Art Attack Season 2 Car Art Attack Season 2 Episode 1
A man in a red sweatshirt is pouring neon fish tank gravel across a blue tarp. Side by side he adds a few piles of dog biscuits to the mix, then some rubber basic and a few fluffy true cat toys before we zoom out for the big reveal: an overhead shot of a giant exotic fish. The homo is artist and presenter Neil Buchanan, who, armed with a pen, paintbrush and a never-ending supply of papier-mâché, inspired a generation of children in the 90s to flex their creative muscles on CITV's Art Attack, which turned 30 this month.
"Art Attack was in the kids' show slot but I never did a kids' testify," says the 58-year-quondam Liverpudlian. "What I was trying to do was inspire people."
Buchanan commencement got into fine art as a kid, encouraged by family members who nurtured his skills and his fascination with cartoons – specially The Beano. "My dad e'er used to lie on the floor with me and draw," recalls Buchanan. "I was as well lucky that my grandad did the same. They inspired me."
Subsequently studying at the Liverpool Institute High Schoolhouse for Boys, he went on to apply for a place at Liverpool Art College, only to reject the opportunity in favour of pursuing a music career with his rock band Marseille. Nonetheless, it was his babyhood spent doodling that laid the foundations for the most fondly remembered job in his career.
"I was trying to take audiences through the 'I can't do that' bulwark, like my dad and gramps did for me when I was a kid," he says of Art Attack's origins. "Every kid thinks they're Picasso until they're almost six or seven. We all depict crap but nosotros think it's brilliant – and that'due south the central. Unfortunately our parents, teachers and siblings say: 'That'south not how you do information technology'. Art Attack was undoing all that harm."
Having fabricated his Tv set debut on Saturday forenoon children's show No. 73 in 1985, Buchanan went on to devise Art Attack with co-creator Tim Edmunds, and and then host the programme from 1990 until 2007. Cutting to 2020, and it's even so going strong with new host Lloyd Warbey – however in the early days, it was far from an piece of cake sell. "The testify was turned down because the commissioner said it'd been done earlier with Tony Hart [Take Hart and Hartbeat]."
But it hadn't been done before – not similar this. With his garishly colourful and over-size fix, use-any-you-take-to-hand approach and "try it yourself" catchphrase, Buchanan provided a fresh – and youthful – alternative for all those who loved to become a chip crafty.
"I said: 'Can I borrow some paper from your fax car?' and put it across the floor. 1 canvass, then another, then some other," says Buchanan. "Then I said: 'Tin I borrow a felt tip pen?' and drew a straight line beyond the starting time sheet, the second, right to the end and said to him: 'There you go!'" He was met with puzzled looks: "I said: 'You've just watched me depict a directly line for a total minute' – and that's how he bought it," he chuckles. "I wasn't the star of the show, it was the pencil tip. The minute you've got that and someone talking in dulcet tones, y'all're in that location. It'due south non rocket scientific discipline."
When it launched in June 1990, it didn't have long for Art Set on to hitting its stride. Buchanan – whose own artistic influences span Toulouse-Lautrec, Norman Rockwell and Walt Disney – created hundreds of doable crafts. From elementary illustrations and tin foil sculptures to paper-thin photo frames and papier-mâché door knockers, viewers were glued to the screen.
"They wanted dinosaurs, footballers and ballerinas," says a smiling Buchanan. "My inspirations were all of the classic artists, all the commercial artists, Liverpool Football Club. All of my life's inspirations were brought into information technology. People say: 'How did y'all proceed coming up with ideas?' There were over 500 Fine art Attacks and near five or 6 ideas in each evidence. Like anything in life, you lot do it, go ameliorate at it and it gets easier. I could've gone on for another 500."
Maybe the well-nigh memorable part of Buchanan's show were those Big Art Attacks – huge dioramas, portraits and vibrant scenes created with all fashion of random objects and captured in aeriform photographs. There was the woolly mammoth assembled using objects from an archaeological dig, a skating snowman depicted in items from a ski lodge and, most aggressive of all, a portrait of the Queen made from a quarter of a million pounds in £10 notes.
He grins. "We phoned upwards the Bank of England and they knew the show. In that location was one stipulation: information technology could only be me and a cameraman in the studio and nosotros had to do information technology with full security. Once I started to lay the money downwardly, the air-conditioning in the studio started to move the movie. Nosotros turned it off only in the forenoon the studio flagman switched information technology on and the whole thing blew away. Thankfully we'd got the final shot."
Then at that place was The Caput, a talking rubber bust reminiscent of a Roman statue that provided comic relief, and by and large failed spectacularly to complete the testify'southward arty assignments. "We got the people from Spitting Epitome to make the puppet of The Head," reveals Buchanan. "The reason for it was simple – I didn't want to continue television and brand you suffer looking at me for xx minutes," he smiles. Nevertheless his smile co-star did serve a more practical purpose: it proved that anyone can be an artist. "I thought, if I'thousand going out there and doing all this lovely stuff, I need to be brought down a peg or two – and that's what he did."
Thirty years and ii Baftas later, Art Attack'south influence tin can be seen whenever nosotros turn on the TV. Equally nosotros sally from a period of lockdown that highlighted the importance of at-domicile creativity, it's no wonder shows like Grayson Perry's Grayson's Fine art Club and Kirstie Allsopp'southward Keep Crafting and Carry On were such hits with audiences stuck indoors and bored. Perhaps it was Buchanan and his children's show that paved the way for today'due south young adults to enjoy programmes like Portrait Artist of the Twelvemonth, The Big Painting Claiming or even Netflix's The Big Blossom Fight.
"I'm an incredibly lucky bloke," says Buchanan. "I go all effectually the earth and people say 'hullo' to me equally if I'm a mate and that's fantastic." He's not wrong – during our chat information technology'southward hard to hear Buchanan's lilting accent and not experience as if I'm speaking to an one-time art teacher – or be cast back to the time he taught me how to brand a chilling castle out of old toilet-newspaper tubes and poster paint. "People say, 'Do y'all know what you did for me?' or 'You showed me how to do this or that'," he beams. "I've even had people say Art Attack inspired me non for art but music or a career in other fields, and that feels neat."
These days Buchanan splits his time betwixt photography, music and creating new paintings inspired by nostalgia, cityscapes and wildlife. His about recent work is a colourful portrait series entitled The Hat Collection, which was influenced by his daughter. "The biggest award for me is when someone hangs a piece of my piece of work on their mantelpiece," he says. "That'south the big honor." As for whether he would ever consider dusting off his pen for another Art Attack-esque outing? "If the right opportunity came up I would considering there's a lot of inventiveness out there and I'd quite like to go dig some of it out," he admits. "To this day I even so detect information technology hard to stop having Fine art Attack ideas. Information technology'south a muscle that keeps on twitching."
Explore Neil's paintings at NeilBuchanan.co.united kingdom
Source: https://inews.co.uk/culture/television/neil-buchanan-30-years-art-attack-every-kid-picasso-inspiration-citv-interview-454160
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