Archive for category Medium: Sketching
Barry Herniman’s Travelling Sketchbook
Posted by henry in Author: Barry Herniman, Medium: Sketching, Medium: Watercolour, Publisher: Halsgrove, Publisher: Halstar, Subject: Landscape on November 8, 2011
Barry Herniman is perhaps best known to practising artists for some relatively elementary manuals from Search Press, so it’s nice to have this substantial look at his “real” work.
Artists’ sketchbooks can be a mixed blessing. On the one hand you catch them unawares, as if they’ve just got up and are taking in the milk. On the other, you can get half-finished work that means a lot to them but isn’t unlike discovering someone else’s shopping list in your supermarket trolley. This book, I’m pleased to say, provides a nice balance between finished work and reproduced sketchbook pages and the latter, into the bargain, have been selected so that they do actually have meaning for the non-involved reader. These pages often have handwritten notes, but unfortunately these are quite difficult to read (they appear to have been photographed rather than scanned), although there are also printed captions where Barry explains what he was doing or what he liked about the scene reproduced.
This kind of book is always illustration-led and you wouldn’t necessarily expect (and you don’t get) any explanation of how or, for the most part, why the painting was done. Most of the work was done in Britain and Ireland, but there’s also a final section of Europe and Beyond that records wider travels, including some rather excellent Vermont maples. Introductory material includes an entertaining autobiographical section and some short notes on Barry’s working methods on location.
Given Barry’s popularity as a writer about painting, this should please fans who want to look at his work in more detail as well as collectors and armchair travellers.
Sketchbook Confidential || Pamela Wissman & Stefanie Laufersweiler
Posted by henry in Author: Pamela Wissman, Author: Stefanie Laufersweiler, Medium: Drawing, Medium: Sketching, Publisher: North Light, Subject: Various on October 25, 2010
This is subtitled “secrets from the private sketches of over 40 master artists”, but it’s worth noting that this is an American book and these are not, on the whole, names you’re likely to have come across before in the UK.
That doesn’t however, need to be an impediment because an artist’s sketchbook can reveal more about them than a whole volume of their own writing. What are the details they concentrate on, what subjects grab their attention out in the field, how do they select the quick ideas and work them up into a finished painting? If you learn about the creative process, it doesn’t really matter who’s telling you.
The problem here is that, although the book has no fewer than two editors, it has virtually no editorial content. Each artist gets 4 pages to present their sketches and say what sketching means to them and, guess what?, it means the same to all of them and the same it would to you and me – it’s a notebook, the basis for a painting. I’d never have guessed. Without some more context: some notes on the images, points to watch, colours and then examples, or at least a description of how they were used later, I just feel as though I’m looking at the raw ingredients for a banquet. The result could be a thing of beauty as well as interest, but I have no way of telling how.
This has the feel of a good idea hastily cobbled together and leaves me wanting so much more, which is a shame.
30 Minute Sketching || Alwyn Crawshaw
Posted by henry in Author: Alwyn Crawshaw, Medium: Sketching, Publisher: Collins, Series: 30 Minute, Subject: Techniques on February 28, 2008
This series is shaping up to be an excellent way of looking at a variety of media (and it’s to be hoped that it will move on to subject-based titles in the fullness of time) from a fresh viewpoint.
The idea of the timed painting is not a new one and, handled without thought, it can be little more than a gimmick. However, what it does do is make you concentrate on the subject rather than the mechanics of recording it; you can’t fuss over details or the oven timer rings and you’ve got to stop. If this was just an excuse to produce yet another series of basic media introductions, I’d greet it with a hearty yawn. There’s an awful of that kind of thing out there and, trust me, a lot of them really are awful. However, as well as encouraging the reader to look at things in a new light, the same process seems to have transferred itself to the authors (and Collins have been rather smart in their choice of artists for the series) and what you get is a catalogue of neat, quick and fresh ideas that should appeal as much to the more experienced artist as to the beginner. This is a neat trick, because this kind of thing is usually aimed at those starting out.
Collins 2008
£7.99
You Can Paint Series
This series of basic introductions to a variety of painting media and subjects has been reissued in paperback and is certainly worth another look. As they’re all here in one pile, it makes sense to review them all of a piece as there is a very strong series identity and they all follow a quite tightly-defined format.
Each book begins with a short introduction on “How to use this book” in which the author tells you that this is a book for the beginner, and to work through it without worrying too much about mistakes as you go – the whole idea is to learn. It’s nice that these sections are individually written rather than being copied wholesale from one volume to another. You could argue that it’s a couple of pages devoted to something that probably has more value in focussing the author’s mind than in helping the reader, but it can also be seen as an example of the care that has gone into what, superficially, seem to be very simple books. Now, as we clever people all know, simplicity is an art in itself and frequently conceals a great deal of work, and such is the case here. With only 96 medium format pages, each of the authors has to introduce materials and techniques, teach basic principles and then demonstrate as many different subjects as possible. There’s no room for waffle and so a lot of pictures and not too many words combine with a nice clear layout that gives a feeling of space to the pages to make these books easy to follow and unintimidating. They are perfect for the absolute beginner, the very person they’re aimed at.
OILS
Linda Birch
First published 2001, reissued 2006
WATERCOLOUR
Alwyn Crawshaw
First published 200, reissued 2006
SKETCH
Jackie Simmonds
First published 2001, reissued 2006
ACRYLICS
Melanie Cambridge
First published 2003, reissued 2006
