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Simon Davis
A Talk on Painting & Illustration in collaboration with LSC and De Montfort University Wednesday 7 June 2017 7pm – 9pm The Gallery Vijay Patel Building De Montfort University, Mill Lane Leicester LE2 7PT Venue link Completed - See review below _____________________________________________________________ About: Simon Davis is both the illustrator of many celebrated comic book titles (including Judge Dredd) and an established professional portrait artist. He will talk about these two areas of his practice and how they relate. ‘The disciplines of my comic-strip work, with the need for narrative and careful composition, perhaps complements my oil painting and makes me approach a portrait in a more dynamic and economical way. I am particularly interested in the ‘square brush technique’ as used by The Newlyn School of Painters and Henry La Thangue’ Simon was born in Warwickshire in 1968 and is known for his fully painted art work on Sinister Dexter, Black Siddha and Stone Island. He has storyboarded music videos and TV ads including Muse, Tori Amos and Barclaycard. He is a painter of "contemporary figurative paintings" and portraits, mainly in oils and was elected Vice-President of the Royal Society of Portrait Painters in 2014. In 2008, Simon took 2nd Prize in the BP Portrait Award, NPG, London. He exhibits at the Red Rag Modern British Art Gallery in Stow and currently lives in London. See more of his work here |
Sophia_ Simon Davis
Map of The Gallery.
The Gallery is situated on the left of his photograph.
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Review
Simon, who grew up in Warwickshire in 1968, explained that he was not formally trained in art but was inspired by the work in the comic 2000AD and the art work of Star Wars which he said ‘allowed his imagination to run wild’. He drew all the time during school and started out working as a graphic designer until he realised it was not for him. He practised drawing for comic books at night, searched out advice from comic book artists (in particular Simon Bisley) and developed his skills over several years until he got his first break in doing a cover.
His process involves receiving the script, drawing a quick breakdown of each page, submits to the editor for approval, then inks up the pages in detail and paints over. He stressed the need for very tight ink drawings and to ‘get it right which allows for more options when painting. Some artists are excellent painters but not good drawers. If the drawing is good, it will show through.’
Simon likes to focus more on faces in his comic work and less on action. He asks friends and family to pose for him. He saw that other comic artists were also painters and that one could inform the other and he decided to become more painterly in his approach. He experimented using oils for some of his cover work to achieve different effects but not for use on the main pages given the deadlines. He paints in gouache for the majority of his work. Simon has worked on many of the top comics around the world for several decades including Judge Dredd, Sinister Dexter, Slaine and Stone Island including the recent release of the comic book Slaine.
He works as a very successful portrait artist at the same time. Years ago, he felt that portrait painting would perhaps have more longevity than his comic work. He set about studying British Impressionist artists such as Henry La Thangue and George Clausen for ‘their strong but subtle way of applying paint’, for their portrayal of real people and for their use of the square brush technique. He researched others including artists from the Newlyn School and Egon Schiele. Again, he started out asking top artists about their process including Phil Hale and then practised a great deal. Simon explained that you have to expect at least a year or so of producing bad work when starting into a new area before you can produce something decent. He mentioned the importance of getting feedback from other artists – who are generally very kind with their advice. He described a ‘eureka’ moment when he moved away from painting on white boards to painting a toned background in first which was far less intimidating.
His early work was of friends and family and tended to be more busy in composition than his later work which has a more simplified composition. He photographs his sitters either in their homes or his studio in London and works from the photographs. This is particularly useful when working with children or a group of people.
He works up a small quick thumbnail sketch or painting. Once the direction is finalised, he transfers the image to the main canvas again producing a detailed under-drawing, then applies a thin acrylic wash to the canvas and starts to block in the main values beginning with the highlight values first and then moving to the dark all on the first day using a limited palette. The next stage is to work into the background and then leave the work for a week or two which gives him time to see if changes are needed. He mentioned his use of some amounts of blue on the faces which he called ‘flashes’ which gives a translucent feel to the skin but doesn’t dominate the overall painting. He paints over MDF boards which have been sanded and primed and at times mixes Liquin into his paints.
‘A lot can go wrong in a painting, you can lose the energy easily’ and Simon mentioned that it is helpful to wipe off the paint and rework it as long as you have a strong under drawing. He advised against showing the client your work too much (or at all) whilst in development and advised against allowing the client to have input into the final result.
Finishing off his talk, he said that you will always get rejection no matter what stage you are at and he advised treating all successes and failures ‘lightly’. Being successful at exhibitions is not necessarily a sign that your work is very good and equally if your work is rejected, it does not follow that your work is terribly bad.
Simon shared insights throughout the evening, advised and took questions from the audience. It was a super inspiring night for all interested in art and those aspiring to develop to higher standards and was much appreciated.
________________________________________________________________________
Many thanks to Hugo Worthy (DMU) for his input and for providing the venue for free , to Emma Fitzpatrick (LSC) for organising the event and to the volunteers on the night and of course to Simon for giving us such a thought provoking evening.
Simon, who grew up in Warwickshire in 1968, explained that he was not formally trained in art but was inspired by the work in the comic 2000AD and the art work of Star Wars which he said ‘allowed his imagination to run wild’. He drew all the time during school and started out working as a graphic designer until he realised it was not for him. He practised drawing for comic books at night, searched out advice from comic book artists (in particular Simon Bisley) and developed his skills over several years until he got his first break in doing a cover.
His process involves receiving the script, drawing a quick breakdown of each page, submits to the editor for approval, then inks up the pages in detail and paints over. He stressed the need for very tight ink drawings and to ‘get it right which allows for more options when painting. Some artists are excellent painters but not good drawers. If the drawing is good, it will show through.’
Simon likes to focus more on faces in his comic work and less on action. He asks friends and family to pose for him. He saw that other comic artists were also painters and that one could inform the other and he decided to become more painterly in his approach. He experimented using oils for some of his cover work to achieve different effects but not for use on the main pages given the deadlines. He paints in gouache for the majority of his work. Simon has worked on many of the top comics around the world for several decades including Judge Dredd, Sinister Dexter, Slaine and Stone Island including the recent release of the comic book Slaine.
He works as a very successful portrait artist at the same time. Years ago, he felt that portrait painting would perhaps have more longevity than his comic work. He set about studying British Impressionist artists such as Henry La Thangue and George Clausen for ‘their strong but subtle way of applying paint’, for their portrayal of real people and for their use of the square brush technique. He researched others including artists from the Newlyn School and Egon Schiele. Again, he started out asking top artists about their process including Phil Hale and then practised a great deal. Simon explained that you have to expect at least a year or so of producing bad work when starting into a new area before you can produce something decent. He mentioned the importance of getting feedback from other artists – who are generally very kind with their advice. He described a ‘eureka’ moment when he moved away from painting on white boards to painting a toned background in first which was far less intimidating.
His early work was of friends and family and tended to be more busy in composition than his later work which has a more simplified composition. He photographs his sitters either in their homes or his studio in London and works from the photographs. This is particularly useful when working with children or a group of people.
He works up a small quick thumbnail sketch or painting. Once the direction is finalised, he transfers the image to the main canvas again producing a detailed under-drawing, then applies a thin acrylic wash to the canvas and starts to block in the main values beginning with the highlight values first and then moving to the dark all on the first day using a limited palette. The next stage is to work into the background and then leave the work for a week or two which gives him time to see if changes are needed. He mentioned his use of some amounts of blue on the faces which he called ‘flashes’ which gives a translucent feel to the skin but doesn’t dominate the overall painting. He paints over MDF boards which have been sanded and primed and at times mixes Liquin into his paints.
‘A lot can go wrong in a painting, you can lose the energy easily’ and Simon mentioned that it is helpful to wipe off the paint and rework it as long as you have a strong under drawing. He advised against showing the client your work too much (or at all) whilst in development and advised against allowing the client to have input into the final result.
Finishing off his talk, he said that you will always get rejection no matter what stage you are at and he advised treating all successes and failures ‘lightly’. Being successful at exhibitions is not necessarily a sign that your work is very good and equally if your work is rejected, it does not follow that your work is terribly bad.
Simon shared insights throughout the evening, advised and took questions from the audience. It was a super inspiring night for all interested in art and those aspiring to develop to higher standards and was much appreciated.
________________________________________________________________________
Many thanks to Hugo Worthy (DMU) for his input and for providing the venue for free , to Emma Fitzpatrick (LSC) for organising the event and to the volunteers on the night and of course to Simon for giving us such a thought provoking evening.
Photographs supplied by: George Sfougaras, Brigitte Thomas, Emma Fitzpatrick, Debbie Miles.