I’ve always had a bit of a problem with our Tracey; the calculated banality of her work, the lippy loutishness, the seeming only desire to shock. After Marcel Duchamp’s ‘Fountain’ (1917) and Piero Manzoni’s ‘Artist’s Shit,’(1961) why was…
At my neighbours’ get-together on Christmas Day, with the guests well into their third mimosas of the morning, the conversation turned to creativity. This often happens when I reveal to strangers that I teach grown-ups how to draw and paint…
I’d stacked all the tables and chairs, loaded the car with my art stuff, driven home and just put the key in the door when the ‘phone rang. On the other end of it was Merv (which wasn’t his real…
“Yesterday evening Mrs. Arundel insisted on my going to the window, and looking at the glorious sky, as she called it. Of course I had to look at it. She is one of those absurdly pretty Philistines to whom one…
“Courage is knowing it might hurt and doing it anyway. Stupidity is the same.” - Jeremy Goldberg To enter an art competition, I’d imagine that you’d need at least one or other of the above traits, ‘though I’ve notion that…
My new course on watercolours begins next week. Titled, ‘Watercolour Essentials,’ it’s going to cover all the things you really need to get started in the medium that not only intimidated Vincent Van Gogh and vexed John Singer Sargent, but…
At the life class on a dull day, a couple of weeks ago, I was struck by the way the strong light from the work lamp obscured as much of the model’s body as it revealed. Although I’d reduced so…
The last six lessons of my online course, Watercolour A to Z, began with the letter U and that fundamental technique of art practise, the underpainting. In watercolour, there's no better exemplar of the technique than John Robert Cozens, an…
