121st Annual Exhibition of The Pastel Society

I visited the The Pastel Society's 121st Annual Exhibition earlier this week for the Private View. It is currently on display in all the galleries at the Mall Galleries,  The Mall, London SW1

• It's open every day 10am to 5pm (closes 3pm on final day) until 16 February
• Admission is £5
• HOWEVER you can have FREE ENTRY for Two to the exhibition  (normal price £10) if, as regular readers, you quote "Making A Mark" to the people at the Gallery Desk at the entrance.

I'm probably going back tomorrow afternoon to see which paintings and drawings won prizes which were announced just before I left on Tuesday. More of these anon.

It's a good exhibition whether or not you are a fan, as I am of dry media.

A Table at Seven by Kitty Glavin
Winner of the Pastel Society Young Artist Award
Her work was created in oil pastels on several pieces of paper which were stick together
and hung without a frame!

Below you can find out:

• how to view all the artworks online - both members, open entry and my photos
• how you can meet individual artists in the gallery, and what talks and demos are happening during the remainder of the exhibition
• my commentary about this exhibition and, if you like, review my past reviews of this exhibition!

View all the works online

You can view a folder of my photos of the exhibition on my Making A Mark Facebook Page (it's public - no need to be a member) - and you can see general views and images of the works I liked in this post.

Some of my photos from the Private View

You can also see artworks as follows

• Members Gallery
• Open Entry Gallery

Review: Episode 3 of Portrait Artist of the Year 2020

I watched the third episode of Sky Arts Portrait Artist of the Year this morning having been occupied with Life Drawing Live on Tuesday night when it was broadcast. (Why do they always do the good art programmes at the same time?)

What was unusual was that I realised right from the off that I was going to be watching the whole thing knowing who was the winner - having met the artist at the semi-final. It was interesting because having heard comments made by Judges about the heat winner's painting in the semi - and their reference back to the heat painting - I've been really interested since last April to see how the portrait was developed!!

discussing the shortlist

Episode 3: The Artists, Self-portraits and Sitters

The artists lining up to hear who got shortlisted

As always links to

• the artist's website are embedded in their names.
• their social media sites are also provided.

The professional artists

The professional artists are:

• Cara Dunne (Facebook | Instagram) Completed her degree in Fine Art Painting and History of Art in the National College of Art and Design, Dublin in 2016. Her chosen medium is oil paint on canvas or board. She also works in graphic design, illustration, film-making and social media management. Last year she did a project 27 Portraits in 27 days. In January she was exhibiting at The Royal Ulster Academy Annual Exhibition 2020
• Inge Du Plessis (Facebook | Instagram) This is a link to her self-portrait The Woman who Stood Still for Too Long (90 x 55cm) - about her turning 50. Originally from Cape Town, South Africa she moved to the UK in 2009 and now lives in Maidenhead in Berkshire. Completed a Fine Art Honours Degree and have been painting professionally since 1999 - after many years working as a cabinet maker and running her own design and manufacturing business. Previously participated in PAOTY 2016.
• Owain Hunt (Facebook | Twitter | Instagram) Born in 1994, he is self taught, paints in his bedroom and developed his artistic practice whilst studying for degrees in Economics and History from the University of Bristol, reading, observing and experimenting between lectures. Since graduating in 2016 he has pursued a career as a painter, working to commission. Is currently showing a drawing in the Pastel Society Annual Exhibition which opened today at the Mall Galleries and will also be showing in the Royal Society of British Artists 2020 Show later. He's also very accomplished at marketing his profile to the press.
• Mark H Lawrence (Facebook | Instagram) Born in Edinburgh in 1968. Studied BA Fine Art (Hons) Grays School of Art, Aberdeen (1990-94); MA Fine Art at University of East London (2009-10);  PGDE Art & Design Secondary Education, The University of Edinburgh 2018. He currently teaches Art & Design in secondary education, and practices art in London. One of his double portraits was selected for the BP Portrait Exhibition 2018 - and I remember it well but I don't think I met him as he's not in my artists with their paintings post. 
• Michael James Monaghan (Facebook | Twitter | Instagram) a Scottish artist and Celtic fan who lives and works in West Lothian. 
• Neil O'Driscoll (Facebook | Twitter | Instagram) - This is a link to his VERY different self portrait. He's a multidisciplinary artist based between Ireland and the UK with qualifications in art, crafts and film-making. Has worked between the fields of illustration and film for the past ten years, whilst expanding into video design for theatre. Currently based in Margate, Kent, Neil works largely from home and undertakes private commissions for illustration, portraiture and landscapes. He used pastels for the Heat
• Michael Sheppard (Facebook | Instagram) - video - Graduated with a Fine Art Painting and Drawing degree from Northampton University in 2017 and subsequently an MA at Nottingham Trent University. He has autism and works in pen and ink and just switches off when he draws. Uses mj the art traveller as his brand name. I found this good interview with him.

The amateur artists

The amateur artists are:

• Ancy Jacob ( Instagram) Comes from Kerala in India where she studied. Works for an NHS Foundation Trust in Essex. She's also a freelance painter specialising in portraiture in watercolour and oils
• Jean O'Riordan (Facebook | Instagram) This is a link to her self portrait. Jean comes from Cork in Ireland and was 16 when she participated in the Heats last April and became the youngest ever participant of Portrait Artist of the Year. Ath the time her preferred medium was Japanese Copic markers.

My entry was really last minute, I got it in right on the last day and I was panicking. I sent in one of my portraits, and I had to write a lot about myself and my art.

The self portraits

What marked out these self portraits was a couple of really unusual ones by Inge Du Plessis and Neil O'Driscoll. They both had a surreal, whimsical element to them.

As usual a number of the portraits were nothing like the way people painted in the Heat - while others had a great deal of continuity.

The Sitters

The sitters in this heat were:

• Len Goodman - ex-ballroom dancing world champion and the Head Judge of Strictly Come Dancing and is still the Head Judge of Dancing with the Stars (age 75)
• Dame Harriet Walter - the actress - who was a stunning sitter and a woman who was not afraid to acknowledge her age (she's 69)
• Tinie Tempah - a British rapper, singer, songwriter and entrepreneur - who had his bluetooth earphones in and fidgeted the whole time as he listened to music.

The interior of the 

Episode 3: Themes

Smiling faces

I remember when Sandy Nairne was Director of the National Portrait Gallery he commented - in response to criticisms about their new commissioned portrait of their new Patron (the Duchess of Cambridge - see Paul Emsley and the Duchess of Cambridge - two videos and a drawing) that you could probably count the number of portraits in the NPG of somebody smiling on the fingers of maybe one hand. That's because nobody can hold a smile for a life sitting - it's just far too painful. 

So it was interesting that when Len asked whether they'd like him smiling and started to do so that nobody pointed out that he'd be unable to keep it going.  As I expected the smile came and went and came and went etc etc.

Kathleen suggested matchsticks to prop up the grin.

I know with absolute certainty any time I see a self portrait which contains somebody smiling, I'm  99.99% certain this has been painted from a photo rather than from life i.e. even an artist would give up on trying to paint themselves from life smiling!!

Painting older people - and lines

Live Drawing Live - my results and conclusions

I have to say Life Drawing Live flew by yesterday and the two hours were up in not time at all.

You can see my results below with some quickie comments from me.

Live Drawing Live - The programme on BBC4

Here's what I think about the programme. In summary.......

Shows promise if technologically challenged. Could do better.

• good tutors - and nice to be able to see Daphne and Lachlan in a tutorial role rather than as Judges. I'd banged on at length about how the BBC needs to stop creating "gameshows for artists" and start focusing on its remit to educate as well as entertain and this went a long way to doing that
• a bit like the Iowa Caucus one had the distinct impression they'd not tested all the link ups and technology before the show - except in isolation. When it came to bending under the pressure of real life and people sending in drawings the system crashed. 
• Something went wrong with the curation of images. I need to watch it back but it seems to me as if the bulk of the images were coming from the various studios set up around the UK rather than from genuine images from the public who were al sat in front of their TVs EXCEPT
• you couldn't draw yourself unless you had an extra feed which allowed you access to Pose Cam - and where was the access to information about that prior to the programme?

BUT THE BIG ONE was

• you couldn't watch the TV and draw at the same time and process your drawings to email them in.....

So I drew from my Pose Cam on my iPad Pro with the audio off and watched the TV - but mainly listened to it.

As somebody pointed out it might have been better to do it the other way round and have Pose Cam on your big screen and the programme on your tablet.

The one thing I regret not doing is screen dumping the poses so I could have another go within the same timescales.

PS IMO Diane Ali still can't draw..... I stopped watching after her hands.

The programme is available on iPlayer for the next 28=9 days - but I'm unclear whether or not the Pose Cam will work given it was all live. Obviously you can ignore all the stuff about processing your drawings and sending them in.

My drawings

I haven't done any life drawings in ages, had just got in from the Pastel Society Private View and could barely move at all due to the problems with osteoarthritis and three pieces of bone fragments floating around in my ankle.

So the notion of trying to find a range of things to draw with was out and, having got in at five to 8 o'clock I just grabbed the nearest A3 drawing pad and a graphite stick.

Below (and above) is what I produced.

During the first pose with the chap I was trying to work out what I needed to do to access Pose Cam i.e.

• remember/find my BBC account login name and password
• find the right website URL (where was the prompt running along the bottom of the picture when you needed it?)
• then had to work out to get Pose Cam going.....
• which left me with 5 minutes for the hands and feet pose

I did think more than once that it would have been nice to have had more notice of this. I crawled all over the web on Friday before writing Views about the Nude and Life Drawing Live - on BBC next week and I saw absolutely nothing about Pose Cam and the need to log in!

Art from the BBC Archives - a retrospective

The BBC has been having a rush of art to the BBC4 programme controller's brain. Moreover it is raiding the BBC Archives as a way of making television programmes about art while spending very little. Or as the programme makers put it

Delving into the BBC Archives to reveal a colourful, surprising and rounded portrait of how television has chosen to portray the world’s most famous artists and artistic movements over the last 60 years.

This post is about:

• another new series of programmes about art - on Sunday night (which started last night)
• a BBC Archives website Collection of various Art Programmes

Art on the BBC

The series or four programmes (4 x 60 minutes) about "Art on the BBC" comprise:

• 2nd February 2020: The Story of the Nude (now available on iPlayer)

Humans have been drawing nudes for almost 30,000 years. Kate Bryan explores six decades of BBC archive to discover how television has influenced our understanding of the nude.

• 9nd February 2020: The Many Faces of Picasso - a television history of Picasso who the BBC term "the controversial godfather of modern art" - curated by David Dibosa (pictured) 
• 16th February 2020: The personality of Michelangelo - curated by Sona Datta
• 23rd February 2020: Constable - pushing the boundaries of landscape painting - with Rose Balston

It follows on from a programme in 2018 (repeated in 2019) about The Genius of Leonardo. The video below gives you a sense of the approach of these programmes.

ART ON THE BBC_THE GENIUS OF LEONARDO_CLIP1 from Alleycats Films on Vimeo.

Art from the Archives - The Art Collection

You can also go direct to a BBC Archives website Collection of various Art Programmes and view the various programmes from the Archives which are available to view on iPlayer.

These include:

• Omnibus: Lucian Freud (1988)  - I've watched this one and will no doubt view it again (Available for over a year)

For over 40 years, the artist Lucian Freud has allowed his paintings to speak for themselves, but in this week's Omnibus he talks for the first time about his work and ambitions.

'The greatest living realist painter' is critic Robert Hughes' description of Lucian Freud, whose major retrospective at London's Hayward Gallery earlier this year, brought together the paintings of a lifetime. The exhibition was seen as a revelation, just as it had been in Washington and Paris. 

• LS Lowry at work (17 July 1957 short 3 minute extract) - The artist LS Lowry discusses his painting technique, in a documentary about his work. Originally broadcast 17 July 1957 . I don't think I've ever heard his voice before

"The buildings always come before the figures"

• Rossetti - Sex, Drugs and Oil Paint (2003) - Andrew Graham-Dixon considers the work of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, the painter and poet who reinvented the Victorian ideal of female beauty... and who dug up his wife's coffin to retrieve poems he had buried with her. 

available on iPlayer

• Release: Pop Goes To The Hayward (5th July 1969) 

On July 9 London's Hayward Gallery becomes host to one of the largest exhibitions of Pop Art to be seen in this country. In the words of one of its exponents, Pop Art is ‘young, witty, sexy, glamorous, and big business’. It is an instant art form and has had instant success. Robert Hughes talks to leading pop artists in New York amid the ad-mass living that inspires their art. Artists featured include Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Indiana, Jasper Johns, Claes Oldenburg, James Rosenquist, George Segal and Andy Warhol. 

Book Review: Notes from the Atelier by Julie Douglas

This book review of Notes from the Atelier

• follows on from Julie Douglas's appearance on Sky Arts in Episode 2 of the Portrait Artist of the Year 2020 last Tuesday and 
• precedes her studio appearing on Life Drawing Live! programme on BBC4 this coming Tuesday!

This coming Tuesday I am delighted that my studio will be part of the first live nation-wide life drawing session, on BBC4 with Lachlan GoudieJulie Douglas, Notes from The Atelier

Cover of Notes from the Atelier by Julie Douglas

My book review is long overdue(!) Its publication coincided with a lot of other things going on and then it hit the pile of books to be reviewed. Having now reviewed it I'm only sorry I didn't do so earlier as I would have been recommending it to people!

Notes from The Atelier is the first book by Julie Douglas, an award-winning designer, artist, illustrator - and art teacher who has been running her own Art School in Northern Ireland - comprising weekly classes and workshops - for over 25 years.

I first got to know Julie via coloured pencil activities when her artwork kept winning major awards. Then in 2015 we met up for the first time when I went across to give a lecture for a Drawing Consortium she organised at Belfast University.  Last year we met up again the Sky Arts Portrait Artist of the Year heat that she participated in and I was watching.

When you read this book it's just like meeting up with Julie. It's very relaxed but very knowledgeable and informative with lots and lots of positivity and encouraging noises!  

If you want to see what I mean watch the video!

Let's DRAW! With Julie Douglas from Julie Douglas on Vimeo.

Title: Notes from The Atelier

Synopsis

The aim of this book is to provide practical steps to successful observation, drawing and painting. It places an emphasis on learning how to see as a stepping stone to being able to draw and paint effectively.

The core of the book is 32 exercises which she has used with her Weekly Class - in other words

• they're not only tried and tested but also refined as a result 
• you get to see some of the artwork by her students - which means you can compare what you've produced to what her students in her weekly cass produced doing the exact same exercise.

a double page spread about pencil shading and developing tonal values

The book also contains LOTS of practical tips relating to art materials, drawing and painting practice and looking after your wellbeing which you draw and paint.

I think it's really suitable for people who are complete beginners - as well as those looking to improve.

Summary Review

RECOMMENDED: This is an excellent book for somebody wanting to learn how to draw and paint but unable to get to a class. It's very stimulating and very accessible in the sense that, while reading it, it is exactly like having Julie in the room with you. Everything you need to know is articulated very clearly and in very clear steps. 

Plus it has 45 x 5 star reviews on Amazon UK which are worth a read - and some nice reviews from other leading artist tutors

You’ve inspired me to draw again! I haven't had time to read all of it (or even half - it's a big book!) but what I've read so far is WONDERFUL! I agree with everything you say, and I think you have a SUPER solid method of teaching here. : )I am very happy to recommend it.Carol Marine, Artist, USA

I like the way the overall approach focuses on:

• learning how to see being fundamental to being able to draw and paint well
• drawing as underpinning competence in painting. 

Examining options for cropping a complex still life involving light, dark and patterns

The exercises are very clearly set out and cover a variety of media including:

• graphite pencil
• coloured pencils
• charcoal
• watercolour

Others focus on specific approaches for particular subjects eg "Location Drawing" and "Drawing a Face."