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Finished paintings by Chris W and Tracy

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Chris W finished her painting from the session on Michelangelo. It’s from a portrait of Michelangelo painted in 1545 by Daniele da Volterra.

Super artwork, Chris, his eyes are mesmerising and beard and hair beautifully painted, well done!

Tracy completed drawing the head of the sculpture of David by Michelangelo. She found his curls challenging but enjoyed the subject.

Tracy also completed a watercolour started at the Art Deco session. The original in oils is called ‘Autoportrait’ (Tamara in a Green Bugatti) by the Polish artist Tamara de Lempicka in 1929. It was commissioned by a German fashion magazine to celebrate the independence of women. She painted herself as a personification of cold beauty, independence, wealth and inaccessibility.

April 2025

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The group has had a good start to the year with five new members and most other members attending one session or other which is great news. For those too poorly to attend at the moment, we wish you well so you can paint with us again very soon!

Here are this month’s session ideas and, as always, they are simply suggestions, you can come along and ‘do your own thing’.

Wednesday 9th – 7-9pm –  JMW Turner 1775-1851

Born 250 years ago this month Joseph Mallord William Turner is known mostly for his oil paintings but he was also a printmaker and watercolourist. We had a session on Turner a few years ago when his image first adorned the new polymer £20 note, but as it was a successful session and everyone was inspired by his use of light and drama, we return to him. Draw or paint a dramatic scene using colour and light in any medium.

Info on Wiki… https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._M._W._Turner

National Gallery info, scroll down to see his paintings… https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/artists/joseph-mallord-william-turner

10 Turner paintings… https://animato.uk/blogs/news/turners-top-10?srsltid=AfmBOoo1eUNFk_g7e7rAvrq8napKD7t4z6hyZ7qacDsRkj6cHRdZ4iS2

Saturday 26th – 10am-3pm –  Soft pastel, wild animal workshop with Paul Hinks

Paul Hinks ran a workshop with us in March 2024 and as there have been so many positive comments about the day, he is returning. Paul is a local artist whose work you may have seen at an Under the Rainbow exhibition at Bluewater and at events in Gravesend. His pastel artworks and paintings are absolutely amazing and you can see them here on his website… https://paulhinksart.co.uk

Here’s the blog post of Paul’s last workshop if you want to see what we did… https://chalkartgroup.uk/2024/03/24/saturday-23rd-march-2024-paul-hinks-soft-pastel-workshop/

It will be a soft pastel workshop and the subject will be wild animals again as this is his speciality. More details of photographs and equipment needed will be supplied very soon to give you time to purchase items, but you don’t have to spend anything if you don’t want to, bring along what you have. Oil pastels are not suitable though, you do need soft pastels which are the chalky ones.

At March’s Wednesday session Tracy asked everyone what animal they’d like to create in pastel and eleven different animals were suggested, with several people not minding. Paul will find reference pictures of the top 5 animals suggested and send Tracy an email which will be forwarded to you. If you’d rather source your own reference photos of wild animals that’s absolutely fine, just make sure that you have the correct colours for that animal. It’s no good choosing a flamingo or tiger then realising that you only have blue and green pastels!

The cost will be £12 each to cover Paul’s fee, the hall hire fee already covered by your subs. Please note that Paul is booked for 5 hours from 10am to 3pm so we plan to have an exhibition of all our work on the ledge about 2.45pm to admire what we’ve created.  

Please turn up promptly to start at 10am so we don’t waste any time.  If you arrive late (we appreciate parking can be difficult at times) please find a free seat and unpack quietly.

Check the date first to see if you are available. If you are free and want to attend then EMAIL Tracy on her usual email address, or text or use WhatsApp to message her.

*** PLEASE DO NOT USE the comments box below as messages can take days to get through! ***

Once Tracy has confirmed your place please pay the £12 by bank transfer (preferred) or cash.

Paul hasn’t set a limit on numbers so hopefully everyone can come who wants a place.

Please don’t book a place then realise the day before that you won’t be able to come. Unfortunately in the past we have had members cancelling on the day or just not turning up. If you can’t come please let Tracy know in good time.

As you have already paid for the hall in your subs we aim to make the hall accessible for everyone on the day, even if you’re not taking part in the workshop. We’ll have the workshop set up towards the big window end of the hall and a couple of tables at the kitchen end of the hall available if you wish to come and ‘do your own thing’ on the day, but please work quietly. Thank you!

Art Deco – March 2025 – Saturday

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Last month many of the artists liked painting to the natural Art Nouveau theme and this month we decided that bold, geometric Art Deco was just as interesting!

Eighteen members drew and painted images inspired by New York skyscrapers. Clarice Cliff pottery designs, elegant ladies by the artist Tamara Lempicka, objet d’art, interiors, railway posters, fashion, wrapping paper designs and car bonnet mascots.

Some pictures were finished but others are works in progress, to be completed at home.

Some members created pictures to their own theme, including from the previous session on Michelangelo.

Lovely work everyone!

Look out on 1st April for the next newsletter and the next session will be on Wednesday 9th April 7-9pm.

Michelangelo – March 2025 – Wednesday

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Fifteen artists attended the session and we enjoyed drawing and painting pictures about Michelangelo and other subjects. Michelangelo was a difficult subject but the pictures produced were well drawn and will be finished at home.

There’s Michelangelo’s portrait, the hands of Adam and God, Eve from the Creation of Adam too and the Cumaean Sibyl from the Sistine Chapel in Rome. Also the chest and head of the sculpture of David in the Accademia Gallery of Florence.

Other members finished or continued their pictures from the previous subjects of Fauvism and Art Nouveau or their own themes.

Lovely work everyone!

Our next session is on Saturday 22nd March from 10am to 3pm. Please note that March has five Saturdays but we meet on the fourth one.

Finished paintings by Carolyn and Tracy

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Carolyn and Tracy finished the paintings they started at the last Saturday session about Art Nouveau.

Carolyn’s watercolour painting of a lady surrounded by curved shapes has a harmonious feel because it’s painted in similar colours and tones. Great work, it must’ve taken hours and hours!

Tracy enjoyed researching Art Nouveau jewellery and loves brooches by Spanish jewellery designer and maker Lluís Masriera I Rosés, still made today by the family firm Masriera. The painting is in watercolour, including the gold and silver paint.

If anyone else finishes their Art Nouveau picture please send a photo to Tracy or Steve, or bring it to the next session.

March 2025

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Isn’t the brighter weather better than day after day of dreary greyness? It’s lovely to see the spring flowers appearing in all their colours. Here are the suggestions for March but if you’d prefer to ‘do your own thing’, then please do!

Wednesday 12th – 7-9pm – Michelangelo 1475-1564

Michelangelo was born 550 years in the Republic of Florence and his paintings, frescoes, sculptures and architecture still adorn the places they were built, painted or sculpted, or are in museums throughout the world.

If you like drawing and painting faces and people then choose Michelangelo himself or any of the people in the stories of Genesis, painted on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in the Apostolic Place in Vatican City, or in The Last Judgment painted on the chapel’s altar wall. The Creation of Adam sees two hands almost touching, so you could study hands and draw them in detail.

Michelangelo’s sculptures include David, Pietà (others were sculpted later in his life), the Bruges Madonna, Moses, Bacchus, Victory, Apollo, and the Slaves.

Many buildings in Rome and Florence were designed by Michelangelo and he was one of the architects involved in the building of St.Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican.

Wiki entry… https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelangelo

Website with lots of info, click on the words on the banner at the top… https://www.michelangelo.org

Michelangelo’s masterpieces in Rome… https://www.througheternity.com/en/blog/art/michelangelo-masterpieces-in-rome.html

Sistine Chapel… https://www.museivaticani.va/content/museivaticani/en/collezioni/musei/cappella-sistina/storia-cappella-sistina.html#lnav_explore

Ten famous sculptures… https://onlinegallery.art/en/blog/the-10-most-famous-sculptures-of-michelangelo-406/

Saturday 22nd – 10am-3pm – Art Deco

Whilst this subject might sound very similar to last month’s Art Nouveau, it’s actually the next step forward in the history of design. Gone are the sinuous, natural lines and forms of Art Nouveau and in come the geometric lines inspired by speed, modernism, industrial machinery and the bold colours of Fauvism.

After the First World War there were many artists and designers active in France but the world came to see these designs in an exhibition in Paris in 1925 called Exposition internationale des arts décoratifs et industriels modernes (International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts), shortened to Arts Décoratifs.

Not just paintings, but sculptures, buildings (think of many of the skyscrapers in New York of Art Deco design), fashion, jewellery, home design etc. Well known artists and designers include Tamara de Lempicka, René Lalique, Le Corbusier and Georges Lepape. The costume designs of Romain de Tirtoff, who you will know by his shortened name of Erté (from his initials RT) has designs on the front of thousands of greetings cards and calendars in shops today. Clarice Cliff the ceramics designer used Art Deco designers in her work and we had a session on her in 2022… https://chalkartgroup.uk/2022/09/16/clarice-cliff-september-2022-wednesday/

Art Deco is very broad subject, so decide if you’d like to draw or paint people, buildings, objects, jewellery or one or two of each.

Wiki entry… https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_Deco

The 1925 exhibition Wiki entry… https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Exhibition_of_Modern_Decorative_and_Industrial_Arts

10 Art Deco buildings… https://www.arch2o.com/10-most-fascinating-art-deco-buildings/#google_vignette

10 Art Deco artists… https://www.widewalls.ch/magazine/art-deco-artists

Clarice Cliff… https://claricecliff.com/home

(Please note the session finishes at 3pm and we have another 15 minutes afterwards to put away our tables and chairs.)

Sketch week with Adebanji Alade

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Adebanji Alade is President of the Royal Society of Oil Painters, the resident artist on BBC 1’s The One Show and a published author with his Addictive Sketcher books. He lives in Gravesend and when Tracy bumped into him in the local Tesco he was chatty and very friendly. Adebanji has an online art group sketching and painting with members and twice a year runs a sketch week open to the public for only £10 for 5 lessons. They’re at 7.30pm onwards but if you can’t watch a lesson live you have until the following Friday to watch and take part.

The next sketch week is from Monday 3rd to Friday 7th March with lessons available to watch until Friday 14th March.

Here’s the link if you want to take part… https://adebanji-alade.lpages.co/addictive-sketchers-week/

Tracy took part in the last sketch week and learned so many things that she highly recommends taking part. For only £10 it’s an absolute bargain!

Once you sign up you’re sent a list of materials, but as long as you have a sketchbook, a few pencils from 2B to 8B and a rubber, you don’t need any extras.

These are Tracy’s sketches. The subject photos are emailed to you and you can print them out but instead she downloaded the photos to her phone and used an app called ‘Grid’ to put on the lines used to help with sketching out. There were two portraits, figures, a landscape and an animal, so a variety of subjects to sketch.

Tracy has signed up for sketch week next week and so have Brenda and Jane. Will anyone else join us?

Peta’s sketches of independent London shops

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Peta’s sketches of independent London shops have been published online on the Spitalfields Life website. Drawn in pencil then coloured in brown, black and blue ink, the subject evokes life as it was with independent shops on every High Street.

They’re fantastic sketches, Peta, you have such an amazing skill with a pencil and brush.

Good luck with your exhibition that opens this week in London!

The sketches have been screenshot to add to this post, but to see the images on the Spitalfields Life site click here… https://spitalfieldslife.com/2025/02/24/peta-bridles-shops/

Click on the first image below to see the writing under each picture, then scroll right to see them all. If you’d like to comment please do so on the Spitalfields Life website at the bottom of the page.