Information About Lionel - Alston teacher -

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Personal Description:

I have been a practising professional artist and art tutor since 1991 with a special interest in landscape painting and portraiture. I graduated in Fine Art from Northumbria University in 1991 and have a Masters degree in Fine Art from Newcastle University. I run a painting and teaching studio and attached gallery in a small village in the Cumbrian North Pennines. I have exhibited and sold my work in the UK and abroad since graduating in 1991. I have carried out artist in residence projects regularly since 1992 including Year of the Artist in 2000 and most recently on the German research ship Polarstern in the Atlantic Ocean. Over the past 5 years I have been working closely with climate change scientists on art-science projects relating to landscape in Lapland, northern England, Germany and the Atlantic teaching outdoor sketching to field scientists. I have work in private and public collections with commissioned work for among others: The Alfred Wegener Institute, Bremerhaven; The Bridegwater Hall, Manchester; AMEC Developments, Newcastle; Gill Airways, Newcastle International Airport; Natural England, Peterborough; The National Trust, UK; British **Contact Detail Removed**com; Bruntwood Developments, Manchester; and Wetherspoons Pubs, Newcastle upon Tyne.

Teaching Experience:

I have been teaching and demonstrating art since 1991 and have a great variety of experience from helping individuals to tutoring large groups. Most of my teaching is in adult education but I have also done many workshops and residencies in schools across northern England and southern Scotland. I was visiting lecturer in drawing, painting and portraiture at Newcastle University from 1997 where I also set up and ran a certificate in Art Studies course and taught specialist drawing classes for foreign students preparing for entry to degree courses in architecture. I was visiting lecturer in drawing and painting and visual arts programme assistant at Sunderland University Centre for Lifelong Learning from 2006 to 2011. I was guest lecturer in fine art at Sunderland University and Newcastle College from 2001-2005. I have been a painting tutor at Higham Hall College in Cumbria since 2005 and at Alston Hall College Preston from 2009-2011. I have been a demonstrator and lecturer in painting for amateur art clubs from 1993 to the present day. From 2008-2014 I was a correspondence painting and drawing tutor (one to one) for Darnley Career Academy. I have run my own courses in drawing and painting from my studio in Cumbria since 2007 running individual bespoke courses as well as advertised group courses mostly in outdoor sketching and painting.

Teaching Approach:

My approach to teaching one-to-one is slightly different from group teaching. It is a balance between practical experience making art and the discussion (and demonstration) of approaches, ideas, materials and the work of other exemplary artists. Students feel motivated when the teaching is seen as a support to their individual journey and every student is on a different creative journey. At the start I try to understand what the student aspires to achieve as a visual artist, what their ambition is in the short term and over the coming years. Art has the potential to be a lifetime and a life changing practice even if it is not followed as a profession. It is a way of seeing and understanding the world and available to everyone who wants to invest time and effort. Through drawing and painting the student can learn to see the world more clearly but also in a different way from say science or engineering, harnessing emotion as well as intellect.
Within the first 2 or 3 weeks I aim to understand the student's current levels of skill and knowledge in drawing and/or painting and what subject matter motivates them the most. If I'm teaching in support of an exam, such as GCSE or A level, then I try to avoid repeating the kind of projects and exercises the student is already doing at school but to offer additional and complimentary practice and ideas that will give them new insights about creativity, materials and processes and always looking for subject matter that the student feels most interested in but which is somewhat outside their 'comfort zone'. I set exercises for the student to develop between sessions which we can discuss during the session (including online tutorials). In face to face sessions I demonstrate materials, processes and strategies for observational skills and for design in composition and colour across a wide variety of materials. I generally emphasise observational skills as a basis for representational art using still life objects, outdoor drawing and portraiture but also drawing from photographs. I always refer to the work of other artists and show examples of their work as illustrations of ideas, methods and approaches in art. This gives the student a perspective on where their own ideas and work fits in to the bigger story of art in Western culture. This can be quite motivating but is always valuable knowledge for artists even if art history is not a taught area of their exam curriculum. For amateur artists just looking for practical help and support, knowledge of those who have been influential in the history of art is also helpful and motivating. Students will find some artists more interesting than others and these artists can be role models for creativity over an entire lifetime.