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  Rather than lie still or recline, as models often do at traditional, art school ateliers, the life model walked slowly around the room, pausing only to hold a pose for one or two seconds before moving on. As she…

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…

  ‘With an apple, I shall astonish Paris.’ Paul Cézanne (1839-1906) I received an email with a link to a Guardian article, the other day, entitled, ‘Nobody has ever been astonished by an apple’ – sorry Cézanne, but still lifes…

You may have heard of the Pitmen Painters. In 2007, Lee Hall’s play made them quite famous, both in the UK and across the Atlantic, but first, there was the book that inspired the play, written by William Feaver, a…