HOW I PAINT
A
lan McGowan was born in Glasgow in- He studied at Edinburgh College of
Art and returned there to teach, as well as
hosting courses in many prestigious venues,
including London’s Royal Academy of Arts, Leith
School of Art and the Holyrood Palace in Edinburgh.
He was a semi-finalist on Sky Arts Portrait Artist
of the Year 2014 and his work has featured in the
BP Portrait Awards and the Scottish Portrait
Awards. He teaches art online via regular courses
and his new Patreon account. http://www.alanmcgowan.com
BACK TO BASICS
I’ve been teaching for a long time,
working in art colleges and doing
visiting lectures. All of that has
changed in the pandemic. I started
a Patreon account, but I didn’t just
want to take what I was doing online
already and charge people for it.
So every month, I take a topic and
make a video or two about it for my
subscribers, mostly about working in
oils and working with the figure. There
are chances for people to ask me
questions as well. Topics or themes
might be colour palettes or glazing.
The next thing I’m discussing is
transcription. It was a big part of art
teaching for a while and then it became
unfashionable. The slate was wiped
clean by conceptual art and colleges
moved away from things like anatomy,
transcription and life drawing. When
you return to these topics, there’s a
freshness about them now.
My usual process involves working
from life, so lockdown has absolutely
put a stop to that. There are a number
of different things I’ve done to deal
with that and one of those was to
take on transcription again. I’ve been
looking at artists who have more of
an expressive approach, people like
Delacroix, Rembrandt and Rubens.
It’s always more useful to look at
slightly unfinished works or sketches,
too. I love Rubens’ oil sketches, they
reveal more about the technique
than the best finished pieces.
I did learn that expressive approach
a bit at Edinburgh. It wasn’t exactly
taught, but there is a Scottish
approach to figuration and a use of
colour that tends towards painters
who make more expressionistic work.
Joan Eardley would be an importantTHIS IMAGE Alisdair,
oil on panel, 80x60cm
TOP LEFT Andreas,
oil on paper, 80x56cm