Don’t just admire great art from a distance this summer – read on to discover how you can pick up valuable lessons from eight of the UK’s blockbuster exhibitions
PAULA REGO
A first major English retrospective in two decades is a lesson in telling stories and being bolder
Art is, above all, about communicating and one of our greatest living visual storytellers is the Portuguese artist Dame Paula Rego. While the 84-year-old clearly possesses a vivid and often macabre imagination, she also works hard to supplement this to help get her stories across. She admits to turning to folk tales and storybooks whenever she struggles with painting, while her studio looks more like a theatre props department, filled as it is with masks and mannequins, stuffed toys and costumes. Working with such visual aids can be a useful way to tease out ideas.
And while these fanciful set-ups bring character to Rego’s work, she balances these fictions by immersing herself in current affairs and contemporary issues. The new show at MK Gallery, Obedience and Defiance, focuses on this aspect of her career in depth, selecting works that tackle abortion, politics, gender, violence and more. It is a reminder to us all to be bold with our subject choices, that personal attachment can yield more satisfying results.
Above all, the root of Rego’s practice is that most fundamental of artistic pursuits: drawing. “When you learn to draw, you learn to see,” she once recalled in an interview with The Independent. “When you learn to see, you begin to see things you did not realize were there. You discover all kinds of things when you really look.”
Paula Rego: Obedience and Defiance run from 15 June to 22 September at MK Gallery, Milton Keynes. www.mkgallery.org
FÉLIX VALLOTTON
A friend of Bonnard and precursor to Hopper, this Swiss artist was a master of atmosphere and form
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Still life IN 3 HOURS
Former BP Portrait Award runner-up FELICIA FORTE guides you through a simple, structured approach to painting alla prima that tackles dark, average and light colours in turn
Movement in composition
Through an analysis of three masterworks, landscape painter and noted author MITCHELL ALBALA shows how you can animate landscape composition with movement
Shane Berkery
The Irish-Japanese artist talks to REBECCA BRADBURY about the innovative concepts and original colour combinations he brings to his figurative oil paintings from his Dublin garden studio
The Working Artist
Something old, something new... Our columnist LAURA BOSWELL has expert advice for balancing fresh ideas with completing half-finished work
Washes AND GLAZES
Art Academy’s ROB PEPPER introduces an in-depth guide to incorporating various techniques into your next masterpiece. Artwork by STAN MILLER, CHRIS ROBINSON and MICHELE ILLING
Hands
LAURA SMITH continues her new four-part series, which encourages you to draw elements of old master paintings, and this month’s focus is on capturing hands
Vincent van Gogh
To celebrate The Courtauld’s forthcoming landmark display of the troubled Dutch master’s self-portraits, STEVE PILL looks at the stories behind 10 of the most dramatic works on display
BRING THE drama
Join international watercolour maestro ALVARO CASTAGNET in London’s West End to paint a dramatic street scene
Serena Rowe
The Scottish painter tells STEVE PILL why time is precious, why emotional responses to colour are useful, and how she finds focus every day with the help of her studio wall
Bill Jacklin
Chatting over Zoom as he recovers from appendicitis, the Royal Academician tells STEVE PILL about classic scrapes in New York and his recent experiments with illustration
