Art Stuff Blog

I taught art in schools for years before leaving and setting up my own art business providing schools with art workshops. Yesterday, I was in a secondary school in Reading, UK – lovely school – running a GCSE Inspiration workshop with around 60 15/16 year olds. I had a … Read More

Although the subject matter, techniques and materials of artists have changed over the centuries, their attitudes towards life and their environment have changed little. The manner in which they expresses their ideas, their style, can in basic terms, be seen as one of the following: Classical, Romantic or Realist. … Read More

‘Art is a parrot word and should be replaced by Dada’.
‘Musicians smash your instruments blind men take the stage’.
‘Art is a pretension warmed by the timidity of the urinary basin and the hysteria born in the studio’. Tristan Tzara.
Dada emerged in Zurich in Switzerland, during … Read More

Hokusai was born in the autumn of 1760 at Honjo Warigesui, in Katsushika of Shimosa Province, very close to the old city of Edo, now Katsushika ward of the city of Tokyo. In later years, Hokusai called himself “the farmer of Katsushika” and often used Katsushika in … Read More

How often have we heard someone dismiss a piece of art because it doesn’t look ‘real’? It is almost as if a work of art has to conform to a given set of visual rules before it can be accepted as art in some people’s eyes. It … Read More

I have just been researching the artist Henri Rousseau who will become one of my artists in school and it struck me that nothing in life changes. Poor Rousseau (1844 – 1910) was very trusting and was easily duped by a man in a bar, who had … Read More

L S Lowry is know for his ‘matchstick men’ but there is so much more to him than meets the eye. Lowry suffered from Asperger’s Syndrome and lived with his parents until he was 52 years old. He led two very distinct lives; one as a rent … Read More

Welsh Landscapes: One of the students on my 3 day Landscape painting course at Burton Court, was taking about using a palette knife to give the landscape a grandeur and solidity. I suggested she looked at the work of Kyffin Williams. Kyffin was born in 1918 and died in 2006. … Read More

Art is what artists produce. All artists are human beings, but not all human beings are artists. So what is it that makes a human being an artist? And what is it that they produce? These simple questions are the basis of endless debate so let’s break it down into … Read More

While Michelangelo was working on the Sistine chapel he would often stay up the scaffolding for days on end. He rarely washed and he changed his clothes even less frequently. On one occasion, having not taken off his leather breeches for more than six months, he had to have them … Read More