Virgin Virtuosos

Read our exclusive interview with John Myatt >>

Art genius and former master forger John Myatt has set himself the ultimate challenge. He believes he can take absolutely any novice and discover the artist within them.

In this series, we put John’s skills as an experienced and gifted teacher to the test. In each episode, we give him a set of paints, a canvas and a celebrity art novice.  John has just one day to find the budding artist within his pupil. His task is to coach them into creating a work of art that they never thought possible. If he succeeds, they’ll be surprised and delighted to have found a latent talent they didn’t know they had and Sky Arts viewers will have learned techniques they could use to find the artists within themselves too.

It’s a tough challenge, but we will make it just a little easier for John …

We will bring each celebrity to a real life landscape that we all recognise from a great work of art and John will teach them to paint right there. We hope the settings will inspire his pupils, just as they did Turner or Constable, for example. The celebrities will not have to paint in the style of an old master, since John is trying to release the artist within them and it’s their own style he’s after.

Along the way, John will put brush to canvas to teach us about the famous paintings and artists linked to our featured locations – Monet, Canaletto and Piper, for example. So an added layer of art history will be brought to life in an excitingly visual way.

In one episode, John and Maureen Lipman set up their easels at Flatford Bridge Cottage and Mill in Dedham Vale, Suffolk. It’s one of the most famous locations in Britain – the setting for John Constable’s ‘Haywain’ painting. As a talented art faker, John creates his own ‘Haywain’ and teaches us about the techniques Constable used to paint the original oil on canvas work. We learn about Constable’s brushstrokes, composition, use of light and shade and how he deviated from what he actually saw before him. Sky Arts viewers don’t just learn about techniques for absolute beginners, they also discover how history’s greatest painters created iconic images. Keith Allen get inspired by a scene from a Canaletto at Greenwich; Bill Bailey with Monet at The Houses of Parliament; Imogen Stubbs with Turner at Stonehenge; and Nigel Havers with Edward Seago at a Norfolk Abbey.

John’s pupils will literally have a blank canvas and he’ll encourage them to create a work of art in any style that feels natural to them – from Keith Allen’s finger painting, to Bill Bailey’s watercolour effects. At the end of each session, John will put his celebrity’s creation into a classy frame and deliver his verdict on how far they’ve turned from a virgin into a virtuoso.

If you like this then try these...

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  Eating Art
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  Tim Marlow Meets
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  Brush With Fame
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  Mastering the Art

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