Week 16 - Art away from Art

Including art in your travels is a no-brainer. I’m not talking about big studio canvases of rolling landscapes, I’m talking about little, “amuse bouche” types of art. Sketches, and small watercolours that can be done en plein air, in a crowd, or standing on aching, I’ve walked too much today, feet.

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These small works become my favourite souvenirs. Sketches that capture not only the location, but the mood, weather, and sounds around me as I worked on them.

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Portrait Artist of the Year

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I had the pleasure of being in the audience for a taping of the popular British Show, Portrait Artist of the Year. What fun!! A behind the scenes look, watching nine artists paint portraits of distinguished sitters. There were oil painters, a pastelist, and a pencil artist. 

I found the extensive use of technology a bit disturbing. I know that four hours is a small window of time to create a good likeness of someone, but I feel the dependence on iPad/iPhone photos, colour mixing apps and apps that act as a tracing tool were over the top. Most of the artists were nose deep in their screens, capturing every line, wrinkle and imperfection of the sitters “mug”.

I felt sorry for the sitters.  Very rarely did an artist look up from their “tech” to look and paint directly from reality.

Now, as I recall from doing a bazillion pastel portraits at Canada’s Wonderland, most people don’t want an artist to capture the flaws, but to gently, with a creative flair, give them the, “best you’ve ever looked” rendition.

I guess it’s easy for me to disparage technology when I’m not one of the artists under the gun. But I’d like to see a return to a more creative and skills oriented portrait show. Where artists paint what they see in the moment, and engage more with the sitter.  That would be refreshing.

Look for me and Guy hanging out in the background when the shows run next year! 

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Art on Display

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I’m a sucker for dogs. Love them. All shapes and sizes. So when there’s a dog portrait show in the city I’m visiting… I’m there!

What a treat! These portraits were all dogs of the rich and famous, crowned and knighted, but there’s something that evens out the playing field when your talking about the love of your pet.

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I still love to paint dogs, and habitually take photos of strangers with their dogs when I’m away. I paint them when I’m back in my studio. If it’s good enough for Gainsborough and Hockney, well then…

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Hanging with Artist Friends

It’s such a pleasure to hang out with Artist friends when away, especially if it’s Paul Green. Paul is a birder first, and a wire bird sculpturer second. Paul knows everything about every bird that ever set a toe in Minsmere Nature Reserve in Suffolk. He took us around the reserve’s bird hides, and showed us all of the fascinating species that were hanging out that day. Bird song is his strength, and he pointed out not only a tawny owl hooting away in a nearby tree, but we had the fortune to hear one of the first Nightingales to arrive back into the area.

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