Twelve years ago, almost to the day, I was lucky enough to catch local artist and Royal Academician Ken Howard at work capturing a view of the harbour from the Canners Slip. Ken was religious about his working day that, whether in the studio or 'en plein air', began at 6am. He gave a few minutes of his time but it was obvious that there was a need to work fast as the early morning light was changing by the minute.
This was the subsequent post:
At this time of year when the weather is in two minds and it is either about to rain, or just has, the light in Newlyn has a unique quality. This was the attraction over one hundred years ago for a group of artists that became the Newlyn School as they sought to capture those light tones on canvas. Today, if you are early enough down among the boats you can catch local artists at work 'en plein' in the early morning light. Today was no exception, with one of the doyens of English landscape artists, Ken Howard, at his easel intent on capturing the constantly changing moody sky above a harbour crowded with boats over the spring tide.
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For reference - the photo, in order to apply the correct exposure to the painting on the canvas, is over exposed and has therefore failed to capture the dramatic sky that the artist is in the process of capturing 'contré jour' which translates as 'against the light' - a photograph exposed for the background when taken against the light inevitably causes the subject and foreground to appear as a silhouette.
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Howard, born in 1932, dedicated his life's work to capturing the tonal qualities of coastal scenes, not only in the West of Cornwall but also in the Venice. His technically informative video, 'Inspired by Light' is essential viewing for any artist with an interest in his technique. In a long career that began at Hornsey School of Art in the 1950s he has since achieved many of the milestones that similar artists aspire to such as becoming a Royal Academician and more recently the Professor of Perspective at the RA. Early in his career, while serving as a marine in Northern Ireland he was appointed as an official war artist by the Imperial War Museum. His current work is available through his agent Richard Green in London, where he spends much of the year. The Royal Academy of Arts ran a story on him in their summer magazine last year - unable to resist the temptation to give it the strap line, Howard's Way.
Today, in a world of video and digital according to Ken, many art students, seem reluctant to subject themselves to the rigours of the craft of drawing and painting and in learning to apply centuries old techniques like the one he is using above - using his brush to measure proportion from the scene against his canvas - at one time in his career, Ken was Professor of Perspective at the Royal Academy...
He made many studies of the light in Newlyn on canvas...
Tim Hall, local marine artist and portrait painter who runs Cornwall Painting Holidays captured Ken Howard to a 'T' in this prize winning portrait of the artist in his Mousehole old school studio.
