Master Forger

Pencil - Henry Lamb

Henry Lamb was an Australian born painter. Lamb grew up in Manchester, though eventually moved to London in 1905 to study at the Chelsea Art School run by Augustus John and William Orpen. In the First World War, Lamb served as a medical officer, and later an official World War II war artists, painting solders and the aspects of war. Although I was looking at Lamb’s pencil sketches, he was too a talented oil painter, painting both landscapes and portraits. 

We were tasked with replicating a pencil drawing by Henry Lamb for our first piece of work, replicating the bold pencil marks he had made, and too using cross hatching to create depth and shadows in the portrait. 

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When first beginning to tackle this task, I began by trying to find the right techniques to use upon the features of the woman, ensuring that I was fist able to define and use cross hatching to give some texture and depth to the form. For this reason, I took apart the features, focusing in on facial features and hair, before I went ahead and tried to attempt to replicate the face as a whole.  Through my samples, it became apparent that the softer the led, the easier it was to make bolder marks, as well as stray away from the usual way and style of my own work. 

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When it came to my final piece, it turned out significantly better than that of my previous experimental pieces, with the features resembling Lamb's piece more than those that had come before it and didn't look as tentative with mark making. In addition to this, using cartridge paper as opposed to printing paper did help with making more of a texture with my mark making.

With that said, I believe I still could have made my marks darker and bolder to replicate the more spontaneous nature of Lamb's original piece.  

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Final Forgery - Pencil 

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Pen and Ink - Mervyn Peake

Mervyn Peake was born in China in 1911, though moved to England in 1922. In his early career, Peake worked as a painter, with one of his paintings being chosen for the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition in 1931. However, he also worked as an author, designer and illustrator. In 1942, Peake left for the army, visiting Germany as a war artist, gathering ideas for future collections of poems, and produces several drawings of dying inmates, having influence on much of his work. 

​For our second piece to replicate, we were given a Mervyn Peake pen and ink drawing, made up of many small details. For this drawing, the aim was to use a dip pen to get a variation in line work, whilst still being able to put in the detail needed to make the replicated piece as accurate to the original. 

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To begin with, I once again took a small part of the piece to copy, replicating the varying techniques and getting used to the dip pen. It was here that I realised that blocking out the black ink with Tipp-Ex pens and white gel pens wasn't going to work, and so I knew that I had to be careful when it came to more detailed pieces of the drawing such as the beard and clothing to ensure I didn't completely black out areas. 

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When it came to doing the final piece, I was able to generally replicate the techniques used, despite some noticeable differences between the original and my version. But being able to use different line weights ensured that I was able to differentiate between things such as the clothing and the beard of the man, all without boldly outlining each segment.

If I were to do things differently however, I think I would be a little braver and add more detail where it lacks, such as in the face and the hand, and be a little less reluctant to put ink to paper in areas that had more of a risk to go wrong. 

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Final Forgery - Pen and Ink 

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Scraperboard - Claire Leighton 

Claire Leighton was born in 1898. Her early efforts in painting were encouraged by her father and uncle, Jack Leighton, an artist and illustrator. In 1915, Leighton began studying at the Brighton College of Arts, later going onto study and the Central School of Arts and Craft, where she studied wood engraving. Over her career, Leighton wrote and illustrated numerous books, and was the first woman to produce a book on wood engraving, which in turn played an important part in popularizing the medium. 


For the final piece, we were tasked with replicating a wood engraving by Claire Leighton, but instead using scraperboard. The greatest struggle with this task was working negative on to positive, all whilst not having any defining lines that would be able to block in shapes due to the use of negative space. 

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In the beginning, the most difficult thing to figure out was how hard was needed to press to make the negative space, and I was quick to realise that I didn't need to press as hard. Initially, I found it difficult to mark out the areas where each fold of the clothing and each leaf was mean to go. But, building up the piece, it became easier and quicker to do so as the piece slowly began to come together. 

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​Along the way, I learnt many things, such as planning ahead for where marks were going to go as I moved along with the work. However above all, I learnt that I didn't need to be so heavy handed, as unlike the previous two pieces I had done that relied on being bold and line weight, I needed to build us this piece bit by bit, being bold, but cautious enough to not cause harm to the board behind. 

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Final Forgery - Scraperboard