Nov 13th 2018

New Book by Will Kemp, Artist and Teacher Extraordinaire

by Mary L. Tabor

Mary L. Tabor worked most of her life so that one day she would be able to write full-time. She quit her corporate job when she was 50, put on a backpack and hiking boots to trudge across campus with folks more than half her age. She’s the author of the novel Who by Fire, the memoir (Re)Making Love: a sex after sixty story and the collection of connected short stories The Woman Who Never Cooked. She’s a born and bred liberal who writes lyric essays on the arts for one of the most conservative papers in the country and she hosts a show interviewing authors on Rare Bird Radio. In the picture Mary L.Tabor

 

Still Life Acrylic Project Book, with three simple painting projects, will get anyone who ever wanted to hold a paint brush not only started, but confident. The book is available online for only £12.99 or at the bargain price of £9.99 if you buy it before November 14, 2018.

Still Life Acrylic

 

Here’s the link: https://willkempartschool.com/product/still-life-acrylic-project-e-book/

I am here to sing Will Kemp’s praises and review this new e-book because I have been studying with Will since January 2016, long distance but close in heart—Will lives in Britain and I live in the States.

I had never painted before or even taken an art class—well, there was that one at the Smithsonian Institution’s Campus-on-the-Mall where I came out feeling like a total dunce and decided not to give up but was in a total muddle. This book will get you out of such a muddle and get you started. It is so good that I recommend it for artists who know what they are doing but want to understand acrylics better.

Will Kemp

 

With Will as your teacher, you will never feel stupid or that you shouldn’t try. Very simply, Will Kemp has been a gift in my life. 

First, a bit of his bio: Will Kemp was awarded a Queen Elizabeth Craft Scholarship to study Classical Portraiture in Florence, Italy. He’s designed art curriculums for schools, developed interactive learning resources with the National Gallery, London, and taught students from all different starting points the principles of how drawing and painting work. 

Most of his teaching can be found online—the way I found him—at this YouTube link: https://www.youtube.com/user/willkempartschool where he has nearly 170,000 subscribers— and for good reason—and where he actually replies to comments (when does he have time?) and helps his students: He cheers you on, gives you hope and teaches the basics and more, much more. 

Many of his beginning courses are free: I started with his demonstration of a cherry and then his apple. Below is the second painting I ever painted. These are step-by-step YouTube videos with a remarkable mentor and guide. My apple is no masterpiece but it made me believe I could pick up a brush again and that investing in the best paints, a palette knife, two or three good brushes was worth it. Good, rather than student grade in brushes and paints, matters for your sense of success and Will explains why. He’s right. I’ve tried both. 

Here is my second painting done on a canvas board:

Mary's Apple

 

After doing only two of these, I eventually bought every video course Will has offered. All of them are super affordable and well-worth every single cent. I will explain. 

The new e-book is a super inexpensive way to begin because he lists very few inexpensive though good quality tools. He explains basics, such as how to load a palette knife with just the right amount of paint for the effect you want to achieve when mixing your color. You use a disposable tear-off palette that makes clean-up quick and easy, and he uses only seven paints in this book. You can even do your painting on an MDF board, but I’ve found that investing in a small pre-primed canvas gave me better results and allowed me to fix mistakes—yeah, a lot of them—more easily. 

The key gifts of this e-book are his simple, easy to understand explanations of shadows and how light falls, of how to create three-dimensional objects in your still life. He explains color intensity: what that means and how to mix paints that don’t turn into mud, but instead glow before your beginner’s eye. Will provides step-by-step photos that you can print from the e-book for the drawings and the various steps in each of the three main lessons. My prediction, for anyone totally new and making that stab at trying to paint, is that you will feel amazed—and brave. 

One of his key lessons in this e-book is how and why you should use a colored ground, a solid opaque color, to begin. This is what the masters used in their paintings. Will shows you how to get that first layer of paint onto your canvas and how that basic layer will affect everything else you later add. 

He’s also broken the 3-full-color lessons into small sections so that you can do each one in about two hours—even, as he says “if you’ve never painted before.” 

The closing lesson is a gorgeous tea cup with French macaroons that graces the cover. Here is Will’s painting from the cover. And you can do this!

 

Macronies

 

From his basic acrylic color mixing video course, I recently painted his lemons. 

Here is Will’s painting that I used as my guide:

Will Kemps lemons

 

And here is mine:

Marys lemons

 

Although Will’s focus is acrylic painting, he is also an expert oil painter and has a course on oil portraits that I learned much from even though I can’t use oils in my confined living space. 

He doesn’t teach a full course on watercolor paintings, but in his video Urban Sketching Course, he does use watercolors and I learned bunches. I was able to paint a series of some eighteen letters to my granddaughter while she was experiencing her first overnight camp experience for two weeks when she was only eight years old. No, I didn’t use watercolor paper and, yes, I did imitate a gorgeous children’s book This Is a Poem That Heals Fish by Jean-Pierre Siméon, illustrated by Olivier Tallec. In each letter, I repeated the story and painted a small watercolor on my stationary. Here’s one example:

Marys watercolour

 

And now, I’m exploring watercolor painting, on my own, though praying for a Will Kemp course. 

I close here with a small success story that I owe almost 100 percent to Will Kemp. In his video course entitled Still Life Master Class, I got brave enough to triple the size of his demonstration, to measure out and resize the proportions and to learn how to create reflections. It’s no masterpiece, but it hangs in my kitchen and will grace, with Will Kemp’s permission and I give him credit, the cover of the second edition of my collection of short stories The Woman Who Never Cooked, coming soon.

Marys still life

 

If you want to experiment with painting, if you want to enrich your life, if you want to make something you never thought you could, begin with Will Kemp’s brand new e-book Still Life Acrylic Project Book. You won’t regret it.

 


This article is brought to you by the author who owns the copyright to the text.

Should you want to support the author’s creative work you can use the PayPal “Donate” button below.

Your donation is a transaction between you and the author. The proceeds go directly to the author’s PayPal account in full less PayPal’s commission.

Facts & Arts neither receives information about you, nor of your donation, nor does Facts & Arts receive a commission.

Facts & Arts does not pay the author, nor takes paid by the author, for the posting of the author's material on Facts & Arts. Facts & Arts finances its operations by selling advertising space.

 

 

Browse articles by author

More Essays

Sep 26th 2024
EXTRACT: "When it comes to economic policy, Carter is sometimes blamed for excessive regulation, government spending, and runaway inflation. His successor, Ronald Reagan, is often credited with ending the era of “big government.” But the conventional narrative fails to acknowledge that it was Carter who launched the deregulatory push that bore fruit during the Reagan years."
Sep 26th 2024
EXTRACT: "Buffett's status as the Oracle of Omaha stemmed from his ability to develop the wisdom and judgment that transformed him from a good conceptual investor into an exceptional experimental one."
Sep 26th 2024
EXTRACT: "Last year, a social-media trend featured women asking men how often they thought about the Roman Empire. The answer, it seemed, was “very”: many men claimed that the ancient empire crossed their minds weekly or even daily. That did not surprise Mike Duncan, the host of the popular 'History of Rome' podcast, and probably not Tom Holland, who has written multiple bestselling books on the topic. Mary Beard certainly understands the popular fascination, too. Her study of ancient Rome – together with her unpretentious style and brash charisma – has made her what one observer called 'a national treasure, and easily the world’s most famous classicist.' ” ----- "Beard challenges this mythology of whiteness, arguing in her 2016 book SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome that the story of the Roman Empire, which was necessarily ethnically diverse, is 'the history of people of color'. In fact, the book concludes with Emperor Caracalla’s grant of citizenship to all the empire’s subjects. The old Roman aristocracy lost its privileges, because it had not shared them."
Sep 22nd 2024
EXTRACTS: "Since the golden age of Athenian democracy, freedom of speech has been viewed as a defining feature of open societies, even as it remains under constant attack. The Athenians believed that the proper functioning of government depended on free and honest exchange of ideas, no matter how controversial or unpopular. In ancient Rome, by contrast, only senators enjoyed anything resembling free speech – and even then, as the statesman Marcus Tullius Cicero learned the hard way, speaking out could have deadly consequences." ----- "In our hyper-connected world, where mobile phones outnumber people and most of the global population has internet access, the decline of traditional news outlets has deepened our dependence on social media. As opaque algorithms shape the news we consume and our perception of reality, the corporations and oligarchs controlling these platforms pose a growing threat to free speech. Although they claim to be its ultimate defenders, their business model, by amplifying disinformation and identity-based grievances for profit, renounces the responsibility that sustains it."
Jul 27th 2024
EXTRACT: "Some conservative intellectuals think the west has already adopted Christianity-lite. Many point to the book Dominion: The Making of the Western Mind (2019), by historian Tom Holland. Holland argues that despite declining religious belief, Christian ideas remain central to western civilisation. He views liberalism – our dominant political philosophy – as secularised Christianity. For him, core western ideas, like universal human rights, equality and dignity, stem from Christianity."
Jul 26th 2024
EXTRACTS: "We often hear about the importance of the human microbiome – the vast collection of bacteria and fungi that live on and inside us – when it comes to our health. But there’s another, equally important part of this microbial community that remains far less known: the virome." ----- "Viruses are the most abundant biological entities on Earth, with an estimated 10³¹ viral particles globally and about 10¹³ in each human being." ----- "Understanding the virome could revolutionise medicine and public health."
Jul 16th 2024
EXTRACTS: "Trump joins tens of thousands of Americans treated for non-fatal gunshot wounds each year. Such experiences can shatter people’s assumptions that they are living in a safe, understandable and controllable world, leaving them feeling unworthy, unsafe and unsure. As a result, survivors of non-fatal gun violence face increased risks of depression, anxiety, substance use and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). PTSD can feel overwhelming." ---- ".... some trauma survivors experience post-traumatic growth. They may develop greater empathy, stronger relationships, deeper spirituality and find new meaning in life. After being shot in 1981, the then president Ronald Reagan’s trauma seemed to deepen his sense of empathy and humility. He felt God had spared him for a reason, spurring him to reduce nuclear tensions with the Soviet Union."
Jul 15th 2024
EXTRACTS: "Artificial sweeteners such as sucralose are not metabolised by the human body so they are excreted – this is what makes them low-calorie sugar alternatives. And that’s where the environmental problem begins. Current wastewater treatment plants are unable to remove these sugar mimics, meaning they end up in our environment – in our water, rivers and soil." --- "Forever chemicals are increasingly present in our streams, rivers and oceans – most notably per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) that don’t degrade. PFAS are synthetic chemicals found in many consumer products, including skincare products, cosmetics and waterproof clothing. PFAS can remain in the human body for many years, and some present significant risks to our health – potentially causing liver damage, thyroid disease, obesity, infertility and cancer."
Jul 3rd 2024
EXTRACTS: "Psychologist, James Hillman had concerns about what I like to call the 'loneliness-as-pathology' "---- "....Hillman went on to argue...: 'If loneliness is an archetypal sense built into us all from the very beginning, then, to be alive is also to be lonely. Loneliness, therefore, will come and go as it chooses in the course of a lifetime, quite apart from our efforts to deny or avoid this reality.' "
Jul 3rd 2024
EXTRACT: "How can we be at least 15 times richer than our pre-industrial Agrarian Age predecessors, and yet so unhappy? One explanation is that we are not wired for it: nothing in our heritage or evolutionary past prepared us to deal with a society of more than 150 people. To operate our increasingly complex technologies and advance our prosperity, we somehow must coordinate among more than eight billion people."
Jun 25th 2024
EXTRACTS: "What’s interesting about the entire Russia-North Korea showy display of camaraderie is China’s response: silence. China has misgivings about how things are unfolding, which reports suggest prompted Chinese president Xi Jinping’s call to Putin to call off the latter’s visit to Pyongyang. Obviously, Putin didn’t heed Xi’s request." ----- "The Sino-Korean animosity dates back centuries and took shape when Korea was a vassal state of imperial China. Unfortunately, this animosity extended to modern times when Mao Zedong decided to station Chinese troops in North Korea even after the conclusion of the Korean war, and when Beijing did not aid Pyongyang in its nuclear ambitions. It didn’t help either that the founding leader of North Korea, Kim Il-sung, was suspected of espionage and was nearly executed by the Chinese Communist party in the 1930s."
Jun 19th 2024
EXTRACT: "Ultra-processed foods (such as packaged snacks, sugary drinks, instant noodles and ready-to-eat meals) often contain emulsifiers, microparticles (such as titanium dioxide), thickeners, stabilisers, flavours and colourants. While research on humans is limited, studies on mice have shown that these ingredients alter the gut microbiome (the community of microorganisms living in the intestines) in several ways. These many microbiome changes can in turn affect the way the immune system functions."
Jun 9th 2024
EXTRACT: "Alzheimer’s disease can be split in two subgroups, familial and sporadic. Only 5% of patients with Alzheimer’s are familial, inherited, and 95% of Alzheimer’s patients are sporadic, due to environmental, lifestyle and genetic risk factors. Consequently, the most effective tactic for tackling Alzheimer’s is preventative and living a healthy lifestyle. This has led researchers to study risk factors associated with Alzheimer’s."
Mar 8th 2024
EXTRACT: "This study suggests that around 10% of people diagnosed with dementia may instead have underlying silent liver disease with HE causing or contributing to the symptoms – an important diagnosis to make as HE is treatable."
Jan 28th 2024
EXTRACT: "Health disparity is a powerful weapon in the savage class warfare otherwise known as neoliberalism. (In 2020, the RAND Corporation did a study of the transfer of wealth over the last several decades from the working-class and the middle-class to the top one percent. Their estimate is a staggering $47 trillion – that is how much the “upward redistribution of income” cost American workers between 1975 and 2018.) Neoliberalism is a brutal form of labor suppression, which uses health as a means of maintaining and reproducing a condition in which wealth is constantly being redistributed upwards, and the middle-class is kept in a constant state of fear of sinking into the ranks of the poor. Medical expenses are the leading cause of bankruptcies in America – and that’s according to the American Bankruptcy Institute. The ballooning costs of healthcare serve to maintain a system marked by morally unacceptable health inequity and injustice."
Jan 28th 2024
EXTRACT. "But living longer has also come at a price. We’re now seeing higher rates of chronic and degenerative diseases – with heart disease consistently topping the list. So while we’re fascinated by what may help us live longer, maybe we should be more interested in being healthier for longer. Improving our “healthy life expectancy” remains a global challenge. Interestingly, certain locations around the world have been discovered where there are a high proportion of centenarians who display remarkable physical and mental health. The AKEA study of Sardinia, Italy, as example, identified a “blue zone” (named because it was marked with blue pen),....."
Jan 4th 2024
EXTRACT: ""Tresors en Noir et Blanc" presents 180 prints from the collection of the Musee des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris, also known as the Petit Palais.  The basis of the museum's print collection is 20,000 engravings amassed by a 19th-century collector, Eugene Dutuit, " ----- "This wonderful exhibition, the tip of a great iceberg, serves to emphasize how unfortunate it is that the tens of thousands of prints owned by the Petit Palais are almost never seen by more than a handful of scholars who visit them by appointment.  Nor is the Petit Palais the only offender in this regard,....."
Jan 4th 2024
EXTRACTS: "And that is the clue to Manet’s work. He paints painting, regardless of his subject: he paints the medium itself, it as if he is constantly reminding us that this is a painting," ..........."This is a new conception of painterly truth at play here, a new fidelity to truth. Manet is the Kant of painting because he initiates a similar kind of “Copernican revolution” – we do not see the world as it is but as we are. " -------- " Among the most remarkable but unfamiliar of Manet’s work on display are those depicting the bloody aftermath of the Paris Commune of 1871.There is no question regarding Manet’s condemnation of the Versailles government’s actions following the defeat of the Commune, when some 25,000 Parisians were gunned down, including women and children."
Dec 27th 2023
EXTRACT: "Think of our brain like a map. When we’re young, we explore all corners of this map, sending out connections in every direction to make sense of our environment. Before long, we figure out basic truths – such as how to secure food, or where we live – and the neurological paths that make up these connections strengthen. Over time, a network emerges that reflects our unique experiences. Regions we re-visit often will develop established paths, whereas under-used connections will fade away. ---- Conditions such as addiction, chronic depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are characterised by processes such as repetitive negative thinking or rumination, where patients focus on negative thoughts in a counterproductive way. Unfortunately, these strengthen brain connections that perpetuate the unfavourable mental state."
Dec 14th 2023
EXTRACT: "While no one was looking, France has become a melting pot of European peoples. Its neighbors have traditionally been welcomed, and France progressively turned them into French boys and girls in the next generation."