The South African Artist Magazine February 2019

Issue No.40 February 2019 R55.00 incl vat

FEATURED ARTISTS: Jono Dry • Antoinette van der Merwe Sarah Kelly • Louis Hiemstra Qhama Maswana • Walter Voigt

FEATURING

Semi-finalist Brian Ramsey

• setting up a still life • get impact with tonal values • caring for brushes

Issue 40 ISSUE 40

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54 page

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A note from the studio

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Feedback 5

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Quick Art Quiz

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What’s Happening?

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FEATURED ARTIST: WALTER VOIGT

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Oil painting essentials part 4: BRENT DODD

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FEATURED ARTIST: JONO DRY

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Art Snippets

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FEATURED ARTIST: SARAH KELLY

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page

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8 page

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FEATURED ARTIST: SONJA FRENZ

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Business of Art with MALCOLM DEWEY

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FEATURED ARTIST: LOUIS HIEMSTRA

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FEATURED ARTIST: QHAMA MASWANA

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GRANT WOOD: Watercololour workshop part 4

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INTERNATIONAL ARTIST: BRIAN RAMSEY

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Getting started with brushes

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FEATURED ARTIST: ANTOINETTE VAN DER MERWE

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Quiz answers

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Life of a working artist: ANA DE VLIEG

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Student’s Gallery

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Q&A

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Classes and Workshops

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Above: Limpopo River with Baobab Tree, Mapungubwe 100 x 150cm

Right: Ship Mountain Landscape, 110cm x 182cm Right below: Stormy Sky with Baobab Tree, 91cm x 152cm

a room with

a view

Based in the Lowveld area, Walter Voigt works from a purpose-built studio which offers sweeping views of the surrounding woodland valley and onto the adjacent mountains. “I recently had this new studio built on a slope near our house. It’s much like a wooden cabin with a deck and is a very pleasurable space to work in. The light source is perfect and it’s a close walk away from the house yet far away enough that I’m not too disrupted.”

Walter keeps to a disciplined routine, waking up at around 6am to walk his two Africanis dogs down the long driveway.

“It gets me in touch with nature and my environment. I then meditate for 10 to 15 minutes to clear my head and gather my thoughts. This is followed by a series of exercises called 9

Once the sketching up is done he begins blocking in large areas with diluted washes of oil paint, getting down as much information as quickly as possible. “Within a few minutes I have a good idea if I’m on the right track or not. Once there is sufficient blocked in tone and I am happy with the composition, I set the canvas aside and begin another. Usually I work on 2 to 3 paintings at a time depending on the size of the work.

Because I layer a lot the underlying layers need to set somewhat before layering further. This is where a little liquin or linseed oil is effective. I can start building up without losing what’s underneath. A large painting takes about two weeks to complete but this depends on various factors.”

The Everard Read Gallery in Johannesburg has been very instrumental in getting his work shown to the public. They have a loyal following and are well known in the art industry. “I generally have a solo exhibition there every second year. I also worked on quite a few commissions last year, which came mostly through the gallery.”

Walter holds workshops at least once a year at his studio. These workshops last 3 days and their aim is to aid artists to develop their skills further. He enjoys imparting knowledge and helping others find fulfillment with their landscape painting. For more information on the workshops, please contact Walter directly.

GALLERIES: Everard Read - Johannesburg The White River Gallery - White River, Mpumalanga Opposite page (detail of the painting in the two images below): Cloud Study with Baobab Tree, Mapungubwe 40 x 60 cm

Below: Sand River Gorge, Soutpansberg 95 x 150 cm

in the paintbox Artist Quality oil paints: Winsor & Newton and Daler-Rowney ‘Georgian’: Titanium White

Terre Verte

Ultramarine

Cad Yellow Light Cad

Burnt Sienna

Cad Red Light

Yellow Ochre

Cerulean

WALTER’S TOP TIPS: • BRUSHWORK: Angles and mark-making direction is important. I like to see variation. Upward strokes, downward strokes, diagonal strokes. This helps create movement and energy throughout the work. Brushwork engages the viewer even further. Keeping it alive.

• COMPOSITION: Placement of objects and their relationship to each other. A focal point must be pleasing to the eye and having ”too much” going on can push one away. I want to be lured in by having “less” if that makes sense.

• LIGHT: It’s all about the light. Light creates the atmosphere or mood. A lighter palette uplifts but you need a little contrast to “ground” it.

e-mail: voigtwalter@gmail.com | Facebook: Walter Voigt | instagram: Walter.voigt.1 13

GETTING YOUR TONAL VALUES RIGHT "Tonal values are critical. The lights and darks contribute more to the success of a painting's composition than any other factor, including colour. In fact your painting will really only be as good as the tonal values" Greg Albert, The Simple Secret to Better Panting Paintings with a narrow value range can look flat and lack interest.

Value or tonal contrast creates visual interest in a painting. A high-key painting is one in which the contrasts in value or tone are extreme, from the darkest darks, through the range of mid-tones down to the lightest highlights. A low-key painting is one in which the tonal range is narrower, and although not ‘wrong’, the clever use of colour will hold the viewer’s attention.

Some techniques you can try to create more dynamic paintings: 1. Counterchange Counterchange is when a darker object is placed directly next to a much lighter one. The Masters such as Rembrandt and Vermeer used this technique extensively.

“Girl with a pearl earring” by Johannes Vermeer is a good example where the abrupt change in value from dark to light creates a strong contrast. Deliberately placing light objects on top of dark ones and dark shapes on top of bright ones, results is a dramatic effect.

Value is the term used by painters to indicate an increment of dark or light. A tint moves towards white; a shade moves towards black.

Yellow is the lightest colour, becoming white in just a few steps. Violet is the darkest. Surprising to most beginners, red and green have the same value and are about halfway between yellow and violet.

It is easy to get confused between value and hue. The intensity of a colour doesn’t have any bearing on its value. In other words bright red may look high-key or light in tone, but in reality it is probably a mid-tone grey. Every colour has its own value which depends on the relative lightness or darkness of its base pigment. Black and white are both achromaticcolours (they contain no colour) so they can alter the value of any colour without affecting its temperature.

2. Relative luminance When objects of the same value are placed on top of different backgrounds, they can appear to be lighter or darker. This technique can be used to create vibrancy. In the diagram below it appears that the grey block becomes darker as it moves from the lowvalue background on the left to the high-value background on the right. However, when the same grey blocks are seen on a plain white background (below), they are actually the exact same value.

Therefore, if part of your painting doesn’t look bright enough, you can change the value of the area around it to make it appear brighter.

By achieving a good tonal range, you will create stronger paintings which will appear more dramatic and three-dimensional. Good tonal range can: • create a contrast of light and dark • create the illusion of form • create either a dramatic or tranquil atmosphere • create a sense of depth and distance • create rhythm within a composition.

3. Graduated shading We all know that to create the illusion of form or light falling onto an object, we can use shading. So, if a flat grey ball is lit from above we would graduate the grey from light to dark. There is another way to achieve a similar effect, and that is to have a graduated background. The way your eye interprets the background shift from dark to light, gives the object in the foreground a spherical appearance, without you having to adjust the colour of the object.

Make a value scale of up to ten increments by painting a white block and a black block. Fill the spaces in between by mixing your black and white paint, until you have a chart showing progressive steps from black to white.

Then make a corresponding chart indicating the approximate colour values corresponding to the black, greys and white.

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Above: Autumn 80 x 114 cm

Right: Pupil 114 x 80 cm

drawings that make you

look twice

At first glance Jono Dry’s work looks like photography with an unsettling twist... look again and you realise it is hyperrealist art at its best. This self-taught artist, who has earned quite a reputation with his unique style of drawing, says that growing up in a creative home laid the foundation for his love of art. His father is an architect and his mother is well-known artist Erna Dry. In addition, taking art as a subject in high school with art teacher Shelly Adams, was a major influence.

“Originally I was inspired by artists like M.C. Escher, Dali, Keith Alexander and Paul Emsley, but these days it seems like I find a new artist to inspire me every week. It’s an exciting time to be an artist and have so much connection to other artists around the world.”

Jono works from a spacious studio in Woodstock, Cape Town. “It has an old building feel but is surrounded by creative modern spaces. My studio 19

is something I am so proud of. It’s a fairly clean space, full of plants with large windows bringing in lots of natural light, and with a view of Table Mountain.”

He has a fairly structured routine which starts off with a short workout (depending on how disciplined he is feeling), and then by 9am he starts his day at the studio. “A trick I’ve learned is to try to put pencil to paper before I start up my computer or do anything else. Even if it’s only for five minutes, just to break any mini work block. I work in a building with a couple of friends in offices close by, so around 10am we have a coffee and then I continue fighting my short concentration span until lunch time. At lunch I go home and make a small meal, maybe take a nap and try to get back to the studio by 2pm where I work until about 6 or 7pm.”

His favoured materials include Faber-Castell Pencils (9B, 2B, B and 2H); 9B Graphite sticks which are ground down into powder for use in his backgrounds; Cotton wool to apply a heavy layer of powder onto the paper along with blending stumps, kneadable erasers and all the usual equipment for pencil work. “I also use Arches Aquarelle paper 300gsm hot-pressed.

Often people don’t realise how essential the paper is. I regularly get asked what pencils I use and I usually respond by emphasising the importance of using good quality paper.”

It takes so long to complete a drawing that he has to be completely sure that he is happy with what he will be working on. “The planning process includes taking loads of reference photos in my studio or out on location. I hire models to help me figure out the poses and lighting I want to use in the work, as well as a growing collection of props that are recurring in my work and create a bit of a visual vocabulary. I then start on the physical side of the artwork, cutting a large piece of paper off the roll, using gum tape and 21

The Louvre shatters attendance records with 10 million visitors in 2018 - with a little help from Beyoncé and Jay-Z

art

snippets...

With the Word ‘Stolen,’ the Uffizi’s Director Shames Germany for not Returning a Painting looted during World War II

Beyoncé and Jay-Z on vacation at the Louvre, and in their new music video "Apeshit," posing both times with the Mona Lisa.

Photo courtesy of the artists.

It’s official: the Louvre’s attendance record has been smashed. The Paris museum attracted a staggering 10.2 million visitors last year, boosted by a Delacroix survey—the most popular special exhibition in its history—and the publicity generated by Beyoncé and Jay-Z, who shot the video for “Apeshit” among museum masterpieces.

The attendance figure, which shattered the Louvre’s previous record of 9.7 million visitors, set in 2012, follows two years of relatively low attendance for the world’s most-visited art museum. The 2015 terrorist attacks in Paris kept attendees away in 2016, with only 7.4 million visitors that year—a 15 percent drop from the year prior.

Art Outperformed the Stock Market last year

The black-and-white photograph that hangs in the original work’s place at the Pitti Palace in Florence.

Photo: Uffizi Galleries via Twitter.

Luxury items, including wine, classic cars, and fancy diamonds, were among the best performing investments in 2018, but art took the very top spot. Investors who put money into art saw an average gain of 10.6 percent by the end of November, according to Art Market Research’s Art 100 Index. The S&P 500, by contrast, lost more than five percent.

The director of Florence’s Uffizi Galleries, Eike Schmidt, has called on Germany to return a Dutch still-life looted by Nazi troops during World War II. The painting was plundered by retreating Nazi soldiers in 1943 and disappeared for decades until 1991, when it was rediscovered in a private collection in Germany.

Vase of Flowers by the Dutch master Jan van Huysum (1682-1749) was originally brought to Florence by Grande Duke Leopoldo II in 1824 and was on display at the historic Pitti Palace until 1940, when it was moved to a nearby village for safekeeping.

Schmidt, who is German-born, told Reuters: “Germany has a moral duty to return this painting to our museum. This story is preventing the wounds inflicted by World War II and the horrors of Nazism from healing.”

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Opposite page top left: Secretary bird 59.4 x 42 cm watercolour

Bottom left: Orchids: pink spotted orchid; lime spider orchid; air orchid on bark 59.4 x 42 cm; watercolour

Middle left: Aloes 84.1 x 59.4 cm charcoal and Conte crayons

Top right: Aloe 84.1 x 59.4 cm charcoal and Burnt Ochre Aloe set

passion for

nature

Having lived on a farm in the KwaZulu-Natal Midlands all her life, Sarah Kelly’s work portrays the things she loves most: nature and especially beautiful botanicals. “My passion for painting and creating started from a young age, being self- taught it has come naturally. I have always had a true passion for painting and being creative, being able to sit hours on end, engrossed in my paintings is what makes my heart truly happy. The carefree lifestyle of the farm has influenced my work. My paintings emphasise that art does not always have to have symbolism, but can purely reflect the beauty that surrounds us every day.”

Sarah graduated from a private academy in Stellenbosch in 2013 with a B.A. Degree in Graphic Design. She worked for a design agency for a short period of time until she realised that it wasn’t a career she truly enjoyed. “I took a break from work and went on to complete my Honours in Ceramics in 2014. During this time, while working in a very tactile studio, being hands-on and creating hand-made ceramic pieces, my passion and love for painting began to grow and I started painting watercolours of the flora and insect life on the farm. My first original artworks are of a set of four Orchids that still hang in my home today.”

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Middle right: Entomology 59.4 x 42 cm watercolour

Above: White Crinum bulb; White broadleaf bulbs (Bulb Botanicals) 59.4 x 42 cm Below: Sarah at work on a botanical watercolour.

Using watercolour pencils or brushes

Close up detail of pastels

Facebook: Sonja Frenz - Artist | website: www.sonjafrenz.weebly.com | e-mail: sonjafrenz@gmail.com

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Qhama’s studio is an octagonal rondavel in a village near King Williams Town in the Eastern Cape. He believes in a disciplined approach and has a daily set routine. “I wake up at about 5am and read my Bible and also something positive to start my day on the right note. After I have walked my dogs, I go to the gym, then I’m in my studio painting from about 7.30am to 5pm, wih an hour lunch break in-between.”

well. Take risks and believe in yourself and your ideas no matter how crazy they may sound to everyone else.”

He encourages other artists to believe in themselves no matter what obstacles they may face. “Pay attention to what you love and express it through your work. Be creative not only in your art but in your life as

Above: ”Appointed” 90 x 90cm acrylic on canvas

His work is promoted through social media and through the galleries currently represent him including GFI art gallery in Port Elizabeth; Eclectica Design and Art in Cape Town; and MMarthouse in Johannesburg.

web: www.qhamamaswana.co.za | e-mail: qmaswana@gmail.com | cell: 071 056 1108 Instagram and Twitter: qhamamaswana | Facebook: Qhama Maswana-Art 48

TIPS AND TECHNIQUES

PART 4

SKIES DONE THREE WAYS Painting skies in watercolour in a single sitting can be fun and challenging! Watercolour allows you to go mad with colour and texture but it always helps if you can introduce a little technique and discipline into the process.

Skies are mainly about washes and the way they are applied – I will be demonstrating 3 different approaches to achieve some different results – you will find dozens of other approaches by different watercolourists who achieve some really dynamic skies with lots of atmosphere.

The painting to the left encompasses two or more of the techniques which I will be sharing with you. Note the dramatic storm clouds behind the gum trees – this painting is one of seven that I was commissioned to paint for a friend of mine who grew up on a farm in the Melmouth area of Northern KZN.

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INTERNATIONAL ARTIST: BRIAN RAMSEY

England

FEATURING

Semi-finalist

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Above: Staithes Harbour 29.7 x 42 cm

Right: Brian’s submission piece for Sky Arts Landscape Artist of the Year 2018.

Boats on Roxby Beck, Staithes 29.7 x 21 cm

lights, camera

action!

Painting with someone looking over your shoulder, can be daunting. Add to the mix: cameras, sound crew, judges and a crowd of onlookers, and most of us would dissolve into a bundle of nerves. Not so for British artist Brian Ramsey who recently took part in the British TV series: Sky Arts Landscape Artist of the Year (LAOTY). The show consists of a series of heats where eight artists (both professional and amateur) are chosen to paint against each other for a spot in the semi-final. At each location fifty ‘wildcard’ artists paint the chosen scene, and one wildcard from each show also goes through to the semi-final. Brian won his heat and in this article he describes the experience.

“I love to paint on location, and do it whenever I can. My wife has come to terms with having to wander around churches, cathedrals and cities on her own for at least an hour while I draw. I’m happy to produce final compositions in the studio, but only if I have been there, done my sketches 55

ESSENTIALS

get started with

brushes

More than any other tool, the brush is a direct and fluid extension of the artist’s hand, eye and expressive vision. With this principle in mind, Winsor & Newton have crafted fine artists’ brushes for over 150 years, earning a reputation for making the world’s finest brushes from the very best raw materials.

Choosing the right brush is important and at Winsor & Newton, they offer a wide range of brushes to meet the demands of discriminating artists the world over. The best quality artists’ brushes are still made by hand at their specialist brush making factory in Lowestoft, Suffolk.

Most artists’ brushes are made with natural bristle, natural hair, or synthetic fibres intended to simulate the working characteristics of the first two. Bristle and natural hair are similar in many respects but have two major differences: natural hair has a single, individual point, while bristle has a number of natural tips called “flags”. Bristle is less flexible but more durable. These characteristics make bristle brushes particularly suited to oil painting; they wear well when used on the comparatively coarse grounds commonly used for oil painting and the “flags” hold considerable quantities of colour.

The ferrules on an artists’ brush should be strong, corrosion resistant and seamless. Consistency is important because the size of the brush head is determined by the diameter of the ferrule at the point hair emerges.

The perfect brush handle is a mixture of weight, shape, balance and comfort, all of which vary according to the size and function of the brush. Winsor & Newton brush handles are designed with these requirements in mind and are manufactured to the highest standards using seasoned hardwood.

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FOR USE WITH WATERCOLOURS: KOLINSKY SABLE As with so many of Winsor & Newton top quality products, their unsurpassed excellence can be part be attributed to the rigorous selection of only the highest quality raw materials. This tradition of excellence began in 1866 when Her Majesty Queen Victoria gave orders that Winsor & Newton be commanded to produce brushes of the highest possible quality in her favourite size: No. 7.

This legacy lives on today with their Series 7. They only use the purest Kolinsky Sable hair, this is what gives the brush its perfect point for optimal control. Its large colour carrying capacity means colour flows evenly and consistently from the point so stroke after stroke of colour can be laid down.

ARTISTS’ WATERCOLOUR SABLE The Artists’ Watercolour Sable has been created to offer artists the chance to use a brush containing the much sought after Kolinsky Sable Hair but at a more affordable price. The sculptured brush handle with its “double belly” design sits in the hand for extra comfort whilst painting. The range consists of the most popular and useful brush shapes for watercolour painting including Round, One Stroke and Rigger. In addition W&N have also included a Pointed Round for when extra fine detail with colour carrying is essential.

Above: Bluebells 40 x 30 cm

Above right: A favourite bowl of mine 22 x 30 cm

Right: Warm pink roses 30 x 22 cm

painting

from life

The alla prima technique in which a canvas is completed in one session, painted wet-on-wet, is the favoured style of Stilbaai-based artist Antoinette van der Merwe. “I prefer to complete my paintings in one session, especially still life and portraits. Setting up your own still life can be very satisfying because you can choose the objects and also control the light. Anything in your home including, for example, toys, fruit, flowers and pots can be put together to create a good composition”.

She took art as a matric subject and later enrolled for a parttime course at the Pieter Millard School of Art where she studied impressionism for almost three years. She has also attended workshops with amongst others: internationallyacclaimed South African artists Rene Snyman and Ina van Schalkwyk and also American master artist Max Ginsburg.

“Everything else I have learned about impressionism and alla prima, has been through studying the old masters, persistence, perseverance and a driven passion”.

Antoinette has been painting for many years, and became a full-time artist in 2007. During the past four years she contd. on page 67

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gold leaflo&ur waterco

LIFE OF A WORKING ARTIST: ANA DE VLIEG

Statistics show that the act of making art has proven to alleviate stress, increase tolerance, empathy, compassion and alter the pain that we at times endure, physically and emotionally. Ana Pereira de Vlieg is an artist, teacher, trainer with a keen interest in colour mixing, study sketches on the go and the use of art for healing.

Instagram: Ana Pereira de Vlieg_artist | website: www.anapereiradevlieg.com 71