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27TH FEBRUARY 2025 - WITH PENNY

27/2/2025

thank you to Penny, our newest member, for stepping in to 'host' this morning's session. She kindly took over what should have been my turn [Hannah], when it wasn't clear when I would be able to do it. As you can see she provided an interesting still life, with different views and varied subjects from each aspect. She was an excellent model, I didn't see her nod off once! Sorry I cut off the top of her head in the last photo; I mostly took it to have a better look at her hands.

Diana was one of those working on her own compositions this morning, along with Lesley and Ian C. She was brightening old paintings that looked rather dull since she has new glasses - very vibrant. Lesley's pastel show a Scottish landscape, with a brilliant sky and river reflecting the blue above. She is going to work on it further at home. Ian's imagined landscape is also a pastel work, following the recent workshop, but he said (as did Lesley) that the colour was much darker following spray to fix the work.

Frances worked from the still life, Penny and something of her own.
First quick ink sketch.
Second… watercolour loosely applied first then ink equally loosely applied afterwards.
Third… few minutes ink sketch of Penny.
Third… a watercolour Murmuration which had been lying under a pile of stuff unfinished . Now possibly finished with ink added.

These are the still life works from, respectively, Harriet, Jane, Maggie-Anne and Angela. Maggie-Anne regretted that she had run out of time to finish the blue jug, and Angela, who had also used pastel following the workshop, was unsure about her treatment of the background of her drawing. The consensus wwas that the composition worked. There was some discussion of the difficulty of isolating the subject from the general background in the Bowls Club.

Sally and Avril both tackled the still life and the portraiture. They each produced a number of works this morning. Avril's comment on one of her pictures can be seen written on the second from the right. Sally 'took a line for a walk' around the pineapple in the still life, and she was pleased with the likeness of Penny she achieved in a few minutes at the end of the morning. Judith tackled the trug and its contents twice - adding ink for definition the second time...

And now to the portraits - first the Joneses, who had been watching a tutorial, and both worked in charcoal. Ian enjoyed the process of applying and smudging the charcoal and also used pastels to good effect. Josie was most pleased with her first attempt, which was cut short by a change of pose.

Next, Jill and Jackie. Jill said she was most concerned with getting the proportions right. Jackie was best pleased with her pencil version, the third of her portraits,

Carolyn has anticipated the 'Jungle' theme next week, and sent us drawings of a number of very varied houseplant leaves.

I used my iPad, and the still life was achieved using its layering effect and different brushes: pencils and charcoal. I then attempted to draw Penny, starting with the charcoal and adding pencil. I decided her hands looked like a bunch of bananas, so I finally did a study just of her hands.

Don't forget that next week is Monoprinting, run by Avril and Lesley, with the option to stay all day for £6. Details are on the Stop Press section. Bring lots of paper, copy paper is fine and old failed watercolours etc to collage onto if you want. Some glue to collage prints together too. The subject is 'Jungle', so if you want go with that, bring some leaves with you. Lesley says she has found Susan Clifton’s gelliplate printing videos on YouTube really helpful. They can be found here:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCaiXikyqzm2LV7PXVmqAoXg

Next week Avril will also be the blogger ( a busy week!), so send any contributions to her.

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20th FEBRUARY 2025 - WITH IAN j

20/2/2025

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Hannah here, after a long absence. First I would just like to say 'Thank you!' for the warmth of the welcome I received this morning. What a lovely lot you are!
As you can see, numbers this morning were quite low, I think there were about 13 of us, including Ian, who provided us with an interesting collection of very varied objects for our still life this morning. I don't know how he managed it, but he was able to maintain a smile for most of his poses for the portraitists - a very difficult thing to do, and it made for some interesting portraits.

So here are those portraits: First, three from Judith and two from Sally T, both of which capture something of Ian...

And next, one each from Frances (a ten minute sketch!) and Avril, and two from Elizabeth

Now to the still life.
First two from Sally P of the machinery on the table, two different treatments. Then the same subject by Josie, followed by her preparation for another work, using ink which didn't dry enough by the end for her to work over the top of it. There appear to be all sorts of things in this image...

Next some treatments of the flowers... First Maggie-Anne, and then Angela tackle the orchid as their central subject, both in pastel, but on different backgrounds, then Bea and Jackie with different versions of the vase of flowers. Bea's work has the delicacy of a botanical study and Jackie has decided to remove the succulent at the back of her composition, there was some discussion of methods of removing watercolour paint - Jackie will fill you in, and hopefully we will see the finished version.

Frances worked on different images inspired by the vase of flowers. She said, 'First scribbling with Art Graf and ink. The second playing… this time watercolour and ink. Decided to be neat with flowers! Ink and watercolour pencil.'
At the end, my effort at depicting the succulent in a pot.

Finally, Carolyn has a particularly fine display of snowdrops this year, and has sent two drawings of them. As she used InkTense, she has added blending to the second drawing.

In two weeks time, 6 March, Lesley and Avril will be leading a session using gelli printing. You will find the information needed to participate in this session on the Stop Press page, along with a photo of the examples Avril brought in today. Check there for info on who will be doing the Blog next week as well. Have a good week - hopefully it's going to warm up a bit!

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13th February- pastel workshop with Andrew Harrington

13/2/2025

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11 of us had a wonderful day with Andrew and his able assistant Ollie. We were greeted with a smiling face full of enthusiasm and he told us how he kept his interest in art due to his father being an artist. He was a graphic designer and now exhibits 9 - 10 times a year and still has a unique style full of energy.

There was a vast array of artwork on display, plus pastels, pencils and amusing sketches.

We had three handouts, one explaining the drawing process a light sketch, form and then texture and the other one was a line drawing with dots, when we coloured in the shapes it showed how the shadows worked, negative space, a different approach.

Andrew showed us how to do proportion using a squaring up method and how to use a frame with see through plastic to draw over with pens that could be wiped off after you had got the basic shapes.

The first thing on the agenda was a dandelion, the background was done first using loose colour and blending the green using a finger in figure of eight movements. Then dots of light were added and blurred at the edges and the surround of the flower spiked out. Light green from the background or mixing paper were placed in the centre which made it tonal and the edge sharpened with soft posca pens or pencils. Darker areas were put in the middle to represent the seed heads and spikes arranged afterwards.

Pictures of the finished dandelion heads, great efforts all-around

Sorry about the reverse order but the computer, he said no. We placed masking tape on the Canson paper in the shape of the trees and then the background was randomly applied in patches of pastel colour. It was blended by lifting the finger dabbing up and down and using figure of eight movements.
When the tape was removed stark grey shapes were revealed which were covered in white pastel and grey/blue for shaded areas. Finally black ink, felt pen, charcoal, or pastel used to make the marks on the trunk. Crisp edges can be done by scraping away the background with a scalpel.

The final pastels in order from left to right

Row 1
Avril, Barry and Lesley
Row 2
Sandra, Angela and Sally
Row 3
Gill, Ian and Harriet
Row4
Penny and Maggie Anne

Interesting photos taken on the day
left to right
Row 1
Actual drawing of trees, Sea picture for us to copy at home, Andrew demonstrating
Row 2
Tree pastel showing negative space, laminated bookmark double-sided given to us by Andrew
Row 3
People at work, Pencils and business given to us by Andrew, Ollie having a well earned rest
Row 4
Cartoon, Copy of pastel given to the art group, sketchbook ideas
Row 5
Another page of Sketchbook.

I am sure that everyone is very grateful to Andrew for his open generosity and marvelous session.

Sally is the blogger for next week.

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Thursday February 6th

6/2/2025

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15 members were present at the Bowls Club this morning. Maggie Ann was our model, and she had provided us with some very challenging pieces on the still life table too.
so while Maggie Ann put her feet up and generally loafed about we cracked on.

portraits first, some good likenesses too.
from Judith

from Ian J two pencil portraits, again a good likeness. And from Harriet a two full body poses including a very successful Pencil drawing of the pose with foreshortened legs .

portraits from Elizabeth in pastel and charcoal, and from Barry in Neocolour

from Jill portraits of Maggie Ann, and Ian C drew portraits of the rest of us as we innocently went about our business

from the still life table, Jane and Jackie both tackled the thorny subject of roses, in their own inimitable style- guess which is which…

jenny painted the very densely packed and difficult pot of Fuchsias, Lesley also drew the fuchsias in pastel, and also the basket of ivy, again a very difficult and intricate subject

Sally P was also firing up her pastels with a selection of very shiny sweets, and a netted glass ball.
i’m also including Carolyn’s picture of the week here, because of the similarly netted oranges, a companion piece.

Josie used charcoal and pastels, but felt that the medium had rather taken over in this complex composition. And I battled with two Staffordshire china dogs who seem to be plotting against me, or am I just being paranoid?

The ‘full works’ sketchbook from Avril, some good likenesses again

and from Frances, wash and ink sketches, again another good likeness. Maggie Ann obviously makes a good subject.

Sandra was going back to basics, and enjoyed making up samples of pastel blending by mark making, and put it into practise with her drawing of a pear against a coloured background on Pastelmat paper

I went to a pastel demonstration yesterday which referred to pastel pictures as paintings, not drawings, because pastels were used in a painterly technique, so I will remember to refer to them as paintings in the future!

and finally…
Next Week is a pastel workshop session only. - if you were prevented from attending due to limited space please let Lesley know, as there is a possibility of arranging another session if enough interest is shown.
The committee are arranging venues for summer sketching, and would like suggestions for venues, particularly for private gardens.
if you are not coming to the workshop grasp this golden opportunity to crack on with the chairman’s project ‘On the Edge’

Next week’s blogger is Avril

Sally

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27TH FEBRUARY 2025 - WITH PENNY

20th FEBRUARY 2025 - WITH IAN j

13th February- pastel workshop with Andrew Harrington

Thursday February 6th

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