How do YOU hold your brush?

Here's a handy tip for you if you want to loosen up in your painting. I remember many years ago now when I attended evening art classes at Leith School of Art in Edinburgh, being encouraged to tape a piece of charcoal onto the end of a 6 foot bamboo cane, and draw with that. This was supposed to develop hand to eye co-ordination, at the same time as loosening up our student drawings. It certainly did that!
This exercise below is based on that idea, and it really works. I frequently paint in this way now and a new dynamism has come into my paintings.

I wonder how you hold your brush.
Over the years I have seen many of my students (myself included!), hunched over a piece of watercolour paper with noses almost touching the paper, tongue out in concentration, and fingers holding tightly to the tip of the brush to control every brush stroke. Now this approach is fine if you are adding details to the last stages of a painting (which is when they should be added, not before). But if we start off a painting by using this method of controlling our brush strokes and keep doing this all the way through, then the whole painting will end up being tight and possibly lifeless.
Again, there are times when this is the right approach for a detailed painting, but I'm talking here about
loosening up. So how do we do that?

Have a go at this to see for yourself how it works: take a medium sized brush loaded with paint and hold it as you would a pen, that is hold it tightly near the business end. Now write 'my name is ...' on the paper. See how neatly you can write your name (fig 1).

Next, move your fingers to the very tip of the brush handle, furthest from the hairs, and hold it lightly between your finger tips, a bit like a musical conductor holds a baton. Stand up so that the paper is at arms length from you and paint a few test squiggles and lines on the paper, flicking the brush with your fingers, and see how the lines are hard to control and develop a life of their own (fig 2).

Now try and write, 'my name is ...' once more, holding the brush in the same way (fig 3). Has your writing ended up loose and scruffy? Is the writing more 'arty' and are the brush strokes more varied?

Just by holding the brush in a different way, and stepping back a little from the paper, you have been able to loosen up your painting. The challenge now is to paint a picture using this technique. Don't worry how it might turn out (it's only a piece of paper and a bit of paint!), but feel the freedom of painting in a slightly
uncontrolled and looser way.
And over everything HAVE FUN!!

Wildlife artist of the Year 2013

The David Shepherd Wildlife Foundation Wildlife Artist of the Year Competition has been running for the last five years attracting entries from around the world in all artistic media. With seven fabulous categories and a top prize of £10,000 this event is now firmly established in the wildlife art event calendar.

Follow the links below to find out how to enter.

The 2013 event will take place at the Mall Galleries, London from 3-8 June.
Mon 3 June - Private Preview
Tues 4 - Sat 8 June - 10am-5pm (4pm Sat) FREE entry

More info at http://www.davidshepherd.org/way/

My wife Donna has recently broken her wrist and wanted me to paint something appropriate on her plaster cast. We talked about painting an opening through the plaster to reveal a terminator style machine (all cogs and pistons and shiny metal), and then we thought of a Dalek gun from Dr Who, but ended up with something more fitting - two hands painted on wet plaster. I hope Michelangelo would approve!

Why Do We Stop Drawing?

 We've got our friends with their four young children staying with us at the moment, and when I got up this morning I couldn't get any breakfast for a while because they were all drawing and colouring in on the dining room table. Children love to draw and paint and their creativity is unlimited. But as adults we get scared of putting pencil to paper, and say "I can't even draw a stick man!"


So why and when does this love of drawing fade out of our lives?  

Is it when we are told in school that we are no good at art? Or do we loose our drawing inhibitions during our teenage years when we try to become just like all our friends? Or are we afraid of what other people will say about our pictures?


Whatever the reason is, it often takes a long time for adults to begin to paint again, or even to get get the desire to paint in the first place. But with gentle encouragement and a few helpful tips, we can all recover the joy of creating a painting, just like when we were young.

Artists Create Giant Portraits on Live Grass

Just came across this and thought you might like it. Get the lawnmowers out!

Ackroyd & Harvey. Myles, Basia, Nath and Alesha, four panels, 3.8 m x 1.7 m, The Big Chill Festival, Eastnor Castle, England. 2007

For the next 7 days (ending July 20th 2012) I've got a 50% sale on all my courses! Just go to http://www.artclasspro.com/#/half-price-offer/4564235940 to get your painting course at half the normal price!!

Urban Sketchers.org

I've just come across this blog which features sketches and often equally colorful stories behind the scenes by 100 invited artists in more than 30 countries around the world. Some are architects and illustrators, others are graphic designers, web developers, painters or educators, all sharing the same passion for drawing on location.
Urban Sketchers started online as a flickr group in 2007 and later became a nonprofit organization. Our mission as a nonprofit is to raise the artistic, storytelling and educational value of location drawing, promoting its practice and connecting people around the world who draw on location where they live and travel. We aim to show the world, one drawing at a time.

It's a great source of ideas and inspiration for sketching, as everyone has a unique and different style - take a look at the blog; you won't be disappointed.