David Gentleman’s brilliant career spans eight decades, from watercolour painting to tube station murals to drawing the Tottenham riots. Here his daughter, the Guardian journalist Amelia Gentleman, dispenses his invaluable advice
When we were children, my father, the painter David Gentleman, never offered much advice to me or my siblings. If we wanted to draw, he would hand out pencils and let us get on with it. He was encouraging, but never gave us instructions. If we were enjoying ourselves, more paper was available; but if we wanted to go and do something else, that was fine too. The idea of teaching people how to do things still makes him uncomfortable, so his latest book, Lessons for Young Artists, has come as a surprise to us all. At 95, he has attempted to distil everything he has learned about working as a painter since the late 1940s into clear advice. These lessons are not aimed exclusively at art students, or even at older people who want to paint, but are for anyone wondering how to build a life and career as a creative person.
I haven’t inherited his artistic talents, but I have picked up other important things from growing up with someone who has managed to spend the past eight decades earning a living from what he enjoys doing most. Over the past two years, as he wrote this book, I’ve spent hours in his Camden studio, talking about painting and drawing and helping him search for pictures to illustrate his ideas. Here are 10 things I’ve learned from a lifetime watching him work.
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