Jane started painting this white dog in oils at our Open Day last November and completed it as a gift for a friend for Christmas in memory of her little dog.
These three beagles were also painted in oils for a gift. The dogs are on a beach in Pembrokeshire where the owners have since moved with two of the dogs. The reflections on the wet sand make the dogs look 3-D.
Well done, Jane, both pictures are beautifully painted and made fabulous gifts!
Here are ideas for January’s two sessions, but you are very welcome to come along and paint whatever you want to.
After years of bright, dynamic colours worldwide colour company Pantone has chosen a soft, mellow, comforting brown as its colour of the year, called Mocha Mousse. Instead of a whole session on this colour try and add it to your paintings throughout this year.
Click here to learn more about this colour… www.pantone.com/uk/en/color-of-the-year/2025
Wednesday 8th January 7-9pm – Ballpoint pen and a sketchbook
A simple start to the year to bring along a sketchbook and ballpoint pen and sketch some ideas of what you plan to draw and paint in 2025 or bring items from home to sketch. We usually use pencils to sketch but ballpoint pens are often overlooked yet are so versatile. Handy too if you’re going out and just want to pop a pen and small sketchbook in your bag.
Originally patented by John Loud in the USA in 1888 the first ballpoint pens were clumsy and not a success so the patent lapsed. László Bíró developed the idea decades later in Europe and patented his idea in 1938 as Biro pens. A few years later Marcel Bich bought Bíró’s patent and the Bic Cristal ballpoint pen became his first product in 1950. The four-colour ballpoint pen followed in 1969 and both designs remain almost unchanged since then.
Saturday 25th January 10am-3pm – Winter Wonders
Before recycling your Christmas cards have a look through and see if any will inspire you for this session. A wintry landscape, place, people, domestic or wild animals. With watercolours leave the white paper unpainted to represent snow or with acrylics or oils layer the paint on thickly with a palette knife. Or you might see many colours in snow, it’s not just white with sunlight and shadows. A broad subject in any media, come along and enjoy an arty day with friends.
HAPPY NEW YEAR and THANK YOU to everyone for your continued support for Chalk Art Group during 2024, attending sessions and painting along at home.
Membership
We will finance M&C this year with an annual subscription of £84 to cover the hall hire fees for 2025.
Alternatively, equal payments of £28 will be due 3 times this year in January, May and September. If you choose to pay in instalments you are committing to pay for the whole year. Without this support we will not be able to raise enough funds to hire the hall. Steve emailed everyone on 21st December with details of how to pay by bank transfer, cheque or cash Please look back to his email as there is important info about the art group’s name at the bank. Please pay promptly as this saves members being emailed and phoned to be reminded to pay!
Please pay your membership fee by the end of January to continue to be a member of the art group. Thank you :o)
Sessions
Our sessions will be on the second Wednesday and the fourth Saturday of the month, with session ideas being published on the 1st of that month.
You don’t have to paint the suggested ideas, you’re welcome to come along and paint anything you want to. Or if you come on a Wednesday and want to paint the Saturday idea or vice versa, that’s no problem at all.
Free tea, coffee and biscuits will be provided at all sessions so if you just want to come and chat with your art friends then that’s fine too!
Workshops
If we have any workshops they will have the usual ‘first come, first served’ policy of putting your name down, with an additional amount to pay to cover the tutor’s fee. If more artists wish to attend the session than the tutor has room for, we’ll have a waiting list and you have a chance of getting a place as members do pull out at the last minute.
Even if you don’t want to attend a workshop you will have already paid for the hall hire in your subs. You are therefore welcome to sit and paint quietly at the kitchen end of the hall whilst the workshop session takes place towards the window end of the hall.
Here are the session dates for 2025
Please print them out or write them in your diary or calendar. Some months have 5 Saturdays but we meet on the 4th one.
Open Day is on Saturday 22nd November, with hanging the evening before.
| 2025 | 2nd Wednesday 7-9pm | 4th Saturday 10am-3pm |
| January (subs) | 8th | 25th |
| February | 12th | 22nd |
| March | 12th | 22nd |
| April | 9th | 26th |
| May (subs) | 14th | 24th |
| June | 11th | 28th |
| July | 9th | 26th (not at hall) |
| August | 13th | 23rd (not at hall) |
| September (subs) | 10th | 27th |
| October | 8th | 25th |
| November | 12th | FRI 21st – Hanging evening SAT 22nd – OPEN DAY |
| December | 10th – Christmas Party |
It was a cold but dry evening when many members and their partners and families enjoyed the Christmas Party.
With a tasty selection of food, Christmas music, quizzes and Pass the Parcel we all had a fun evening together.
Thank you to Angela, Myrna, Neil, Ron and Susan for all your help on the evening and to Patrick for his trumpet music quiz.
Hope everyone has a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
See you on Wednesday 8th January 7-9pm for our first session of 2025!
Steve finished the pastel picture he has been busy creating at the last couple of sessions. It’s a view of autumnal trees across a lake at Sheffield Park.
Looked after by the National Trust, Sheffield Park’s gardens, parkland, woodland and lakes are Grade 1 listed and are near Uckfield in East Sussex.
Steve used pastel pencils on Pastelmat paper for the picture and the colours and depth of field are very effective. Well done!
Dot started drawing her tiger picture on Open Day, our last Saturday session. She used coloured pencils in many different colours to accurately draw the tiger and found it both relaxing and enjoyable.
Well done, Dot, what a super tiger!
Our annual Open Day saw 23 members painting at the hall and welcoming about 30 visitors. This was 50 visitors down on last year but the awful cold, very wet and windy weather unfortunately kept people indoors.
We all enjoyed the day painting and chatting to visitors and several commented that it’s great to see artists at work whilst they enjoyed walking around the exhibition.
Words from visitors in the comments book included…
“A great variety of lovely artworks.” “Lots to see and admire and one purchase made!” “A nice friendly group with some wonderful art pieces to show.” “Perfect as usual, clever and warm group.” “Lots of excellent pictures.”
There were 63 framed paintings with 3 sold, three browsers of 51 mounted pictures with 5 sold and Dot sold 3 of her greetings cards. 4 paintings/prints were specifically bought as Christmas presents to gift which is a brilliant idea. A good response in only 4 hours, well done everyone!
Thank you to everyone who helped with hanging on Friday evening and a BIG thank you to all members who kept tea, coffee and biscuits constantly supplied on the day. Also for washing up and drying so many cups, saucers and teaspoons. We couldn’t run the day without your help and enthusiasm!
Our last session of 2024 will be the Christmas Party on Wednesday 11th December from 7-9pm.
Please email Tracy asap with a yes or no to the party!
Tracy really enjoyed the coloured pencil workshop last month and started an A4 picture at the last session. She’d saved a cover from World magazine in 1988 and decided it was time to create a picture of the colourful mandrill. Using many colours Tracy spent hours on the mandrill’s face and is finally happy with the result, especially the eyes and long snout.
The evening was a ‘do your own thing’ session and to finish pictures for our Open Day on Saturday 23rd November.
Ten members came along and continued their pictures in a variety of mediums. There is a completed painting from the previous design a book cover session.
The next session is on FRIDAY 22nd November from 7pm and is hanging evening.
Open Day is on Saturday 23rd November from 10am to 3pm with visitors from 10.30am to 2.30pm.
Chalk Art Group 