Juliette Losq is an artist whose practice subverts the conventional use of watercolour through scale and complexity both of those in her paintings and installations. Her sketchbooks are packed with imagery and strategies that she gathers, cuts into, tears by and paints around, on the journey to establish her closing compositions. Below, Juliette discusses her system in depth and shares her realistic solution to making the most of her sketchbooks.
Juliette Losq Normally takes Us By way of Her Sketchbook Practice
Sketchbooks for me, are a mix of a journal and a scrapbook. I obtain paper and ephemera from journals and publications courting again to the nineteenth century. I receive these from eBay or from bookshops. I tend to be drawn to Victorian illustrations, woodcuts and optical toys. I have also collected pictures journals from the 1930s and 40s – anything at all that is made up of pictures that interest me visually in some way. Generally, I never know right up until I have purchased an merchandise what its complete articles is. From time to time I contain the entire merchandise inside of my sketchbook or photocopy the appropriate illustrations or photos. I could possibly erase from photographs, so that they develop into unpopulated landscapes. Eliminating the figures turns the landscape into a variety of vacant set. Occasionally, these figures reappear as hidden characters within just my work, who may or may perhaps not be found by viewers. I also make alterations to historic images, to reflect the up to date landscape, for case in point, or to suggest an different narrative to the one particular originally introduced.
I also keep photos from present magazines that may be of interest in phrases of suggesting long run compositions. If I occur throughout the get the job done of an artist I like in a journal or on line, I minimize or print this out and use the sketchbook as a way of storing it. I’ll make notes on sketchbook pages of any suggestions I’ve been supplied by other artists, of displays to look at out or guides to go through, for case in point.
Sometimes I’ll use a sketchbook to group photographs alongside one another. For example, I’m fascinated in rococo kinds and the way they stylise and exaggerate organic forms in just the landscape. I may well juxtapose these with my possess collage compositions, discovering visual connections concerning the two.
I tend to favour an A4-A3 sized sketchbook with a really hard protect, as this dimensions is huge ample to accommodate most ephemera that I collect. The really hard go over is a great way of defending the contents. I from time to time get the job done straight into the sketchbook to draw, so I favour a pretty heavy paper as this leaves the possibility to work with damp materials as effectively as glueing and collaging into it.
Other than collected products that are pasted onto the pages, traditionally I have worked with fantastic liner and/or watercolour and ink. These materials permit me to sketch ideas out rapidly, or to jot down notes to refer back to. I tend to use Sennelier Ink and Winsor & Newton Indian Ink. I use Winsor & Newton or Cotman watercolours.
I use sketchbooks to acquire methods that I may refer back again to a range of yrs later, so there is really no sell-by-date for a sketchbook, and I am continue to referring to 1 that I commenced in 2007. I almost certainly refer to notes, programs or photos in one particular of my sketchbooks weekly. For this purpose I are likely to keep them to hand, on a shelf in my studio.
I frequently make strategies for installations in sketchbooks, approximately drawing preliminary concepts or storing ground pans and SketchUp styles in them. I grid images up, make a take note of proportions, and include an general prepare for how they will in the end occur alongside one another. I can then take the e book to the site and refer to it whilst I am setting up.
Simply click right here to Juliette’s installations
For me, a sketchbook is a contained go-to location for handy facts. Whilst it is not always stored and referred to in chronological order, I have a good grasp of which sketchbook it is in and how it sits in relation to the facts around it in that e-book. So, it is generally fairly easy to find. Usually, when browsing a sketchbook, I arrive across an strategy or an picture from many several years back, that may then variety the basis of present work. A short while ago I identified an picture of a paper peepshow that I gathered when I was on my BA at Wimbledon Faculty of Art in between 2004 and 2007. I’d forgotten all about it, but this impression attributes prominently within my latest PhD thesis, so it is practically like I experienced been carrying it all-around in my mind for all that time – as even though in some way possessing it physically pasted someplace has embedded it in my consciousness. It is also exciting that I’ve created an installation apply, significantly over the last five several years, that refers visually again to units like this. While I have felt like this evolved organically from preceding paper installations, it appears like, once more, these illustrations or photos had been burnt into my visible memory, and have been waiting around for a possibility to be recalled and used.
At times I’ll rediscover a thing seriously essential. As an example, I’m currently planning a display involving artists who engage in with scale, working with styles and maquettes as element of their system. I’m searching to increase the up to date artists who will function in this exhibition, which will choose spot at the RWA in Bristol at some phase around the subsequent couple of a long time. Whilst going as a result of my sketchbook I uncovered a pamphlet from the Miniature Worlds exhibition, which took place at the Jerwood Area, London, in 2006. This unveiled some seriously attention-grabbing artists who I hadn’t consciously been conscious of or regarded when curating this show. Nonetheless, it’s appealing to me that scale and modelmaking have been thematic concerns of mine, albeit tangentially, ten or fifteen many years ago, and have only recently arrive to the fore in just my apply. I have been experimenting with product earning and drawing from models over the past 5 years or so.
My guidance to artists is to see a sketchbook as a handy, functional software. If it is a handy location to exam out colours or tactics, or to sketch about compositions prior to creating a last function, do this. My sketchbooks are surely not rather but they are a handy record of historical, existing, and long term references and tips.
About Juliette Losq
Juliette Losq is an internationally exhibited, prizewinning artist. She analyzed Great Art at the University of the Arts London (2004- 2007) and the Royal Academy Educational institutions (2007-2010), as effectively as researching English and Record of Artwork at Newnham College or university, Cambridge (1997-2000) and Record of Art at the Courtauld Institute, London (2000-2001).
Juliette received the Jerwood Drawing Prize in 2005, was just one of 5 shortlisted artists for the John Moores Prize in 2014, acquiring the Visitor’s Preference Award, and gained the John Ruskin Prize in 2019. She was elected to the Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolours and the Guild of St. George in 2020, and became a Royal West of England Academician in 2021.
Juliette’s get the job done seeks to explain the borderlands on the fringes of city developments, capturing the benign battles waged between gentleman and character. Her renditions of the (sub)urban landscape are interrupted by the menace of an mysterious existence. The dark recesses allow for the creativeness of the viewer to spot wherever that possible risk may well be lurking. She experiments with complexity and scale. By her use of watercolour she aims to problem the historic associations of this medium with preparatory sketching in the field, and domestic scale or use.
Even more Studying
Within the Sketchbook of Evie Hatch
Collage for Beginners – What You Have to have to Get Started off
Producing a Day-to-day Drawing Follow With the Royal Drawing School
Juliette Losq: Jackson’s Painting Prize 2021 Specialist Judge
Shop sketchbooks on jacksonsart.com
