London Art Spot: Lis Watkins

Photo by Nikolay Voronkov, @NVoronkov

Instead of using a camera, Lis explores London with a moleskine notebook and a pen. Sharing illustrations in a daily blog called Line and Wash she has created an ongoing storyboard of London life through this art form. Below, Lis talks about the day her blog became a reality, some of her favourite smells, sounds, tastes and textures in this city and a few tempting recommendations of food and drink that I’ll be adding to my long list of places to explore!

Awaiting delivery

LLO: If not London, where are you from originally, how long have you been in London and what brought you here? Give us a brief history of your artistic background.
LW: Originally from Brighton on the South Coast, I came to London to go to art college and ended up staying for work. I started my blog, a kind of daily drawing diary, originally as a personal challenge to get myself drawing more, wanting to return to work as a full-time illustrator after a period focusing on family life.  I knew I needed to brush up my artistic skills and regular drawing seemed like a good idea.

Crystal Palace food market

LLO: You’ve been keeping your sketch blog, Line and Wash, for about two years now. Tell us a bit about the blog, why you decided to set it up, what we’ll find there and what you hope to accomplish with your site.
LW: The catalyst for making the blog a reality rather than a dream was a reunion with old art college friends on a sunny Saturday afternoon outside the Royal Festival Hall on London’s Southbank.  Stepping back in time and being with lots of creative people again reignited my appetite for drawing, so my online sketchbook, ‘Line and Wash’ was born.  One of the surprises of making the blog is the interest I’ve had from other people and I’ve been bowled over by all the comments I’ve received.

Olympic rings at St Pancras

LLO: How often do you sketch? Is it a hobby or a full time pursuit?
LW: It really depends on how much illustration work I have on but I usually manage something every day. I see life now as a series of drawing opportunities!

Shelf stacking at Alexandra Nurseries

LLO: Give us a short introduction to your technique, the materials you prefer to work with and your method of approach to an idea.
LW: I carry a small sketchbook and fine liner pen around with me all the time in case I see a good subject to draw. Using a pen focuses my mind as to what marks to make. I also have a large Moleskine watercolour sketchbook and a set of pocket watercolours for larger drawings.  Lately, I’ve been experimenting with using water soluble pencils and a water brush as it’s easier to use these when there’s nowhere to sit.

Skateboarding at the south bank

LLO: You’re heading out the door with your sketchbook. Do you usually have a set destination and subject in mind or do you prefer to wander? If the latter, how you you decide when you stop and sketch?
LW: Most of my sketches are of everyday life in my part of Southeast London and Croydon – travelling on public transport, shopping, family life, what’s happening in the back garden – but I do try to go out at least every couple of weeks to sketch special events or buildings in London.  It doesn’t always work out as planned though – I went to draw in Soho at the time of the Chinese New Year, but couldn’t find anywhere to perch to make a drawing but then stumbled upon the preparations for the BAFTAs outside the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden.

Getting ready for the BAFTAs

LLO: As an artist you’re obviously inspired visually by London, but what is it about the city that most appeals to you in each of the following categories:
LW:
Sound: As well as sketching in London I’ve also sketched in Paris but when funds don’t allow for that, it’s always nice to go and draw at St. Pancras station, watching all the travellers and listening to the French announcements on the tannoy and pretend I could be waiting for the next Eurostar!

Smell: A visit to Kew Gardens is always a great treat for all the senses, with all its fabulous fragrant plants and flowers.

Touch: I spent several weekends sketching the Sydenham Arts Festival, where it was great to visit lots of places on the Artists Trail, getting the chance to see and touch lots of beautiful hand crafted pieces of jewellery and ceramics.

Taste: The Crystal Palace Food Market is a great place to shop with lots of interesting stalls selling tasty fresh food and also Alexandra Nurseries in Penge is a gem of a garden centre with a café serving delicious tea and cake in vintage china.

Sydenham Community Library

LLO: Which image, project or moment of your artistic career are you most proud of so far and why?
LW: I was one of the many people hanging around St. Mary’s Hospital when the Duchess of Cambridge was due to give birth in July. It was a great thrill when one of my sketches from the day was used by Urban Sketchers founder Gabriel Campanario on his ‘The Week in Sketches’ website.  As well as posting on the blog, I ‘tweet’ my drawings daily and had a great moment when the author of ‘The Little Paris Kitchen,’ Rachel Khoo, saw some sketches I had made while queuing at one of her book signings and gave me a big plug by sharing them on her Facebook page.

The queue for Khoo

LLO: What are you working on now? Any big projects or shows coming up? Any news to share?
LW: I’m going to be exhibiting with ‘SE20 Art’ at their 8^th Annual Exhibition at the end of this month,  and am hoping to set up an online shop selling prints of my sketchbook drawings as well as having a stall with some other local artists in Penge Market in September.

Tools of the trade

LLO: Give us your best London food and drink recommendations.
LW: There’s a lovely little café and chocolate shop called ‘Mélange’ at 184 Bellenden Road, Peckham and great ice cream at Chin Chin Labs at Camden Market, 49 – 50 Camden Lock Place.

Tower Bridge

LLO: What’s your favourite London discovery?
LW: One of the things about doing my blog is that I’m always discovering bits of London I’ve never visited before and it was only a few weeks ago that I finally got to the beautiful area of Little Venice.  Sketching has made me look at London afresh and  I’ve fallen back in love with the place and I feel as enthusiastic as I did when I got my first A-Z many years ago.

Thanks Lis!

Find Lis on Twitter and Line and Wash.

London Art Spot: Good Wives and Warriors

Good Wives and Warriors are Becky Bolton & Louise Chappell

It’s not often you find an artistic collaboration as seemless as this. Take any part of one of the Good Wives and Warriors’ giant wall paintings and it’s likely that even they wouldn’t be able to tell you which one of them painted that section.

They’ve had creative adventures all over the globe from a painting tour of South America, to Australia, to the States and around Europe sharing their talent with the rest of the world. Their colourful designs have been picked up by the likes of MTV, Adidas, Urban Outfitters and Swatch as well as a few design magazines and books. There will certainly be more of that in their future.

For this week’s London Art Spot, Becky and Louisa tell us where the name Good Wives and Warriors comes from, share stories of their South America adventures and talk about where they’re jetting off to next.

LLO: Where does the name Good Wives and Warriors come from and how has your partnership developed since university?
B&L: The name Good Wives and Warriors comes from the etymology of our names. The name Rebecca is Hebrew in origin and means ‘to bind’ and that suggests being a good and faithful wife. Louise comes from the French ‘Louis’ meaning famous warrior and renowned fighter. So together we are ‘Good Wives and Warriors’. It in no way represents our personalities but we liked the sound of it so it stuck!

LLO: Which aspects of London life influence your creativity?
B&L: It has to be the other creative, talented and motivated people that we are surrounded by in London. We share a studio with Nelly Ben Hayoun and Olivia Decaris, two energetic and talented French designers and next-door are Felix de Pass, Alex Hume and Giles Miller who are constant sources of support and inspiration. Also the wealth of exhibitions and opportunities in London make such a difference.

LLO: You’re known for your large-scale wall paintings. What’s the biggest you’ve done so far and where was it?
B&L: I think this has to be the painting we did in Clerkenwell with Space In Between Gallery. The exhibition was called ‘Buckminsterfullerene Dream’ and we spent 11 days on this painting, which is by far the longest we’ve spent on a single wall painting. We also painted the columns and part of the floor.

LLO: If you could choose any wall in London to redecorate, where would you bring the paintbrushes and what would you create?
B&L: The entire outside of the Tate Modern would be pretty good! A big sprawling mass of wonder.

LLO: Which piece of work or professional moment have you been most proud of so far?
B&L: I think we both feel pretty proud of ourselves when we’re in a book! There is something about being in print that really validates what you do. Also, the first exhibition we curated in Glasgow called the Sprezzatura Maze, because we were responsible for every aspect of the exhibition from selecting the artists, building the walls and playing hosts to the French artists that came to stay with us. It was such hard work but really worth it.

LLO: Past clients include Adidas, Urban Outfitters, Swatch, MTV and loads more. Do you have a dream client or project?
B&L: We’ve always wanted to do book covers, so maybe vintage or Penguin, we’d like to do a honey label and the set design for a big theatre production.

LLO: Tell us about your painting tour of South America – challenges, best moments, etc.
B&L: We had an incredible time in South America, but there were lots of challenges! It was really hard to pinpeople down with dates for exhibitions. We’d been emailing for months before but still had no definite plans when we arrived so had to try and make it all happen.

The first painting we did in Cusco, Peru, involved going round with a translated speech about ourselves, and asking if we could paint on people’s walls. Obviously there were lots of Incan walls that we couldn’t paint on, and we had many rejections, but finally a lovely man let us loose on his wall and kept giving us Inca Cola (which is luminous green) and key rings! His kids and the stray dogs hung around us as we were painting and we had lots of attention from passersby. (Most of which we didn’t understand!)

One of the paintings we did in Buenos Aires was throughout the night, starting at 10 and finishing at 7 in the morning. We were exhausted and I (Becky) ended up fainting in MacDonald’s which was really embarrassing as everyone just stepped over me thinking I was a drunk! This painting was a ‘Cock-Rocket’ so it got quite a lot of attention too, which was funny.

LLO: What’s a typical creative day like for the two of you?
B&L: We share a studio with designers in Shoreditch so most days are spent working away there unless we’re doing a wall painting somewhere and then that means long hours of painting in situ. When we’re doing commercial work we’ll be in the studio but doing exhibitions and wall paintings means we get out and about a lot.

We were just involved in an exhibition called ‘Super K Sonic Boooum’ by Nelly Ben-Hayoun at the Manchester Science Festival which involved us making a geodesic dome out of 75 pieces of cardboard, trying to paint and construct it in our studio (which is pretty small) and then attempting to take the whole thing in pieces to Manchester on the train. It was a nightmare and it kept collapsing! We finally managed to make it stay up so people could go inside but it was such a mission. Our brains work much better in 2-D than in 3-D! So we always have periods of exhibition stuff, which is way more fun than being attached to our desks.

LLO: Favourite London-based artists?
B&L: We love Raqib Shaw for his incredibly intricate and sumptuous paintings. To be honest, most of the artists we like don’t live in London!

LLO: What are you working on now?
B&L: We’re going to do an exhibition in Mexico City in 3 weeks time so we’re doing a new set of drawings to take over, so they are taking up most of our time at the moment. They are quite labour intensive. We’re also waiting to hear back from a couple of commercial jobs to see if we’ve got them.

Thanks Becky and Louise!

For more from Becky and Louise, check out their colourful website.

For more London Art Spot interviews, click here.

London Art Spot: David Stevenson

Calling various bits of East and South London home for over a decade, illustrator and animator David Stevenson can’t imagine living anywhere else. He tells me the average person only stays in London for seven years so he counts this as a tiny moral victory. He was born in Wolverhampton.

David’s work is influenced by Jack Kirby, Walt Simonson, the internet and literally whatever the last thing is that he saw or read. He’s always doodling stupid stuff (his words, not mine!). He also admits to wasting far too much time in front of a computer. He draws things for anyone who will pay.

Recently married, he drew himself as a gorilla on his wedding invitation so keep that in mind when you get to the question about his self-portrait in this week’s London Art Spot interview. He also lets us in on the bizarre way he heard of Michael Jackson’s death and shows off an illustration he feels really captures Sean Connery’s sexual magnetism.

LLO: How does living in London influence your creativity?
DS: Obviously there are loads of creative things going on in a city this size, but mostly it’s the people. When you hit a creative snag you can get out of the studio, jump on a bus and just people-watch until you buck your ideas up.

LLO: A lot of your illustrations are comments on current events or the arts. What inspires you and what’s your favourite source of daily news?
DS: Rumour, opinion and word of mouth. And by word of mouth, I mean the internet really. You can hear the news anywhere now – and quicker than the proper news channels. The way I heard about Michael Jackson’s death? An orc told me, in World of Warcraft. Of course I googled it; you don’t just take the word of an orc you don’t know. But I like that randomness.

LLO: You’ve had some big clients like Amnesty International, Orange and Warner Brothers. Who’s your dream client?
DS: High profile clients are useful, because they do open the door for more opportunities. But if you’re involved in something genuinely good, chances are people will hear about it.

LLO: I hear you also do some comedy nights. Tell us something funny?
DS: I’m not one of those funny comedians. I do stand-up pathos; roughly five minutes of quivering my lip, then a single tear trickles down my chin. It’s very moving. Some audiences have moved right out of the building.

LLO: Where can we catch your next stand-up gig?
DS: The London comedy scene is pretty quiet during the summer months, as everybody decamps to Edinburgh. So I’ll be chilling out until Autumn, making an effort to be as unfunny as possible.

LLO: What sort of animation projects have you worked on?
DS: Very quick stop-motion videos for songs, mostly written by my good friend Rob Manuel. Generally we go for a very fast, hand-made feel to keep the energy high. It’s more immediately satisfying using objects in the real world than being stuck in an animation programme.

LLO: If you were to do a self-portrait illustration, what would it look like?
DS: Me. It would look like me. I hope.

LLO: Which illustration are you most proud of and why?
DS: I like my picture of Zardoz, which I’d say totally captures Sean Connery’s sexual magnetism.

LLO: Are there any public figures in the spotlight at the moment you’ve got your eyes on to illustrate?
DS: Ed Balls is so pleasingly ugly that I really hope he does more stuff to get on the news. Like eat some orphans or something.

LLO: Which other London-based artists do you admire?
DS:
Hartwig Braun – Illustrator
Duncan Smith – Children’s Illustrator
Daniella Baptista – Photographer
Gerald Scarfe – Legendary Cartoonist

Thanks David!

For more of David’s work, check out his website: http://www.david-stevenson.com

For more London Art Spot interviews, click here.

London Art Spot: Danielle Dewitt

As Dani says herself, you might expect artwork from a native North Carolina girl to be quite “safe” and “homely”, but don’t be fooled. Dani’s illustrations and paintings are anything but, and since she moved to London, they have become even more open and experimental, all boundaries crossed. If you’re easily offended, turn back now. There’s a few safe entries back that way.

If you’re curious about what inspires this Central Saint Martin’s graduate to expose her inner fears and thoughts in such a way that may shock her neighbours back home, read on. She’s taken some time to tell us about why her work is so sexually blunt, how London gives her creative freedom and her plan to move to Oslo later this summer.

LLO: When did you first become interested in illustration and how has your work evolved while you worked toward your BA at Central Saint Martins?
DD: I have always been interested in the arts from what I can remember and especially illustration because it requires so much attention to detail and patience. I wanted to be a medical illustrator at first, I am fascinated with medicine and anatomy and still hope one day I can do something within the medical stratosphere. My time at CSM has definitely given me more self-discipline in regards to my working habits. It has taught me to explore my ideas more thoroughly and to formulate clear, well-executed pieces. I have found a love for painting with oils as well, which is something I was never really that interested in before. My work hasn’t really changed much overall, I have just expanded it into a few more mediums.

LLO: Has coming from the sticks in North Carolina to big city life in London changed the way you approach your art at all?
DD: Art in North Carolina is quite, “homely” and “safe”, well most of it. People seem scared to offend anyone with their work. Coming to London, you see that that safeness doesn’t exist here and you are free to explore and create whatever you like with out fear of community persecution or exclusion. My work is a lot more free now that I’m here, and a lot more chaotic.

LLO: Much of your work is very sexual in nature, very focused on the female body flaws and all. Can you talk a bit about the messages in these images?
DD: We’re our most vulnerable when we’re naked. Being nude changes the way people behave. Some embrace it, some can’t stand it. All of our flaws are visible and accessible to every human eye and every particle floating in the air. Being nude bonds us with our surroundings. When I draw a figure, I see it in my minds eye in total perfection, nude and flawless. But when it comes down onto paper, it becomes all of my insecurities and flaws, all of my pain and resentment for myself. The sexual outlet is the trusting, giving, ‘exposed’ and freed self and something I want to give to my viewers, the ability to bear the scars of  their life with out fear. We women hold a lot inside of us, and mask our perceived flaws in many different ways it seems. I want to make work that liberates the body of unnecessary social constraints by bluntly stating their existence and trying to deconstruct the need for us to hide from them.

LLO: It’s also very detailed and a lot of it is quite surreal. You’ve got a great imagination. Tell us a bit about what inspires your work?
DD: My work is usually inspired by events in my life, past and present, the quantum world, or perhaps something that really catches my eye in the media. I go through different phases of what elements I like to use in my work, like certain patterns or styles. My world on a day-to-day basis is quite surreal to be honest, weird things always happen to me, or things I simply cannot understand. I also tend to make up stories in my head about certain people I am surrounded by, or on occasion when I’m walking around I hear harmonies of sounds I suddenly feel like I’m in a musical and that leads to more ideas and the work takes off from there. I also spent a lot of time in hospitals when I was growing up, surrounded by a lot of unique characters. Their world is sometimes completely different from ours and very bizarre at times, these experiences inspired a lot of my work to this day.

LLO: You also do some painting, animation and graphic design. Do you find that changing mediums alters your subjects and style or do you take a similar approach despite the obvious differences?
DD: I definitely take a similar approach when painting, not so much when it comes to graphic design. Graphic design is a sort of ‘sanitary’ medium for me where I like to make more minimalist work, while utilizing a broader range of colours. Painting is just a mess, a mash of liquid pixels and I tend to want to make more abstract works when painting, however I always seem to be lured back to creating an intricate painting inclusive of the human form.

LLO: Which piece of work are you most proud of and why?
DD: I can’t say that I’m particularly proud of any single work I’ve made, I feel satisfied when they are completed, but usually not jumping to show them off. I have a very bad habit of destroying my work long before anyone ever sees it. I am truly resentful of my illustrations and paintings at times and have set alight many of them in the past, tossed them out the window of my car onto the motorway or simply flushed them down the toilet.

LLO: What’s the next step for you in terms of career and how you see yourself moving forward in the next few years? Do you plan to stay in London?
DD: I’m not exactly sure what’s next. I would like to display my work in galleries all over the world, I would like someone to collect my work, I would like to sell my work, but then again what artist doesn’t! I will probably end up working more on the graphic design side of things or doing freelance jobs or perhaps working in a design firm if all else fails while still doing art in my spare time. I’m getting married in August to a one Jan Schjetne, fashion photographer extraordinaire, and will be moving to Oslo, Norway in July to settle amongst the Scandinavians. I am really excited about this and hope to create loads of new work and add some new mediums to my current work.

LLO: Do you have a favourite London gallery or place to see other artists at work?
DD: I get really inspired at the National Portrait gallery, the Barbican and the Haunch of Venison. I love the name “Haunch of Vension” and that’s what first led me to this gallery. It’s an erie sounding name to me and this promises many good things contained within. I also like the White Cube Gallery near Old Street, and the Riflemaker Gallery they always have something good on.

LLO: What other London-based artists do you admire?
DD: I like a lot of the YBA’s, and I love the large fun works of Anish Kapoor.

LLO: Where can we see some more of your work?
DD: I have a website, cargocollective.com/EHFO, I update it fairly regularly. You can also drop me an email on there if you have any questions, or thoughts you want to share: dewittd@gmail.com.

Thanks Dani!