Michael Gage

Blind drawing/study of Christ Driving the Money Changers from the Temple by El Greco. Ink and watercolour on A4 paper.

Drawing based on a oil sketch by Thomas Gainsborough, "Portrait of Margaret Gainsborough holding a Theorbo", at the National Gallery.

Drawings inspired by poses from George Seurat's Bathers at Asnières. 4B graphite pencil on NOT watercolour paper, approx A4.

Sketching a detail of Jan Gossaert's "The Adoration of the Kings", at a National Gallery Talk and Draw session.

Panorama of part of the exhibition of paintings and monoprints from trips through the North West Passage.

The publication of a new book of drawings by David Gentleman gives me an excuse to write about one of my favourite artists.

David Gentleman is reckoned to be the artist whose work has been reproduced more times than any other artist. Even if you don't know his name, you've almost certainly seen his work. If you've ever been to Charing Cross station on the London Underground (Northern Line), you've seen his work:

 

(more images)

If you've ever been to a National Trust property in England, you've seen his work:

 

If you've ever bought a stamp in the UK, you've probably seen his work. He's designed more stamps for Royal Mail than anyone else has.

 

But the work that makes him the most reproduced artist is in the corner of that stamp: the little silhouette of the Queen. It's been used on every British commemorative stamp for nearly fifty years, and on numerous Commonwealth stamps too, adding up to hundreds of millions of reproductions.


Here's a short, but fascinating video of David Gentleman at work on a drawing for the new book:

 


Interview with David Gentleman: http://mikedempsey.typepad.com/graphic_journey_blog/2010/02/david-gentleman-stamp-of-approval.html

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Gentleman

A couple of drawings from this week's life group.



Both in pencil: 4B for the softer lines and shading, with some HB where sharper lines are needed). Top one's a bit bigger than A3 (that white line is the fold of the sketchbook), and the lower one is a bit smaller.

I've been looking at this book: British Museum Master Drawings in Close-Up, particularly the Raphael drawing that's on the cover.


(Clearer image on the BM website: Raphael drawing)

To get the shadow tone, I think he's smudged the chalk, and then gone over it again with hatching lines. Those lines go the same way: they don't follow the shape or volume of the body (just a bit round the waist), and there's hardly any cross-hatching.

What really gives the drawing life is the variation in the lines that make up the outline. Every line curves and moves; the strongest lines are where there is contrast between light and dark (on the arms), and the stressed parts of the body (the bent knees); and he hasn't bothered to rub out the light preliminary lines.

Yesterday, we went to the Royal Academy to see the Modern British Sculpture exhibition. Or, as it should have been called, the "Modern" "British" "Sculpture" exhibition, with liberal use of ironic quotation marks.

It wasn't that "Modern": The exhibits included Ancient Egyptian and Ancient Greek sculptures, borrowed from the British Museum).

It wasn't that "British": As well as the Egyptian and Greek works, the exhibits included work by Carl Andre (American) and Jeff Koons (American).

And whether it was "Sculpture" depends on how you define sculpture: There were two Ben Nicholson reliefs (on the wall); a collection of "Page 3" pages from The Sun, also stuck on the wall; and a "recreation of a visitors' bench from an Caro exhibition", on which we were allowed to sit.

And I haven't even mentioned the Damien Hirst flies, or the pile of Malteser chocolates in little plastic bags. Or the blatant omission of anything by Antony Gormley or Anish Kapoor.

There was something in the little Weston Room which I can't even comment on because you had to look straight into a blinding spotlight.

Image (C) Copyright Royal Academy.

Fortunately, I think the word about how bad this exhibition was has got round; it was almost deserted of visitors.

I did quite like the Victor Pasmore installation though, probably because I'd just seen some inspiring Pasmore prints at Tate Modern.

Image (C) Copyright Royal Academy.

The exhibition continues until 7 April. Don't rush.

I always take a sketchbook on holiday, but French artist Bastien Dubois not only goes one better by turning his travel sketchbook into an animated film...



...he also gets nominated for an Oscar! (Best animated short film.)

To see the full version of this film, click here.

Here's an interesting film by Ric Serena about the Los Angeles printmaker, Dave Lefner. Lefner records the neon signs of the city in linocuts. They are big images: 36 x 13 inches or 36 x 20 inches are popular sizes, though Lefner appears to use only a 6" roller. I like the care with which they are drawn, and the saturated colours.

Nice studio, too.



To watch in full screen, right-click the video, and then click Enter Full Screen.

See more pictures on Dave Lefner's website.

(Found here: http://jefferysaddoris.com/2010/08/dave-lefner.)

A few days ago, I went down to the De La Warr Pavilion in Bexhill-on-Sea to see the artist Tony Bevan talk about the installation that he has created for the gallery there. The installation comprises three paintings, so big that they each almost completely occupy one wall of the room in which they are hung.


Two portraits face each other. Bevan said that they are self-portraits in that they are his own head, but they're not meant to be about him; it's just that when he wants to paint a head, his own is the most convenient. The head on the left (top image) is influenced by Franz Messerschmidt, an 18th century German sculptor.

The third painting turns out also to be a head: it's the back of an enormous Buddha statue in China. The spirals are snails, the traditional hair of Buddha.

"When the Buddha was sitting under the Bodhi tree he was so deep in meditation that he was unaware that it was extremely hot. A group of snails saw him and realising the importance of his thoughts, crawled up to cover and protect his head with their bodies. The snails died from exposure to the hot sun and became honoured as martyrs who had died to protect the Buddha." (Iconography of the Buddha, V&A website.)

Tony Bevan was "in conversation" with Richard Cork, the art critic. At one point, Cork asked, "Because you've painted the back of the Buddha's head, should we read this as somehow symbolic, the idea perhaps that you are turning away from religion, or even that religion is turning away from you".

Bevan replied, "No, it's just when you visit that statue, you climb up a mountain, and the first sight you have of it is from the back."

The paintings are acrylic and charcoal on canvas. The canvas is covered with acrylic polymer that sticks the charcoal to the canvas. It's not clear from the photos, but the white background is actually white paint over the natural brown canvas. The paintings are so big that Bevan painted the canvas flat on the floor, using a ladder to check the progress. When he finished, the canvases were rolled up, taken to the gallery, and then put on stretchers. The first time that Bevan saw them in the traditional vertical position was when they were hung on the gallery wall.

The exhibition continues until 13 June, 2010.