Lady Lever Art Gallery

I visited this museum and art gallery not too far from Liverpool a few months ago, but never get to write a post about it. They have a new temporary exhibition that would justify another visit….

History of the gallery

The Lady Lever Art Gallery has an extensive collection of fine and decorative arts (in particular British 18th and 19th century paintings). It was founded by William Hesketh Lever (1851-1925) to host the best pieces of his personal art collection and the gallery was named in memory of his wife Elizabeth. Lever was a multimillionaire entrepreneur who started his fortune by making soaps - his empire became “Unilever”.

The gallery’s collection and web site
The gallery is easy to access, with ample parking space. The entry is free of charge (including and audio guide with an adult and a children commentary). Non-commercial photography is permitted inside the gallery, as long as you don’t use a flash nor a tripod and sign a consent form at the front desk. Photography is not permitted in temporary exhibitions.

The website of the gallery is remarkable and well worth a visit. It is easy to navigate and contains extensive information on the collections, individual paintings and featured artists. You can browse the collection of the gallery online by alphabetical order of the artists name and even listen to audio commentaries on your computer. No need to download them on your MP3 player, as the gallery will lend you a free audio guide. I would give a full mark to this web site.

The only (but significant) negative point about the gallery is that the light level in some rooms is low to protect the works of art, which means that certain paintings are hard to see. In the main gallery, you have to add to the light issue the fact that some paintings are exhibited ones on top of the others, reflecting the conception of art galleries at the time of its creation. The combination of the distance and low lighting means you see more clearly the painting on the web site… a real shame.

If you like the Pre-Raphaelite artists, you have to go and see the works by Millais, Rossetti , Burne-Jones and Leighton.

Room number 30 has ‘Cottage at East Bergholt’ (c. 1833) a landscape by Constable with heavy applications of paint done with knife paintings and a large oil painting by Turner, both of high interest.

The 19th and 20th century paintings exhibited on the East and West balconies are far less interesting.


Temporary exhibition on French Impressionists
The current temporary exhibition is on French Impressionists. It runs from February 20th until the May 31st 2009 with works by Renoir, Monet, Degas and Rodin coming from Stockholm. The exhibition is described as “small but exceptional”. When I visited the gallery, there was an exhibition of drawings which were well presented, perfectly lit and interesting. So the cristicism on the lighting conditions for part of the main collection does not extend to the temporary exhibition space.


Practical details

Lady Lever Art Gallery
Port Sunlight Village
Wirral
CH62 5EQ
England

Telephone 0151 478 4136
International Telephone +44 151 478 4136

Web site:http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/ladylever/




Lady Lever Art Gallery Pre-Raphaelite Millais Rossetti Burne-Jones Leighton Constable Turner Liverpool museums Art museum Paintings Art gallery Wirral Port sunlight village

Heavy snow - Oil painting

A couple of weeks ago, we had some snow. It's all gone now...

Heavy snow - Oil painting (18 x 14") by Benoit Philippe

Is it cheating?

For my painting Dig this!, I tried something different with a transfer experiment. I had kept a magazine article explaining how you can transfer a photocopy onto a canvas or a panel by using acrylic medium gel.

I started by reversing the digital photograph I had as reference and then printed it onto an A3 piece of paper.

I printed several copies at 100% and 80% size to see the one that worked best. With the unusual placement of the canvas (diamond shape), I selected the 100% version, otherwise, the background would have been too large (in particular the foreground).

I traced an axis on the canvas and worked out the placement of the image before applying the medium gel.

In order to transfer the image, I painted the front of the photocopy with a coat of acrylic medium gel, using a household paint brush.

I then applied the paper onto the canvas and pressed with my hand to remove any bubble. The canvas being soft, I could not press too hard, so I turned the canvas over on the table and laid some dictionaries to press the photocopy onto the canvas.

As the canvas is prepared with several coats of gesso, it is not as absorbent as raw fabric, wood or paper. I did not know if the transfer was going to work. To increase my chances, I decided to let the paper dry (although I may not have waited long enough) and then to moisten it again with a sponge to remove the paper. I theory, the image should stay glued to the canvas thanks to the acrylic medium gel.

When I removed the paper, some of the image also came off, probably because I did not put enough gel medium on parts of the photocopy.

I managed to remove most of the remaining paper pulp using a rubber.

The final transfer is less than perfect. I actually like the distressed look of the transfer as a base for my painting. It feels quite “industrial”.

Oil painting Painting technique Image transfer Acrylic medium gel

Art activities annual calendar

I am still working on the detail of my art activities for 2009. Instead of just having my activities as a list, I am putting together a calendar for the whole year. As a visual artist, I like to see things… visually and with a calendar and some colour coding, it all becomes much clearer.



When working on my calendar, I realised that one of the things that was holding me back was the fear to book an exhibition and discover later that it clashed with another family commitment.

I see several advantages to using an annual calendar:

• You can put your “big rocks” in and then see the time you have to do other activities


• It makes planning easier because you can review the future months at a glance and working back to see what needs to be done before an exhibition date, for instance.


• You can make sure your marketing activities are well spread over the whole year. If one month is too busy, then you may want to move some items around.


• The visual aspect, with colours, makes gap obvious. Are your exhibitions all in the first part of the year? Then you know you need to get to work to book some dates for the second part of the year.


• If you have a new opportunity coming your way, you can quickly check if it fits or not with your existing commitments.
  
  

What goes into your calendar?

This is a non-exhaustive list of items that could go into your calendar:

Start with your personal commitments:

• Vacations


• Family’s events (yours, your wife’s or partner’s and children’s ones)


• Days out
  

Recurrent activities:

• Sending your newsletter


• Blog entries


• Articles you write


• Christmas / end of the year cards


• Promotions you want to run


• Updating your website
  

Specific art events:

• Exhibition already booked


• Open studios days


• Workshop you plan to attend


• Shows or exhibitions you want to go to
  

The tools you need

The tools you need already exist.

• You can use a large wall calendar, but make sure you see the whole year at once (don’t use a calendar that has a page per month).
  


• An A3 version can also be used. You can print one from Duct Tape Marketing. See the article: Create Your Marketing Calendar Today


• Another solution is to use an Excel spreadsheet. The good news is that Michael Hyatt created a template you can use. See the article Creating an Annual Time Block by Michael Hyatt. The great advantage of Michael’s template is that, by entering the date of the first of January for any given year, all the date will be updated automatically (even for leap years).

Art marketing Art exhibition Calendar Art activities calendar Michael Hyatt Duct Tape Marketing

New exhibition at the Wyvern Theatre

I am taking part into a collective exhibition called “The Art of Water” where I have three paintings on show:

Relaxing at Mevagissey

Torquay in the rain and Wilts & Berks canal

Where and when

The Art of Water Open Exhibition
Wyvern Theatre Lower Foyer

Theatre Square , Swindon, SN1 1QN

Directions to the exhibition
Wednesday 11 February – Saturday 21 March 2009