting still life stories from those at the top of their game. If it’s landscape motivation you’re after, we also speak to an artist based in the American wild west, who uses the desert as his muse, as well as a British painter who gains his in uence from the north Norfolk coast.

Meanwhile, if you’re a fan of J.M.W Turner – one of the most famously revered artists in history – you can go and see a new exhibition at his actual home in Twickenham. Then, this issue features the very last call for entries to this year’s British Art Prize. Don’t delay – enter today for your chance to win big!

EDITORIAL

Editor

Niki Browes

Art Editor

Stuart Selner

Assistant Editor

Ramsha Vistro

Contributors

Bianca Dumas, Tracy Gold nch, Amanda Hodges, Luca Indraccolo, Penelope Kirk, Igor Lukovic, Jake Spicer info@artistsandillustrators.co.uk

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PENELOPE KIRK

This month’s cover artist is a wildlife artist generating donations for animal conservation through her artwork. In the same spirit, she also captures the personality of pets with her dog portraits, with a percentage of sales going to a variety of dog welfare charitieshere and abroad.

BRYAN MARK TAYLOR

As a painter, Bryan has won top awards in national and international shows, including four major awards in the international ARC Salon. His work is in private, corporate, and museum collections worldwide. Bryan received his BA from BYU and his MFA from the Academy of Art University.

NAIMAL KHAWAR

Naimal is a visual artist and painter whose work explores themes of the human condition, beauty and personal observations. She graduated from the National College of Arts, Pakistan with a distinction for her thesis and later specialised in ne arts at the University of Arts, London.

RICHARD BLADES

Richard’s work re ects an emotional response to the landscape, capturing the changing light and visual poetry of the sky, sea and land. Based in Norfolk, Richard can often be found chasing the sunset or cloud spotting on the north Norfolk coast as he gathers inspiration and ideas for his paintings.

Niki Browes Editor

We present...

SANDRA POND

Ever since Sandra Pond “found delight in being able to portray an image very accurately” – at just age six – she has loved painting. Her uncle used to paint in oils and encouraged Sandra to do the same. “He taught me various painting techniques. My first serious painting (at 11 years old) was of Beethoven, who I greatly admired as I loved playing his piano sonatas. And still do.”

As a young child, Sandra would use her replica Siver Cross pram to push – not dolls, but rather – soil full of worms, snails and beetles around. Her mother was a great gardener and Sandra developed her love of nature and insects early on through time spent with her mother in the garden.

She was encouraged by her parents – who supported her immensely – to experiment with her drawings. “To give an example, after being told by the school’s Careers Officer that I would never make a living as an artist and should seek a ‘career’ as a typist or ‘check-out girl,’ my mother stormed into the school demanding to see the headmaster.

“She was outraged by what he’d said and that he’d not even looked at my portfolio. The outcome was that I was excused from needlework (which I hated) and received extra art lessons instead!” Sandra, therefore, progressed with extra art tuition at school and was accepted at the Norwich School of Art, despite not having all the required formal qualifications.

Sandra has spent the majority of her career illustrating books on natural history driven by briefs from publishers. This didn’t leave much time to develop a personal style for non-illustrative work. But in later years, she has had more freedom and time to express her individual style.

“Early on in my artistic development, I struggled greatly with oil paint because of the smell of linseed oil and turpentine, which gave me headaches. I, therefore, moved on to watercolour, which I absolutely loved. I am enthralled by the way this medium has a mind of its own but that you can also control to produce the fine detail required in illustrative work, for example, the fine hairs on the abdomen of a hoverfly. Watercolour painting is often regarded as ‘unforgiving’, however, I find that there are ways and means of overcoming most problems which I find satisfying and rewarding.

“I think all artists share a desire to create something beautiful and shocking or different – this is what makes us as artists feel satisfied that we’ve done a good job.”

britishartclub.co.uk/profile/sandrapond ▫

This month’s spotlight on a British Art Club member

An artist who has always had an obsession with the natural world

Lily of the Valley, watercolour, 30x30cm

Teton Sunrise, oil on panel, 114x152cm

BryanTaylorMark

This Utah-based, landscape and still life artist’s favourite studio is the great outdoors. Ramsha Vistro finds out more about what inspires him and his art ▸

JamesGillick

James Gillick’s family are predisposed to the arts in the same way that some families are overloaded with teachers, policemen or doctors. This has been a trait of several generations; his great uncle Ernest Gillick was a very well-known monumental sculptor whilst his wife, Mary, was a famous medallionist. Today, his cousin Liam is a Turner Prize nominee and a “big cheese in the art world.” His twin brother, Theodore, is a sculptor who has built and runs his own foundry.

Growing up in a large family of 120 cousins, nephews and nieces, nearly all run their own businesses whilst only one isn’t involved in the arts – he’s a banker. “Nobody talks to him!” jokes James.

gillick-artist.com ▸

JAMES GILLICK is a Lincolnshire-based artist whose work is based on the figurative tradition. Niki Browes finds out more about the artist, whose large family is steeped in the arts

Art Deco Silver Coffee Pot, oil on linen, 19.7x45.7cm

The British Art Fair

The British Art Fair is a must-see event for all interested in contemporary art. At the Saatchi Gallery, why don’t you get a ticket today and make a day out of it?

Roll up, roll up! With 70 stands and a whole section titled Solo Contemporary dedicated to rising stars of the art world, The British Art Fair is the event for anyone interested in collecting or researching British art. Featuring an eclectic mix of artists, you can be sure to see the very best of this genre throughout all three storeys of Saatchi Gallery, London. Housed in an elegant museum-like atmosphere, it’s a show-stopping event for all contemporary art a cionados. Head on down to Chelsea, London, for a great big gulp of all the fair has to o er. But, for now, we introduce you to three of its major shining stars.

Maro Gorky

From: New York, USA

Gallery: Long & Ryle

Medium: Oil on canvas

She says: “All my methods were taught to me in the 1940s by my father Arshile Gorky, who had a seminal in uence on Abstract Expressionism. Meanwhile, my stepfather Jack Phillips taught me about powder paints and vinyl. I love Winsor & Newton watercolour and gouache. I also paint with Winsor & Newton and Mussini oil paints on canvas or use Zecchi’s own colours. With landscapes, I draw or paint on paper, using gouache watercolour for the composition. Generally, I practice the image on di erent sized papers, then take the most resolved idea about the landscape and make a painting from it, often starting on a small canvas and proceeding to larger.”

Miranda Boulton

From: Cambridge, UK Gallery: Cynthia Corbett Gallery

Medium: Oil and acrylic spray paint

She says: “My paintings are about the passing of time, they are Memento Mori, reminding us of our mortality and the transience of life. I paint owers, alive, beautiful, decaying, dying, haunting, life-a rming, poignant, reassuring. They cover the monumental and the everyday. Memories of Flower paintings from Art History are the starting point for my process. I am searching for a space where I have touched on the feel and presence of a painting from the past. There is an essence of the original, an acknowledgement of a time, place and history all in the mix. My practice is an ongoing conversation with the past, I explore new forms from old imagery and narratives, linked through expressive layers of colour, gesture and form.”

Sabrina Shah

From: Worcester, UK Gallery: MC Llamas

Medium: Primarily oil and acrylic paint; sometimes collage and screen print or encaustic on canvas.

She says: “I want my paintings to portray the extraordinary e ort, strength and grit that it takes to ght for survival each day. The characters that I paint used to be entirely made up, based on shapes, food or collaged images. Now they are more recognisable, borrowed from Disney lms, toys or popular cartoons. The images are loaded with symbols of hope, strength, play and power. But they always contain a double, triple or quadruple meaning. They are bright, happy and straightforward but also peculiar and serious.

Why am I so drawn towards this theme? I wonder if it is because I have experienced injury, pain and recovery. I wonder if it is because I am a woman. Each of us, blighted by our own unique constellation of setbacks and di culties, is ghting to survive. Every time I su er a blow, I learn something: about risk, about adaptation, about what matters.”

From 28 September to 1 October 2023. britishartfair.co.uk

Transience X

Counting Sheep

Terraced Hill