Thursday 2nd February, with Jill

We had a packed house this morning.  So nice to see everyone again after what I hope has been the worst of the winter weather.  Jill Wood was in charge, posing brilliantly as a copper in her uncle’s old uniform, and presenting us with  a very good array of items for the still life.  Not too over-crowded, these included a good assortment of colours, a variety of textures and both natural and man-made objects. Lots to get your teeth into - or rather your brushes and pens. Here are some photos of the still life and of the model.

First in with a picture was Carolyn, who was not at today's meeting. She did a drawing of 'Bruin' sitting on a lace mat. She used coloured pencils apparently by Staedtler.

Another contribu-tion from a member not able to come today, namely Frances. She did a 'very quick' mixed media sketch at home and she has included some marine paintings.  

​She visited The Castle Museum Norwich yesterday and was intrigued with the variety of styles prior to the workshop next week.  She thought others might be interested.

First of the portrait artists today was Avril, with three sketches. She had a go at oil pastels and realised that is is hard to get details on small paper.  On the good side, she says it made her concentrate and she believes that the pencil drawing, which only took 10 minutes, captures Jill better.

Jackie gave us a skilful watercolour portrait, while Jane did a very fine pencil drawing.  Both seem to have captured a good likeness, in their different ways.

Sallly P turned her hand to the still life, just the one from her today. She decided to use her watercolour pencil crayons but felt there was not enough strength of colour for her. 

Harriet also concentrated on the still life and sent in two images

Sally L and Liz both worked on the still life.  Sally did two paintings, for the first one she put a wash down first and pen and Indian ink after. For the second one she did the pen and ink first, and the wash after - wet on wet. Liz used her usual acrylic inks.

Some more artists did their own thing today. First Diana used scraps from magazines for inspiration, then made it up as she went along.

The first of these two is a painting Eileen has been working on for quite some time and is still not finished, but she got some very helpful suggestions at break time. Next is Ian's landscape painting, also work in progress.

Lesley started an acrylic painting this morning of the view north towards Eye from her garden, on a very frosty morning last week.  Lots more to do, she says, and finding it a challenge working to A4 scale.

Angela didn't go to Frances's session last week, but says she "put it to good use looking at composition, vertical and horizontal lines and tones. I have done a painting of the early morning light on my frozen pond and then I abstracted a piece of shoreline from a painting I did in Cornwall. 

​"My two efforts today, well I came home and darkened the tones in my pencil drawing which improved it but am not happy with what I did to my ink drawing. Adding colour was a risk but hey, it’s good to take risks and find things out!"

Lesley has asked me to remind you that next week is the workshop on Acrylic Seascapes.  There will be no model or still life and no accommodation for you unless you have signed up for the workshop.
Emily Procner has asked us to let you know she is running a Saturday Mixed-Media at the Bank Arts Centre in March.  If you are interested you can find further details on the Bank's website.
I wish you all a good week and look forward to seeing you in two weeks' time for the model and still life session.  Noreen