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Medinilla Magnifica - Winner of the Daler-Rowney award at the Society of Botanical Artists exhibition in London

Jill Winch — Mon, 21 May 2012 15:51:43 +0000

I first of all studied the plant and did rough sketches and plans of how I would like the composition to be, the plant however spoke volumes and how it wanted to be placed on the page, so onto the drawing, excited about getting it started I drew straight onto my paper.

I use a 300gms Hot Pressed smooth watercolour paper.
After removing any excess pencil, I applied a clear wash of water to the image.
I tend to use a size 3 or 4 sable brush with a good point rather than the very small brushes as I feel it holds the paint better, hence being able to give a broad wash plus using the fine point for detailed work.
Then working around the drawing I applied a very pale pink watercolour wash to the flowers, leaving highlights as I went, the green of the leaves were a mixture of the Daler Rowney range of greens which I love because they enable me to go from the palest of colours to the more intense dark green, adding some cerulean and cobalt as I went.
As the end of the petals were tinged with green/gold I dropped in some sunlit green and quinacridone gold. I also found that mixing the gold with the green and applying them over the veins intensified the colour perfectly.

I always leave my paintings for a few days and come back to them, reassessing the composition and colour and darkening where I feel it needs it.

Star Pupils in 'Paint' March 2012 issue

Julie Nash — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 10:30:33 +0000

Check out last Paint magazine edition to see what Julie did for the March issue!

A piece of advice about eyes and expressions, titled 'Star Pupils' which links to the 2012 challenge theme of pet portraits.
Helps you to understand how to read expressions, what changes these and gives you tips on using and taking better animal photos.

Look for it in the magazine to know more about pets eyes!

Canada AM television appearance on Feb 15th

Cory Trépanier — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 10:50:02 +0000

Cory on Canada AM, Canada's most watched morning show (aired Feb 15, 2012).
An exclusive sneak peak into Cory's developing Into The Arctic Collection of 50 oil paintings form across Canada's north.

Alex seen by Cherry Pickles, Senior Lecturer in Fine Art, UWIC (University of Wales Institute Cardiff)

Alexander Lumsden — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 16:04:27 +0000

I first met Alex at Altos de Chavon in the Dominican Republic. I was doing a residency which included some teaching at the art school there. The Art School is extrordinary partly because it is residential and the course is intense. Alex grasped the opportunity to learn as much as possible through working all hours, talking to teachers, students, artists, and working in the library. He was an outstanding art student as well as being socially very adept and constantly curious about his surroundings . He is a very good linguist and seems able to strike up interesting conversations with a wide variety of people.

Although the Art School in Chavon is academically a very good school, it was not an obvious choice for a young aspiring artist from Sweden. He got there by a circuitous and, by most peoples standards, daring and risky route, first running a business in Edinburgh, then deciding to follow his dream and go to South America where he met artists who encouraged him to apply to Chavon.

Alex stayed an extra year in Chavon as a resident artist and the best librarian they have ever had and then decided to come to London partly through being offered a residency at Daler-Rowney.

Alex was accepted on the MA course in Fine Art at Cardiff School of Art and Design at UWIC ( University of Wales Institute Cardiff) where I am senior lecturer but decided instead to get a studio and work in London. This was a good choice because, despite only having been in London for a few months, Alex has already staged a successful exhibition in Brixton showing drawings, paintings and sculpture/installation which he has made in the last few months in direct response to the visual and political stimulus of where he lives in London.

Much of the work in the exhibition has the look of something seen and felt at first hand. Some work is about the riots made from newspaper pictures which relate to the areas of London he knows and clearly cares about. He is particularly well suited to approach to racial issues because of his time in the Dominican Republic and the many friends he has there and from Haiti.

He has currently embarked on some very ambitious work with the wealth of space and materials he now has at his disposal in the Daler-Rowney factory.

Cherry Pickles
Senior Lecturer in Fine Art
UWIC

Welcome to my new profile on Daler-Rowney's website

Simon Fletcher — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 12:11:43 +0000

Daler-Rowney have been kind enough to sponsor a page of my work in their featured artists page and also to send me sample of their latest products to test.

In spring of this year my latest book will be published by A&C Black, Bloomsbury PLc. Called The Painter's Studio Handbook it covers most of the technical aspects of painting in oil, watercolour, pastel and acrylic and has over forty illustrations of recent work.

I am preparing two new exhibitons of work, one for the Dadbrook gallery at the Affordable Art Fair and another for the Emirates Palace, Abu Dhabi.

The workshops and seminars for this year are filling up fast so if you're interested in painting here in the south of France see my website for details. www.simonfletcher.org

Simon Fletcher by Professor Lynne Suo, Toronto University, 2010

Simon Fletcher — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 12:04:35 +0000

Simon Fletcher by Professor Lynne Suo, Toronto University, 2010

An unapologetic europhile he is widely traveled and exhibited in Germany, Italy, Switzerland, England and France. The inspiration for his work, in recent years, has extended to Morocco, India, Japan, but retains the classical European watercolour traditions at its core. A professional landscape designer, Fletcher is passionate about the possibilities for emotional reprieve in landscape and attends his brilliant watercolour palate and brushes with great intensity, flirting with abstraction at the edges of his paper yet never leaving the recognizable structures of his experience. His works have an appreciative audience in many parts of the world.

I do not wish to be left, like Kurtz, pondering “the horror, the horror.” I wish to remember what I love about this life. Give me a Fletcher landscape any day.

From an interview with Simon Fletcher for Palette Magazine, 2005

Simon Fletcher — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 11:55:18 +0000

From an interview with Simon Fletcher for Palette Magazine, 2005

You have lived and worked in southern France for many years now and are known as a painter of the light in the tradition of many of the greatest painters who have worked there. How did you develop this theme in your work?

One of the most vital points about my life here in France is that I work out of doors, in front of the subject. In this context, sitting or standing in a landscape alone with paper or canvas in front of me I have to make rapid decisions that have to do with what is in front of me, what I am looking at and with the way it changes. I am accutely aware of time when painting outside, I see the sun moving across the sky, the weather changing and with it the light and atmosphere. In two hours the atmosphere of a landscape can change completely demanding immediate response from the painter - shall I leave the original tones that I put down two hours ago or are they now no longer right for what is happening and in any case if I change these first marks or reactions to what I was looking at am I going to get the effect that I want? Sometimes I deliberately keep marks or passages because they are expressing how I feel, they say more to me than what is happening now in front of me.

What I am painting has nothing to do with a photograph which measures the amount of light falling on forms at a given and very brief moment. Painting of any sort has to take into account passing time like in James Joyce's 'Ulysses'.

Simon Fletcher's Watercolours by Sir John Tusa, July 2001

Simon Fletcher — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 11:23:40 +0000

Simon Fletcher's Watercolours
Sir John Tusa, July 2001. Foreword to the book ‘The Way of the moving Brush’ Sponsored and published by Hitachi Corporation

It is more than ten years that my wife and I have lived with Simon Fletcher's watercolours. Living with involves looking at as well. Even after that time they more than stand the test of looking, of enquiry, of time itself. They have stood another important test for an owner as distinct from a gallery curator - can they work in several different locations, varying lights, surrounded by a wildly diverse assortment of companions?
Here too the verdict is affirmative.

Now, they could be good companions but they might still be only moderate painting. I think they are a good deal more than that. If I make comparison with other artists, it is not to suggest a derivative style but to evoke likenesses that the reader will know. For instance, some of his landscapes from a decade ago have the layered, outlined feel of Charles Rennie Mackintosh, the colours revealing the bones of landscape and land in a precise way. This gives the painting a strength of order and structure that is quite unlike the conventional English watercolour.

Then there are the colours, strong, vivid, bold, yes, Turneresque in their readiness to go to the extremes of the palette. This tendency has grown with time and his stay on the continent and visits to Japan seem to have reinforced a confidence in his reaction to strong colours.

If he applies them with equal assurance in bold atmospheric washes as well as in very precise representations, notably in paintings that blend the specific with the atmospheric, this shows the range of approaches that Simon Fletcher has in his possession. Is it English, in the sense that we use the term, "English watercolour"? Hardly. Is it European? Not obviously. Is it personal and real? Without a doubt.

Sir John Tusa,
Managing Director,
Barbican Art Center, London.

Into The Arctic II 90 Minute Documentary Film

Cory Trépanier — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 09:38:16 +0000

For years, artist Cory Trépanier has explored some of the most wild places in Canada. Few have walked in these landscapes. Even fewer have captured them on canvas.

Now he’s going further, into remote lands that are more challenging and more dangerous. Into a breathtaking arctic wilderness to experience and paint a land that might never be the same again.

Three months of filming. A dozen Arctic locations.

Cory brings his fresh perspective to the hidden treasures at the top of the world.

Experience the majesty of the north through stunning cinematography and the dramatic experiences of a passionate painter.

Take a journey of adventure and discovery….

Deep… Into The Arctic

Cory brings Daler-Rowney's Artists' Oil Colour to his tours to catch the beauty of Nature.

DVD available here

Cory's Into The Arctic II film trailer for 90 minute art-adventure documentary.

Robbie at the Wildlife Heritage Foundation in 2012

Robbie Graham — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 14:52:44 +0000

Fund Raising Exhibition - 21st and 22nd April 2012 at the Wildlife Heritage Foundation, Smarden, Kent

Robbie Graham, wildlife artist, will be holding a fund raising exhibition at WHF in Kent on 21st and 22nd April 2012.

The WHF is a wonderful place to explore and become inspired by the beautiful Kent countryside and wild cats.

Booking information here.

Robbie's latest big cat, painted with Designers' Gouache (see on the left), will be entered into a prize draw on Sunday 22nd April!

The painting is framed and tickets can be bought for £10 each, with ALL the proceeds going to the big cats! What better way to obtain some original art very cheaply and at the same time does help the wonderful big cats?
A selection of Robbie's original big cat paintings, as well as prints (framed or unframed) will be for sale during the two days. A significant contribution of all sales made will also go to the Foundation!

Visitors will also get to see some of the big cats close up, so bring a camera if you have one! Some light refreshments will be provided.

I hope to see you there!

For further information, visit the WHF website here.

Workshop at the Wildlife Heritage Foundation, Smarden, Kent

First planned for March 2012, Robbie and the WHF have decided to postpone the workshop until later this year. We will let you know the new date as soon as it is set.

Robbie Graham, wildlife artist, will be running a two day workshop at the WHF in Smarden, Kent in 2012.

The workshop will include tuition in painting wildlife with Daler-Rowney Designers Gouache. Dinner and accommodation at Elvey Farm and a chance to meet the WHF big cats!

Booking information here.