One thing I love at this time of the year are the end-of-year lists you encounter on almost any subject you might imagine. As this is an art-based substack here are my art-adjacent faves of2022!
Favourite new medium: Gouache. (I am preparing an entire post on this subject, as someone who was paint-phobic and gouache suspicious). Here is part of my small collection…
Favourite colour (based on use and preference): As with every other year – Green. Although I will add that I tend to prefer a yellow-inclined green. Or something sappy or grassy! See above, for instance.
Favourite type of sketchbook: Various sorts. I am still most comfortable with A5 just for accessibility. And I want something that can take paint. If I had to choose it would be the Hahnemuhle Sketch and Note two packs. Affordable, stylish and look lovely afterwards when filed away for posterity. These sketchbooks are as beautiful on the outside as you can aim to make them on the inside.
Favourite Artist: Let’s give to David Hockney who is having an incredible late career and presents that very rare combination: geniality and acute intelligence and insight. I love the series of books he has produced with Martin Gayford (A History of Pictures and Spring Cannot Be Cancelled): they are intermittently formal and informal and reflect on art history and art practise in an accessible but also quite rigorous way.
Favourite Pictures: Ok I’m not judging this on paintings produced this year but on pictures that resonated with me this year regardless of when they were produced. So to begin Hockney’s The Entrance from 2020. Those are the best yellow stripes I’ve seen for some time. Also Schonbrunner Landscape/Park (1916) by Gustav Klimt. Another artist would have dialled back what some might see as a green overload but not dear Klimt and it is kind of intoxicating. And finally the endlessly elegant Geraniums (1915) by Henri Matisse, principally for that beautifully gold ochre toned table.
Favourite Subject: Early in the year I dabbled in landscape. Late in the year I dabbled with riverscapes.
Favourite Book Cover: Again only discovered by me this year: Laura Carlin’s cover for Les Grand Meaulnes by Fournier. A wonderful loose-sketched forest-filled illustration. This was a year I became more intrigued by illustration and contributed for a second time in Folktale Week to test my narrative skills!
Favourite Decorative Art Object or Artefact: This Farmhouse-brown chicken. Imagine it filled with eggs!
Favourite Art Quote: “In drawing nothing is better than the first attempt.” Pablo Picasso. A quote designed for those who doubt themselves!
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A reminder to check out my website shop at davidmonteiroart,com. I have a good number of prints available – some landscape, some botanic, some animal. Details of my printer supplier is featured with each listing.
UK and EU deliveries are custom free, and best of all deliveries are free in every area I currently deliver to: the EU, the UK, the US and Canada.
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This newsletter will continue monthly, although, ideally I would like to have also offer an optional weekly version on substack going forward, perhaps in the new year. In the mean time if you are reading please subscribe to the monthly newsletter and if you want to buy me a coffee on Ko-fi at this link (https://ko-fi.com/davidmonteiro) it would be much appreciated so I can evolve and develop my practise. In the meantime Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!