WELCOME from the editor
Welcome to our October issue in which we are proud to present an amazing range of inspirational features and practical demonstrations by our contributing professional artists and tutors. From Brian Henderson’s explanation about how he paints his photo realist still lifes in acrylics (pages 14 to 17), Patrick Cullen’s insights into his pre-Covid travel and en plein air painting experiences in the Himalayas (pages 18 to 21), to a new series by Peter Burgess on how to make your own frames (pages 62 to 64), we include all kinds of approaches and techniques to inspire and inform your own work over the coming months.
To help develop your watercolour skills, Brian Smith reveals why it’s so important to manage the pigment levels in your paints as he offers potential solutions to some of the most common problems faced by watercolour painters (pages 26 to 29), Amanda Hyatt draws on 40 years’ experience as a watercolour specialist to share her advice on how to choose the best paper for your work (pages 58 to 61), while Paul Talbot-Greaves emphasises the importance of mastering the technique of lost and found edges for successful compositions, with a suggested exercise to try (pages 42 to 45).
For oil painters Adele Wagstaff shows why using a limited palette of just white, black and mixed greys to paint the head can be such a successful strategy (pages 22 to
25), plus Carl Knibb demonstrates how to capture a likeness without over-drawing (pages 46 to 49). If you haven’t tried using soft pastels before, cover artist Steve Hall’s demonstration showing how to exploit their unique characteristics to capture marine and coastal subjects will surely have you reaching for your pastel sticks (pages 30 to 33), and if you’re keen to explore new directions in your work, why not follow Robert Dutton’s suggestions and try using acrylic spray-painting techniques to help you loosen up and create new, semi-abstract, landscape-based compositions (pages 54 to 57).
The sense of isolation that so many have faced since the start of the global pandemic has meant that feeling part of a larger, creative group has never been so important, as Anne Blockley emphasises on page 52. Sarah Edmonds expands on this theme in her feature on why it’s so good to join other artists in mutually beneficial collaborations (pages 38 to 39). As Sarah says, some of the most well-known groups of artists found each other in difficult times to forge new ways of thinking and working. Finding likeminded artists and working together in a true spirit of collaboration can provide a muchneeded support network with massive social as well as artistic benefits. We’d love to hear from readers about any new groups you may have started, or joined, over the past 18 months or so.