Featured Artists

Dani Humberstone has taken part in SEOS for many years and runs The Art Shop at Wadhurst, Kent. Here she describes her first venture into the world of publishing.

In the months that followed the opening of The Art Shop at Wadhurst, I met several sales representatives and dependant on the kind of art materials they carried, saw them fairly regularly from then on and throughout the subsequent years.  To me though, one person in particular stood out from the rest: a Mr Andrew Street.  Not only a physically imposing, handsome, cigar smoking, brandy drinking man, he had the most extraordinarily loud laugh, a very wicked sense of humour and a heart of gold. Over the years he has taught me an enormous amount about all aspects of art materials of all media and varieties. It was not unlike having a private lecture on the subject every couple of months and he was also always extremely helpful to my customers if they had any tricky questions.

One of the many lines Andrew carried was from Search Press Ltd, the art & craft book publishers in Tunbridge Wells.  Search Press specialise in clear and concise teaching ‘primers’. Andrew was well known and well liked by the people at SP, and knowing that they were always on the lookout for new artists to make books with, and without me knowing, spoke to the commissioning editor about me.  Andrew had always been interested in my work, and had followed my developing style during the years we had known each other, which by then was a fair amount.

One day, a woman came into the shop, and, not knowing who I was, asked to see some work by “Dani Humberstone”- me!  I (hopefully) thought she was possibly a new painting client or maybe a gallery owner so introduced myself and showed her into my studio (at the back of the shop) slightly embarrassed because it was completely soaked due to an annoying and persistent leak.
She was primarily interested in my abstract work, which I don’t really do very much anymore (unless commissioned to), so I showed her my books of photos (not very glamorous, for my own records) of about ten years worth of abstract paintings I had made and left her to it.
Minutes later she came out, waited for me to finish with a customer, and asked me if I could recreate or do something similar to the paintings in the photos and if so would I be interested working on a book about abstract painting. To be honest at that point I had little or no idea what I might actually have to do for the book, I thought I’d cross that bridge etc..,  and said yes. 

A few days later the contract arrived, in recognisable English and I signed it. Then I received my advance and a new authors guide…

Cut to the exciting bit (in my view) and the photographic studio days.
To briefly explain, if you’ve never seen a Search Press Book before, much of the attraction and success of SP books is in the photography; beautiful shots which show what they call the ‘step-by-step’ process, which are angled so clearly that the person trying to follow them is in no doubt at all about what they should be doing. SP are not only the pioneers of this teaching method but have won several awards for it (one very recently for innovation). Basically step-by-step means pretty much what is says - it is the demonstration of; how to begin, work through and finish a painting - using a succession of images which follow the developing painting. They currently cover an excellent variety of styles, method and media.  But up until then no abstract. Understandable, quite frankly, because you can’t really ‘teach’ Abstract art can you?  Well the jury’s still out on that one.  I think you can give people the tools and some understanding of technique and how paint can work, followed by the working through with the guidance of the author/artist and then it‘s up to them to take it further.
   
There are books on abstract painting already, some very good ones, but nothing that actually demonstrates method and style.  In my book I wanted to guide, inspire and give as much confidence as it was possible to do within the pages of a book. To me it is important what to paint in and where to put your brush.  In my experience, of nearly nine years in the art shop, talking daily to people who would adore to paint, draw, sculpt or whatever - the fear of getting it wrong and/or a lack of confidence is primarily what holds them back from having a go.


By the time we arrived at the photography bit I had done a small amount of writing for the book, which was to be part of a new series, in conjunction with ‘Winsor & Newton‘, called “How To Paint“ - mine was to be called (you’ve guess it) “How To Paint: Abstracts” catchy title.

I think the only time I actually thought about running away was the first morning of the photographic shoot (four days in total) at Roddy Paine’s studio in Tunbridge Wells….   big white room, Macs everywhere, a serious rig of lighting and camera, huge soft boxes and people.   In the middle of all this was a longish bench covered in white paper from a roll which stood in front of it.  Help!!!
Without wanting to seem melodramatic it was an awesome sight and I did question exactly what I thought I was doing there for a minute or two.

I had spent some time in my studio working on some ideas for the four ‘demonstrations‘ required.
Even though I was painting with a camera focused on what I was doing, with constant stops for the photographer to line up shot, I still I wanted to keep a sense of spontaneity and freedom in the work and not end up with some sort of ’abstract formula’.  I was also keen to keep my own integrity as an artist.  My own way of working in abstract has always been quite an intuitive way; following the painting as it grows and develops, bringing out the composition, balancing contrast, colour and tone.  And I wanted to recreate this ideal if at all possible.
I stopped painting my fruit etc for a while before the shoot, as I find abstract painting comes from such a different part of the ‘art brain’ and I thought I should give myself time to get my eye in and get some practice under my belt before I began painting for the book.

Seriously it was one of the most difficult things I have ever done; As I as painted, trying to capture the essence of (to me) abstract painting and using as many techniques as I could think of (another requirement), having to stop working after almost every brush stroke, my Editor, an fantastic young guy (and a poet in his own time), noted down every move I made with the paint.  I had to explain every mark I made on the support, the brush or tool I was using, the paint, what colour, mixes, properties if relevant and why… a very good discipline but very bad for my head, a big bad headache followed. Mainly due to the concentration needed and also the pressure to get it right. 

After four days we had a wrap, shot the gorgeous ‘material shots’ with the designer there.  He made squashed out tubes of paint look sensuous and a collection of used brushes, a thing of beauty.
I then wrote up the rest of the book and spent a day at SP with my Editor completing it.  It was launched in October 2009 in the UK, March 2010 in the US and is being translated into French, Russian and Italian soon.

Very sadly, Andrew who first introduced me to SP, suddenly died just before the book was finished.  We quickly added a message to him in the dedication at front of the book.    

Was it worth the hassle? I think it was, and in the end I loved doing it. However, I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to retire (perish the thought) on the royalties! In fact earlier this year, I went back for more and have just finished book two - headache free!  

How to Paint: Abstracts by Dani Humberstone and Ready to Paint: Abstracts by Dani Humberstone are published by Search Press Ltd. www.searchpress.com

This year Dani has taken a break from the event and joined as an Associate Member.