About Liam O'Farrell and his amazing paintings

One of the very nice things that happens from time to time is that artists that I feature on my blog sometimes write to me to tell me what has happened to them and their artwork.

 One such is Liam O'Farrell who wrote to me today.

I've seen his paintings in a number of recent exhibitions and very much like his combination of really excellent painting of architecture and people. His paintings manage to be both accurate and yet somewhat stylised. It's a very neat combination - recording contemporary life.

Last summer I featured his painting of the Tate and Lyle Sugar Refinery which was selected for the NEAC Annual Exhibition 2019. I had it in my section about The Best of the Open Entry and other art I liked

Artwork I liked included paintings which did not look like the paintings of members or provided a new spin on old topics. I periodically lament that not enough people record buildings, events and the contemporary environment - as very many painters did in the past.

The Tate & Lyle Sugar Refinery, London by Liam O'Farrell

One artist who is very much about recording the present or the recent past is Liam O'Farrell - who paints in oil and watercolour but is fundamentally all about the drawing. I love his tiny people and the fact he can recreate past urban landscapes.

Liam wrote to correct me and to say that this is in fact a contemporary view. I've never seen this view of the Refinery and was convinced it was from the past. However after much comparison between Google Maps and the painting I now understand how he managed to achieve this particular view and paint it! See if you can work it out - it's clever!

Thames Refinery is the largest sugar refinery in the EU and one of the largest in the world, with a capacity of 1.2million tonnes per annum. Tate & Lyle website

I gather from Liam that the painting did not sell at the exhibition. However it was subsequently bought by Tate & Lyle and now hangs in their Boardroom!

Another of his paintings Denmark Street (Tin pan Alley) London (2017) was selected for the (last) Lynn Painter-Stainers Prize 2019.

Denmark Street (Tin pan Alley) London (2017) by Liam O'Farrell

I rather liked this - especially given I could not work out how he achieved his perspective.

He explained in his email to me today that he'd written a blog post about the painting An oil painting of Denmark Street London - in which he explained about he came to sketch the scene and also the people he saw during a warm afternoon in June as he drew the buildings

• Click the link in the title of the painting if you'd like to see a larger version on his website
• READ more of his painting stories on his blog

Liam's approach to his oil paintings is as follows

My oil paintings are generally built up from on-site sketches, colour notes and even photographs if a particular reference is needed, such as a plant shape or shadows. These are then composed together on board and finally painted in the studio, often over a period of weeks.

On his website you can also see his:

• Oil Paintings
• Watercolour Paintings - some of which have stories
• Drawings and Sketches - which is what his paintings start from
• Online Shop - where he has originals (oils, watercolours and drawings) and prints of his work

He's a big fan of Markets and Allotments! 

His paintings have also featured in the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition.

This to my mind is one of the best "about me" artist statements I've ever read - as an explanation of what he likes and draws and paints.

Most of us are not really that trendy, confident, super rich or deliciously attractive. Most of the world is also like that. Even in spectacular locations such as Venice, if you scratch the surface the same ordinary people are there too. They just happen to be on holiday. I like to look again at all the things we can so easily miss, and celebrate them.
Of course I am not unique in this movement. Stanley Spencer, LS Lowry and Alfred Wallis were masters of it and this is just my small contribution.

Winslow Homer and the development of marine art

For fans of Winslow Homer - and those who love making or viewing paintings of the sea 

In August two exhibitions about Winslow Homer (1836-1910) open in Massachusetts

• Homer at the Beach: A Marine Painter’s Journey, 1869-1880 at the Cape Ann Museum in Gloucester Massachusetts 
• Winslow Homer: Eyewitness at the Harvard University Art Museums, a complementary exhibition opening August 31st. 

Below I also look at 

• Seaside Art Colonies - created by artists who love to paint the seas and the coast; and 
• some of the sketches I made while visiting places associated with well-known artists who live or lived in New England - including the Prout's Neck Home of Winslow Homer.

Homer at the Beach: A Marine Painter’s Journey, 1869-1880 - at Cape Ann Museum

This is an exploration of the marine paintings of the renowned American artist Winslow Homer - and how he developed as a marine painter.

The exhibition includes 50 original works and will include loans from some 40 public and private collections.  

In 1869, Winslow Homer (1836–1910) exhibited his first picture of the sea. He was an ambitious New York illustrator — not yet recognized as an artist — and freshly back from France. Over the next 11 years, Homer’s journey would take him to a variety of marine destinations, from New Jersey to Maine, but especially — and repeatedly — to Gloucester and other parts of Cape Ann.
It was on Cape Ann that Homer made his first watercolors and where he discovered his calling: to be a marine artist. And it was in Gloucester in 1880, at the end of these 11 years, where he enjoyed the most productive season of his life, composing more than 100 watercolors of astonishing beauty. Homer’s journey forever changed his life and the art of his country.

Venue: Cape Ann Museum, 27 Pleasant Street, Gloucester, MA (c.45 minutes northeast of Boston)
Hours: Tuesday through Saturday from 10am. to 5pm Sundays from 1-4pm
Admission: $12.00 adults, $10.00 Cape Ann residents, seniors and students. Youth (under 18) and Museum members are free.
Website: https://www.capeannmuseum.org

Winslow Homer: Eyewitness at Harvard University Art Museums

His work as an artist-correspondent, enabled Homer to develop habits of seeing and pictorial strategies that informed his work in other media.

During the Civil War (1861–1865), American artist Winslow Homer (1836–1910) served as a correspondent for Harper’s. His sketches of soldiers, both in battle on the front lines and in quieter moments back at camp, were reproduced to accompany the journal’s accounts of the conflict. Homer worked for Harper’s just as new technologies were making it possible to rapidly reproduce newsworthy images on a large scale. Working together with Harper’s editors and engravers, he employed a range of pictorial strategies to reassure skeptical readers that his illustrations were not fabrications, but eyewitness observations “drawn on the spot.”

Venue: University Research Gallery, Harvard Art Museums, 32 Quincy St, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA

Dates: August 31, 2019 - January 5, 2020
Hours: daily, 10am–5pm (closed on major holidays)
Admission: Adults, $15; seniors (65+), $13
Website: https://www.harvardartmuseums.org

Seaside art colonies

In the past many marine painters have set up home in a place by the seas that they liked to paint - and ended up living in what became a seaside art colony!

This is my blog post about Seaside Art Colonies - in the UK and USA  which provides a summary listing of seaside art colonies around the UK and USA - and also lists the artists associated with them.

My photo of the sign about the Rocky Neck Art Colony in Gloucester

I've made a bit of an effort to visit these in the past and at the time of writing the post....

To date my list includes: Newlyn, Lamorna, St Ives, Walberswick, Kirkcudbright, Chelsea, Monterey, Carmel, Gloucester and Cape Ann - plus others whose names escape me - although I suspect they're probably places like Prout's Neck which are associated with only one artist

New England: my marine sketches & New England artists

Back in 2006, I made various journeys across New England to visit and sketch at places associated with artists.

Maine

This was my post about Winslow Homer's home at Prout's Neck and the beach near his home.

• Thursday 21st September - "In the footsteps of Winslow Homer - nearly" (3 sketches) Massacre Pond, Scarborough beach and Lake Sebago, plus a tour of Portland in the evening

Scarborough Beach, Prout's Neck, Maine
- with Winslow Homer's home in the background (I think)
8" x 10" pencil and coloured pencil in Moleskine sketchbook
copyright Katherine Tyrrell

The Wyeths are associated with Maine too

• Saturday 23rd September - "The Farnsworth, the Wyeths and the rain" (2 sketches) A trip to Rockland to the Farnsworth Art Museum and Wyeth centre and an awful lot of rain.......

Massachusetts

The tree without a name
9" x 12", coloured pencil on Saunders Waterford HP
copyright Katherine Tyrrell

I also visited Rocky Neck (on the periphery of Gloucester), the oldest working art colony in the USA and Rockport.

• Sunday 17th September - "Rocky Neck and Rockport, Massachusetts" (3 sketches) 

Vermont

Tuesday 19th September - "The grass is greener in Vermont" (1 sketch) - this is about my visit with Bert Dodson, author of Keys to Drawing, in his studio - when he was working through proofs for his second book Drawing with Imagination - strategies for creativity.

How much nerve does it take to sketch a man who writes books about drawing!

David Hockney: Drawing from Life (2020) at the National Portrait Gallery

I'm very much looking forward to David Hockney: Drawing from Life - at the National Portrait Gallery in early 2020.

David Hockney Self Portrait, March 14 2012,
iPad drawing printed on paper Exhibition Proof 37 x 28"
© David Hockney

The NPG last week announced that they would be staging the first major exhibition devoted to David Hockney’s drawings in over twenty years.

The exhibition will run 27 February – 28 June 2020.

I remember extremely clearly visiting the last exhibition of his drawings in London. 
'David Hockney - A Drawing Retrospective' at the Royal Academy of Arts (Nov. 1995 - Jan. 1996) - and indeed still have the catalogue prominent in my bookshelves. It had a big impact on me and the regard I have for the use of coloured pencils to make drawings as fine art.

 David Hockney Celia, Carennac, August 1971, 
coloured pencil on paper 17 x 14"
© David Hockney Photo Credit: Richard Schmidt Collection The David Hockney Foundation; D

The exhibition 'David Hockney - A Drawing Retrospective', an exhibition of his drawings that I visited at the Royal Academy of Arts (Nov. 1995 - Jan. 1996), included very many of the pencil drawings of his family, friends and lovers. One of the reasons I like Hockney is because he has such a high regard for drawing apparently derived from his early training in Bradford. I gather he went through a phase of drawing according to the principles of American Abstract Expressionism at the Royal College of Art - drawings which represented feelings - but gave that up as a barren place to be. Anyway, he opened the Summer exhibition at the Royal Academy of Art this year and placed an emphasis on drawing as having fundamental importance in the world of art - as related in the BBC online interview with him "Taking Art back to the basics"

What's the Hockney exhibition at the NPG about?

Hockney is recognised as one of the master draughtsmen of our times and a champion of the medium. NPG

The exhibition will focus on

• Hockney as a draughtsman from the 1950s to now
• include 150 works from public and private collections across the world - and his own collection - with five main groups of drawings
• self portraits over time
• his depictions of his family and close friends
• his muse, Celia Birtwell;
• his mother, Laura Hockney; and
• his friends - the curator, Gregory Evans and master printer, Maurice Payne.

In doing so, it will seek to trace the trajectory of his drawing practice over a period of five decades. 

...it will examine not only how drawing is fundamental to the artist’s distinctive way of observing the world around him, but also how it has often been a testing ground for ideas and modes of expression later played out in his paintings. 

The exhibition will also include some previously unseen work - new portraits of some of the sitters and drawings which have previously never been shared in public!

I'm a big David Hockney fan and can activate a mental video in my head of most of his past exhibitions by just thinking about the title of the exhibition and which gallery it was at. I can even remember which drawing or painting I spent ages staring at! I'm a particular fan of his drawings and even contacted the website to find out how to get a hold of copy of his facsimile sketchbook as seen at the last Hockney Portraits exhibition at the NPG in 2006.

"What an artist is trying to do for people is bring them closer to something, because of course art is about sharing; you wouldn't be an artist unless you wanted to share an experience, a thought"
David Hockney / David Hockney Portraits - from the 2006 NPG exhibition

Hopefully we'll see more facsimile sketchbooks this time round?

Which media will the exhibition include?

David Hockney Mother, Bradford. 19 Feb 1979Sepia ink on paper 14 x 11 inches
© David Hockney Photo Credit: Richard Schmidt Collection The David Hockney Foundation;

It's going to include traditional drawing media and equipment

Camilla Dowse: the practice of period house portraiture on commission

Recently I read a post by very popular and award-winning painter Camilla Dowse on Facebook. It was a snippet about her practice when commissioned to paint a portrait of a house. I was intrigued and asked her to talk about her practice of working on commission to paint buildings - and below you can read what she had to say.

The images below include recent past and current commissions - demonstrating the different stages of sketching, studies and final painting she creates when executing a commission.
___________________________________

My work has always featured period buildings and so from very early on in my career I’ve been approached about painting to commission. 

Past Commission (2017) - acrylic on gesso, 41 x 41cm
copyright Camilla Dowse

Past commissions have included everything from small cottages and townhouses to large country homes. One corporate client even flew me to America to complete a series of paintings of the historic buildings found along the Freedom Trail in Boston.

For me, painting to commission is an almost entirely different process to painting for exhibition. There is an additional logistical and administrative responsibility. It’s a commercial process and I think it’s important to remember that I’m being hired by a client who has expectations.

For most people the experience of buying an artwork is simply to pay for a completed piece. But commissioning a painting of a building requires a visit to the location and preliminary work for client approval, so I’ve found it’s useful to break the process down into stages and to charge fairly for each stage.

Whatever the size of the commission the process is the same. I start by visiting the location and collecting reference to work from, then I make some drawings and a small study painting to determine the best composition.

Current Commission - sketches on location
copyright Camilla Dowse

Past Commission (2016) - watercolour sketch
copyright Camilla Dowse

Part of my process is to work from photographs, but only for logistical reasons. It isn’t always possible to tell from my paintings, but often the best angle on a location is found by standing in the middle of the road. Unfortunately with traffic these days that isn’t a practical place to sit and paint.

For this first stage I charge a small fee to cover my time and travel expenses, which is payable even if a final painting isn’t commissioned.

Current Commission: Sketch and Study painting
copyright Camilla Dowse

Past Commission(2017): Study Painting - gouache, 18 x 18cm
copyright Camilla Dowse

Past Commission (2016) : Study painting
copyright Camilla Dowse

Once the client approves the drawings and small study painting I ask them to sign a simple contract and pay a non-refundable deposit before I start work on the final painting. The remaining fee is payable on the client’s approval of the final piece.

Mostly people commission a painting of a building because they have a sentimental attachment it, and it’s great to see faces light up when you present them with a painting they love.

Past commission (2016) - Completed painting (76cm x 76cm)
copyright Camilla Dowse

But commissioning a painting is, for most people, something they do once in a lifetime, so it’s my job to help them through the process and to make them feel as confident and in control of the process as I can, to minimise the chance of them being surprised by something they’re not keen on.

My goal is always to complete the commission to their absolute satisfaction.

____________________________________

Camilla Dowse is opening her studio to visitors as part of the Bucks Art Weeks from 9-24 June 

VIDEO: Wildlife Field Study sketches by the SWLA

This is my video (below) of the sketches and artwork produced by members of the Society of Wildlife Artists during Wildlife Study Projects in the field at:

1. Kingcombe Meadows Nature Reserve, Dorset Wildlife Reserve - during a Residency by SWLA in May 2017 
2. RSPB/SWLA Wallasea Island Wild Coast Project 

For more about each of these places/projects click the links above.

The sketches are being displayed in the North Galleries of the Annual Exhibition of the Society of Wildlife Artists at the Mall Galleries - which runs until 1pm on Sunday 29th October.

Given my personal preference for botanical subject matter it's unsurprising that I was particularly taken by Carry Akroyd's sketches of the Kingscombe Meadows.

Amazing sketches pf Kingscombe Meadows by Carry Akroyd SWLA

Sketches and a woodblock print by Matt Underwood

Some of the sketches from the John Busby Seabird Drawing Bursaries can be seen right at the end of the video

My review of the exhibition - which is taking a bit longer than anticipated - follows tomorrow.

See also my blog post Awards - Society of Wildlife Artists Annual Exhibition 2017

Eileen Hogan - an artist not in residence

Eileen Hogan has a simply marvellous exhibition at the Garden Museum. It's the outcome of inventing a new concept - "the artist not in residence"

She was appointed the artist in residence at the museum just before it closed for a major refurbishment funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund.

The museum reopened in May of this year and includes an exhibition by Eileen Hogan which comprises:

• some sublime paintings of gardens around and about London
• a large scale exhibit - on a wall - of her way of working as an artist not in residence.

I've loved Eileen Hogan's paintings for a very long time - ever since I first saw one in one of the first Lynn Painter Stainer's exhibitions at Painter-Stainers Hall in the City of London.

It was a real pleasure to see the exhibition of her paintings at the Garden Museum - see below for why!

The exhibition finishes on 17th September. See the end for why I'm posting this far too late!

There is a book about the exhibition for those who don't manage to see it - which I also recommend.

How she works - as "an artist not in residence"

Her idea for how to be an artist NOT in residence was that she would develop a project.

She would create a virtual garden museum through a year of excursions to gardens around London.

She wrote to lots of people she knew and some who were associated with the Museum to ask them to nominate a London Green Space that was important to them - giving reasons why it mattered. It could be a private garden or a public space - or even a remembered space glimpsed from the top of a bus.  It could also be related to any time of year.  She was surprised by some of the places people chose.

Her intention was then to choose a dozen sites - one for each month of the year - and turn these into large finished paintings.

The exhibition includes:

• her sketchbooks
• a number of oil sketches
• etchings drawing from material in her sketchbook
• photographs of her at work on her sketches

The exhibition of the process is as engaging as the paintings - and provides food for thought for any artist engaged in a similar project to record places.

Brompton Cemetery and Chiswick house - Photos of the way she works and sketchbooks

Chelsea Physic Garden - Photos of the way she works and sketchbooks

The paintings

Sketches from The Battle of The Somme

Today is the 100th anniversary of the start of the Battle of the Somme in which over a million people from 50 countries died in five months during the First World War.

On the First Day of the Somme:

• the British Fourth Army had 57,470 casualties, of whom 19,240 men were killed. 
• The French had 1,590 casualties and 
• the German 2nd Army lost 10,000–12,000 men.

This is about the way the battle was recorded at the time by those who drew - officially and otherwise - and the conditions that they found while they were there.

With the French and British armies calling upon troops from the colonies and the French Foreign Legion, units from 25 nations and 50 countries were involved in the Battle of the Somme. In five months of combat, the total number of men killed, wounded and missing reached over one million and entire nations were sent into mourning. Casualties amounted to 420,000 for the British, 190,000 for the French and 420,000 for the Germans. The landscape of the north-east of the Somme was completely devastated; villages were razed to the ground and fields were turned into lunar-landscapes by shelling. http://www.somme-battlefields.com/

Drawings of the Somme Battle and its aftermath

Those who drew varied. Some were or became famous. Others are little known. I'm guessing there are probably a fair few sketchbooks which never made it into official archives.

Those drawing the Somme include:

• Muirhead Bone (1876-1953)- the first official war artist. He became an active member of the War Artists' Advisory Committee in the Second World War. Bone was a draughtsman and etcher who had studied art in the evenings at the Glasgow School of Art and was a member of the New English Art Club.
• E H Shepard (1879-1976) - who subsequently provided illustrations for Winnie the Pooh and The Wind in the Willows
• George Hoffman Spencer - an architect and artist whose estate bequeathed his sketchbook to the Imperial War Museum. It contains some 150 drawings. 
• Captain Robert Mauchlen (1885-1972) drew a series of sketches during the war, including several during the Battle of the Somme.
• J.B Morrall - A sketchbook of Morrall's drawings was sent in by Mrs Morrall (unclear whether this is the artist's wife or mother), and the Imperial War Museum purchased five of them

The war artist Lieutenant Muirhead Bone crossing a muddy road, Maricourt, September 1916
Imperial War Museum Collections |© IWM (Q 1464)

Commissioned as an honorary second lieutenant, Bone served as a war artist with the Allied forces on the Western Front and also with the Royal Navy for a time. He arrived in France on 16 August 1916, during the Battle of the Somme and produced 150 drawings of the war before returning to England in October 1916. Wikipedia

George Spencer Hoffman drew the soldiers who were exhausted or wounded and killed in the battle.

Vignettes of soldiers on the Somme July 2016
First World War Sketchbook Volume 1 - Salvage, Somme, July 1916
George Spencer Hoffman (1875-1950)
Imperial War Museum Archive

EH Shepherd MC OBE (1879-1976) sketched his dugout in watercolour and the combat area around where he served.

Though in his mid-thirties when World War I broke out in 1914, Shepard received a commission as a second lieutenant in the Royal Garrison Artillery, an arm of the Royal Artillery. By 1916, Shepard started working for the Intelligence Department sketching the combat area within the view of his battery position. On 16 February 1917, he was made an acting captain whilst second-in-command of a siege battery, and briefly served as an acting major in late April and early May of that year, when he reverted to the acting rank of captain. He was promoted to lieutenant on 1 July 1917. Whilst acting as Captain, he was awarded the Military Cross for his service at the Battle of Passchendaele. Wikipedia

Our BC post copse B, near Maricourt Somme August 1916 E H Shepard Lieut.
pencil and watercolour wash, 257mm c 180mm
Imperial War Museum | Gift of Mrs E H Shepard, 1976

You can see more of EH Shepard's watercolour sketches from the First World War on the Imperial War Museum's website.

“Shepard went out to the Somme in June or July, and his brother, who he was close to, followed a couple of days later,” says curator Olivia Ahmad. “But he was killed almost instantly. When Shepard found out, he went to find his grave. He took a map with him and drew a tiny cross marking the co-ordinates where his brother was buried. All of the other maps he had were working documents, so they’re a bit tatty, but this one is pristine, with just this one tiny notation,” she adds.E.H. Shepard: An Illustrator’s War | Creative Review

Some were adept at sketching soldiers in  action. This is a very impressive sketch by Captain Robert Mauchlen MC (1885-1972)

Sketch of the attack on the Butte de Warlencourt on 5 November 1916
by Captain Robert Mauchlen MC (1885-1972)
Sketchbook in the Battle of the Somme archives of Durham County Record Office

The Butte de Warlencourt is an ancient burial mound off the Albert–Bapaume road, north-east of Le Sars in the Somme département of northern France. .....The Germans constructed deep dugouts throughout the Butte and surrounded it by several belts of barbed wire, making it a formidable defensive position in advance of Gallwitz Riegel (the Gird Trenches). After the Battle of Flers–Courcelette (15–22 September) the view from the Butte dominated the new British front line and was used by the Germans for artillery observation. During the Battle of Le Transloy (1–20 October), part of the Battle of the Somme, the Butte de Warlencourt was the subject of several attacks by the British Fourth Army, which were costly failures; attacks in November also failed. Wikipedia

The artillery shelling reduced everything to nothing. This is an article about How War Artist Muirhead Bone Recorded The Battle of The Somme

An Artillery Barrage on the Somme Battlefield:
Mametz Wood, Contalmaison Château, Fricourt Wood and Delville Wood in the distance.
Drawn from King's Hill, Fricourt, September, 1916
Muirhead Bone
pencil and wash 330mm x 501mm
Imperial War Museum Collection | Art.IWM ART 2098

Villages, trees and people were all obliterated - and the artists continued to sketch and record.

Contalmaison was a village which was a target on the very first day - on 1st July 2016

Contalmaison can be found about three miles north-east of Albert and around half a mile south of Pozieres, on the southern side of the main D929 road. The village was an objective for the 34th Division on the 1st of July 1916, but it took many more days of hard fighting before the 8th and 9th Green Howards of the 23rd Division were able to take it at 4.30 p.m. on the 10th of July.
World War One Battlefields

Contalmaison in 1916 : the remains of the village
J. B. Morrall

watercolour on paper, 203 mm  x 304mm
Imperial War Museum Collection | © IWM (Art.IWM ART 205)

a view across the devastated village of Contalmaison, which has been reduced to piles of rubble and tree stumps, with only a single recognisable building visible.
(IWM)

'The abomination of desolation'

Mametz Wood: after the autumn advance, 1916. 

J. B. Morrall

watercolour on paper, 228 mm  x 286 mm

Imperial War Museum Collection | © IWM (Art.IWM ART 202)

a view across the devastated Mametz Wood, with splintered tree stumps and flooded shell holes. The body of a dead German infantryman lies in the foreground, the legs visible but the torso and head hidden by the water of a flooded shell hole. 
(IWM)

Then the wounded were brought home - first embarking on the ships. This is a lithograph by Muirhead Bone of the embarkation of the wounded which would have been based on sketchbook studies at the time. Muirhead Bone created a portfolio of 60 prints at the end of the war based on studies made while working as a war artist.

War Drawings By Muirhead Bone: Taking the Wounded
lithograph on paper; 505mm x 378mm

Then they return home via London.

This is the view I have of Charing Cross Station every time I return home from a visit to the National Gallery or National Portrait Gallery. It's therefore especially poignant to realise the function the station also played in bringing home the wounded from the Battle of the Somme. (The painting below was painted the year after the war finished.)

A view of the exterior of Charing Cross railway station. The Strand is lined with crowds of civilians watching Red Cross ambulances leaving the station.

Outside Charing Cross Station, July 1916.
Casualties from the Battle of the Somme arriving in London
J Hobson Lobley 1919
oil on vanvas, 2057mm x 3073mm
Imperial War Museum Collection
© IWM (Art.IWM ART 2759)

There's something very special about recording an event which you witnessed.

There's also something very special about maintaining an archive - and then sharing it and allowing others to share so that others can see what went before....

See also

• my earlier blog post about the 2013 exhibition 'Stanley Spencer: Heaven in a Hell of War' at Somerset House
• the British Library article Why paint war? British and Belgian artists in World War One -Article by: Paul Gough

Lucian Freud Archive of Sketchbooks and Drawings gifted to the nation

A Lucian Freud Archive of sketchbooks and drawings has been gifted to the nation by The Estate of Lucian Freud in settlement of £2,940,000 Inheritance Tax following the artist's death in 2011. 

The Archive comprises

• 47 Sketchbooks spanning his career from the mid-1940s up until his death
• additional drawings; 
• a collection of 162 childhood drawings and 
• a collection of letters from Lucian Freud

A Sketchbook Drawing from the Archive of Lucian Freud
allocated to the National Portrait Gallery, London,
as part of the Arts Council England’s Acceptance in Lieu Scheme
Copyright: The Lucian Freud Archive

The Freud Archive's permanent home will be the National Portrait Gallery which hosted a fantastic exhibition of his portraits in 2012 - Lucian Freud Portraits. It became the Gallery’s most visited ticketed exhibition. 

See my blog posts about the 2012 posthumous exhibitions about Lucian Freud which all opened in London in February 2012

• Review: Lucian Freud Portraits at National Portrait Gallery 10 Feb 2012
• Video: Sue Tilley talks about modelling for Lucian Freud 08 Feb 2012
• Other Current Exhibitions of Work by or about Lucian Freud 11 Feb 2012
• "Lucian Freud Drawings" - a life in line 16 Feb 2012

I now know what the "very exciting exhibition" next year that the NPG staff could not tell me about last week! The National Portrait Gallery plans to:

• make the archive, which has never been published or exhibited, accessible to the public.
• display a selection of representative items from the archive in early summer 2016. 

The Lucian Freud Archive

Lucian Freud (1922 – 2011) was one of the most important and influential artists of his generation. 

The importance of the Archive is that it will:

• invaluable insight into his working practice - several drawings show the beginnings of portraits, such as Lord Goodman’s, often starting with the nose and eyes before developing outwards.
• how he used his sketchbooks - he apparently used them as they came to hand rather than in any chornological or or thematic sequence. One of the sketchbooks – originally an 18th Century ledger – contains drawings of Caroline Blackwood that relate to Freud’s early masterpiece Hotel Bedroom, 1954. 
• be a major resource for the study of his work - they enable researchers to trace the evolution of Freud’s portraits from the stage of initial conception.
• extend its understanding of the artist’s portrait work - the archive includes numerous studies which relate to major works by Freud now in significant collections. 
• give added context to the two works by Freud in the Gallery’s Collection, a 1963 self-portrait in oils and a charcoal drawing of Lord Goodman. 
• compliment the Gallery's portraits of Lucian Freud including 
• a FrankAuerbach etching; and 
• an extensive collection of photographs by David Dawson, Bruce Bernard, Cecil Beaton and others.

The Childhood Drawings

The collection of childhood drawings by Freud date back to when lived in Germany, before his family fled to England in 1933 when Hitler came to power. 

His mother used to keep and archive all his childhoold drawings which she then annotated with a date to indicate his age at the time he drew them and a place to remind where they were living at the time. I saw a number of them in the exhibition of his drawings at the exhibition of Lucian Freud Drawings opens at Blain|Southern Gallery - and was extremely impressed. They're absolutely fascinating - and you can see some of them in my review of the exhibition

The Acceptance in Lieu scheme

The Acceptance in Lieu scheme (AIL) is administered by Arts Council England. 

• The Acceptance in Lieu Panel advises on whether property "accepted in lieu" is of suitable importance and offered at a value which is fair to both nation and taxpayer. 
• AIL enables taxpayers to pay inheritance tax by transferring important works of art and other important heritage objects into public ownership. 
• The taxpayer is given the full open market value of the item, which then becomes the property of a public museum, archive or library. 
• In the last five years (2010 -14) the scheme has bought objects to the value of £150m into public collections (see the Cultural Gifts Scheme and Acceptance in Lieu Report 2014)

You see more when you draw #startdrawing

The Rijksmuseum has started a campaign - #startdrawing - to get more people drawing. I hope the art museums in this country give the campaign their endorsement too.

“In our busy lives we don’t always realize how beautiful something can be. We forget how to look really closely. Drawing helps because you see more when you draw. People who want to draw are always welcome in the Rijksmuseum.”

Wim Pijbes, General Director Rijksmuseum

First - something of what happened last month during the #start drawing campaign.

Then some of my sketches done in art galleries and museums!

The Rijksmuseum used a banner to indicate people should stop taking photos and start drawing!

In October - as part of the Big Draw - the Rijksmuseum launched a large-scale campaign called #startdrawing.  The museum building featured a large banner encouraging drawing and ‘banning’ photography.

The aim was to help visitors discover and appreciate the beauty of art and history through drawing – because you see more when you draw and get closer to the artists’ secrets.

It invited people to visit the museum’s galleries to draw and learn how to look at art

You can:

• check out the drawings produced by looking at Instagram and using the #startdrawing tag to search
• get some inspiration from the collection of drawings in the Rijksmuseum - I love looking at these

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The campaign is carrying on after the Big Draw month of October

The museum wants to make it clear that anyone who wants to draw in the Rijksmuseum will always be welcome.

From now on every Saturday will be Drawing Day and visitors will be able to pick up a sketchbook at the Information Desk. During each season throughout the year there will be Drawing Tours and public drawing lessons alongside the regular programme in the Drawing School.

#startdrawing is made possible in part by the Rijkmuseum's main sponsor ING

This is the Rijksmuseum's Facebook Page

For more information about the #startdrawing campaign go to www.rijksmuseum.nl/startdrawing

When was the last time you went drawing in the art galleries and museums you visit?

Here's are three of my very many sketches done in galleries and museums in the last few years. It's certainly been my experience that you see more when you draw!

Viewing Renoir Landscapes at the National Gallery (2007)
pencil and coloured pencils in Moleskine sketchbook

High Watermark at the Mall Galleries (2011)
pen and ink and coloured pencils in Moleskine sketchbook

Judy at the Wallace Collection (2009)
pen and ink

My book - what happened next

My book published at the beginning of this month. Below I highlight what has happened since publication and the many different countries where you can now find it!

My book - with 365 tips and techniques for drawing and sketching
with three different spines, titles and covers for the three different editions of my book
(top) UK (middle) USA (bottom) English edition for Asia
It's still the same book inside the covers!

So what's happened since publication?

A lot! I really very much appreciate:

• the kind people who have been sharing information about the book on their websites, blogs and Facebook before and after publication. Very many thanks to all those who have been doing this - Sally Strand, Coral Guest, Gayle Mason, Sarah Morrish, Shevaun Doherty, Ester Roi, Laura Frankstone, Loriann Signori, Paula Pertile, Melissa B. Tubbs, Alyson Champ and Lis Watkins.  (Please do let me know if I've missed anybody out)

• 

  Sketching 365 in Foyles
  - nearly next to Andrew Loomis!

  my book's new Facebook Followers - Lots of new people have signed up to follow my book's Facebook Page Katherine Tyrrell: 365 Tips for Drawing and Sketching - and are very welcome!
• even more thanks and appreciation to those people who bought the book and have been sharing reviews - Mary Kemp, Coral Guest, Laura Murphy Frankstone and last but not least Parkablogs (see his video at the bottom of the post)

It is packed choc a bloc with so much information, from how to draw to what to use, how to sharpen a pencil even, and drawings on every page. A feast of sketches you wish you'd done yourself, and not all by Katherine but loads of guest artists, different styles, different materials. I wish I'd had this book at the start of my arty journey. It would have saved a lot of time. Mary Kemp - Why I Love "Sketching 365" by Katherine Tyrrell

This is a specialised and practical anthology of drawing methods and techniques. Focusing on media of all kinds, from pen to pastel, and carbon to crayon, the possibilities are both lavish and simple, splendid and modest, and accompanied by carefully organised tips and guidelines that flow through the pages like a rainbow of ideas yet to be discovered. Coral Guest A New Book by Katherine Tyrrell

It’s a book about drawing, all sorts of drawing, and it will be helpful to anyone who draws, for whatever reason, or anyone who would like to. Organized into 365 points or tips, the book is both encyclopedic and accessible. Tyrrell’s writing style is clear and calm. The lucidity of her text is matched by the excellent design of the book’s interior, which is clean, crisp, and visually balanced. Laura Murphy (on Amazon)

• Reviews on Amazon.com have all been five stars which is AMAZING!  Only four so far but hopefully more to come as these do make a big difference - as you can see below. On Amazon.com Drawing 365 is currently

• #2 in the Hot New Releases list of books about Drawing
• #28 in the Hot New Releases list of books about Art & Photography!!!



Drawing 365 is #2 in the top new releases in books about drawing on Amazon.com

• For those living in the rest of the world - Sketching 365 is now also being listed on Amazon (as an English Language book) 
• in Europe - in France, Germany, Italy, Spain
• in Japan and China

I never thought I'd see my drawing on the book cover in Japan
(I think they probably ought to be listing the "English for Asia" edition!)

• Many thanks to those who have shared photos of the book in bookshops. I get a really big thrill about these - it's like sending your children out into the world and being surprised where they get to. That's very 'cheesy' I know but I'm not going to lie that's really what it feels like! I absolutely loved it when I got the very first one (in New York - below) from Bernadette Madden. I'm also posting these to Facebook - and now the bookshops are joining in as well! 

I cannot tell you how weird it feels to know that MY BOOK is in
Barnes and Noble bookshop at 54th and 3rd in New York City!!!
Very many thanks to Bernadette Madden for the photo

• plus, of course, the bookshops have been listing it. All those in the UK will know that getting listed by a chain like WH Smith is a very big deal!  I've even discovered online book sites in Canada, Denmark, Estonia, Poland, the Czech Republic, India, USA and New Zealand which are listing it (even if it is not yet available to order at the latter - presumably they're waiting for stock)!
• and finally Drawing 365 has been listed on Goodreads

• 

  The article about my Book on Artists Network
  

  Drawing Basics: Learn 10 New Habits

  By: Cherie Haas, Online Editor | January 13, 2015

  In terms of Editorial: Last week, my new book - and the headlines of my first 10 tips - were highlightedin an article called Drawing Basics: Learn 10 New Habits by Cherie Haas on the Artists Network. "Drawing Basics" is the title of the first major chapter in my Book - and "Learn Ten New Habits" is the very first section in that chapter.  I decided to start the book by focusing on drawing in terms of behaviour rather than skills - because I really believe it's the habit of drawing and the habits you can develop associated with drawing which really help improve confidence and drawing ability.  However a few other tips can also help too... ;) PLUS There's an interview with me about My Favourite Things in the February edition of "Artists and Illustrators".

Note: My book is one book inside - but it has three different titles, covers and publishers. These are:

• "Drawing 365" - published on the 1st January in the USA  by North Light Books
• "Sketching 365" - published on the 8 January in the UK by Apple Press - this blog post provides the list of artists included in the book
• 365 Hints & Tips for Drawing & Sketching is the English Language version in Asia published by Page One Publishing.

My biggest thank you....

.... has to go to the artists who contributed images to the book. 

I've started sharing information about who these artists are - and their images - on the book's Facebook page and will be continuing to do for some time to come! Sharing images has been considerably helped by the latest "3 drawings a day for five days" challenge currently viral on Facebook. 

 What I'm very struck by is how different everybody's drawings are. That's very much what the book is about - helping people gain confidence and realise their potential to be their own inner artist - with their own very unique style!