On a cold, dark Wednesday evening fifteen artists met for the first session of 2026. There were twelve members and three ladies who came along to experience drawing with the art group. We hope you enjoyed yourselves, Christina, Jackie and Isabelle, and want to come along again and join us!
The suggested session was ‘back to basics’ to draw in monochrome pencils and get used to drawing again after the Christmas and New Year break. Many pictures were produced including some drawn at home and at another art group. If you can’t come to a session you’re welcome to do the suggested subject at home and sent Tracy photos that day or the next for inclusion in the blog post.
Some references have been included so you can see the images and objects that we worked from.
Brenda was very productive sketching with ink and her subjects were other artists at the session. Can you see who she drew?
Good work everyone, it was great to see you being creative as we haven’t had an art session since last November.
Our next session is on Saturday 24th January from 10am to 3pm. This will be on the 4th Saturday of January not the 5th one. Hope to see you there!
Here are suggestions for the two sessions in January, but you’re welcome to come to draw and paint anything you’d like to.
Wednesday 14th – 7-9pm – Back to basics
Let’s start the year going back to basics, using only grades of graphite pencils to sketch and draw in monochrome. Don’t just use an HB pencil, get depth and shading by using several B grade pencils.
If you’re stuck for a subject bring some objects from home to draw or look at the Christmas cards you have to see if there any you are inspired by or start sketching an animal for the Saturday session.
Saturday 24th – 10am-3pm – Animals in Winter
Continue using pencils to draw your animal subjects in monochrome or add a little paint for a splash of colour. Look at your Christmas cards again before recycling as many have animals on the front. Think of…
animals that hibernate – bats, hedgehogs, dormice, bears, bees, ladybirds, butterflies and moths, frogs etc, draw them where they hibernate.
animals that don’t hibernate – squirrels, badgers, deer, foxes, moles, birds etc.
texture – prepare a surface before the session. Add texture medium to watercolour paper or an acrylic surface and paint over the top, or glue white tissue paper down for snowy texture.
draw or paint a winter landscape cold and grey in monochrome, then add an animal in colour.
use coloured soft or oil pastels to give animals a furry feel or white and light pastels for a landscape under a blanket of snow with, for example, deer or farm animals in a field.
If you’ve ever spent the winter in Australia or the Caribbean you may want to paint colourful animals in bright colours!
HAPPY NEW YEAR and THANK YOU to everyone for your continued support for Chalk Art Group during 2025, attending sessions at the hall, Chalk Church and Rochester Cathedral and painting along at home.
Membership
We will finance Chalk Art Group in 2026 with an annual subscription of £90, to cover the hall hire fees for the year.
Alternatively, equal payments of £30 will be due 3 times during the year in January, May and September. If you choose to pay in instalments you are committing to pay for the whole year, not coming for a few months then stopping then starting again. Without this support we will not be able to raise enough funds to hire the hall. Steve emailed everyone on 31st December with details of how to pay by bank transfer, cheque or cash. Please check his email as there is important info about the art group’s name at the bank. If you pay promptly 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!
Sessions
Our sessions will continue to be on the second Wednesday evening 7-9pm and the fourth Saturday of the month 10am to 3pm, 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 that’s okay!
Workshops
Any workshops 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 sometimes pull out at the last minute.
If you don’t want to attend a workshop you 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.
Session dates for 2026
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 26th September, with hanging the Friday evening before from 7pm.
2026
2nd Wednesday 7-9pm
4th Saturday 10am-3pm
January (subs)
14th
24th
February
11th
28th
March
11th
28th
April
8th
25th
May (subs)
13th
23rd
June
10th
27th
July
8th
25th (not at hall)
August
12th
22nd (not at hall)
September (subs)
9th
FRIDAY 25th – hanging evening SATURDAY 26th – OPEN DAY
Our Christmas Party was an enjoyable evening with members, partners and family members coming along in Christmassy jumpers, hats and glasses. For those too poorly to join us, we hope you get better very soon.
With a tasty selection of sweet and savoury food, Christmas music, quizzes and Pass the Parcel we all had a fun evening together. A special mention to Cynthia whose ham and cheese flower wraps and Nutella flowers were much admired!
Thank you to Angela, Myrna, Neil, Ron and Tracy for contributing time and effort for Pass the Parcel, the music and the quizzes. And thank you to everyone who helped set up and tidy everything away.
Have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year and hope to see you on Wednesday 14th January 7-9pm for our first session of 2026.
A couple of months ago Kay asked us to send her images of paintings and drawings done at Rochester Cathedral. A few members emailed their artwork and one painting was chosen for the front cover of the brochure for Rochester Cathedral Trust’s annual dinner.
Susan’s beautiful, softly coloured watercolour of Rochester Cathedral was chosen.
The painting looks fantastic as the front cover and she has been given a brochure to keep.
Here’s the whole brochure if you want to see all of it. Susan is named on page 10.
Our annual Open Day had 23 artists painting at the hall, 22 members and a young friend of one member being creative with us to see if she’d like to join the group. We welcomed about 40 friends, family, local residents and people who had seen the Open Day advertised on social media.
We all enjoyed the day painting and chatting to visitors and several commented that it’s really interesting to see artists at work whilst they enjoyed walking around the exhibition.
Words from visitors in the comments book included…
“Amazing artwork!” “Really enjoyed the exhibition!” “Wonderful work – so many good artists with different styles.” “Brilliant work, very good standard.” “Well done all of you.”
84 framed paintings were on the walls with 4 sold, one each by Sandra and Tracy and two by Patrick. Well done, Patrick, that’s brilliant!
There were browsers with 70 mounted pictures, with 2 sold by Peta and Angela and Dot sold 3 of her greetings cards. Two enquiries about membership were made. The 4 hours seemed to go past very quickly.
Thank you to everyone who helped with hanging on Friday evening and a HUGE thank you to all members who kept tea, coffee and biscuits constantly supplied to visitors 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!
Here are all the paintings from Friday evening’s hanging session. (Apologies for the yellow cast on the photos, that’s the dull lighting at the hall, but the photos have been brightened.)
Our last session of 2025 will be the Christmas Party on Wednesday 10th December from 7-9pm.
Please email Tracy asap if you’d like to come to the party.
Vikki asked her grandson what picture he’d like her to create for him and he said he’d like a gorilla. So Vikki used coloured pencils to draw this amazing picture of a gorilla.
Beautiful artwork with lots of details, well done!
Ten members came along to Wednesday evening’s session and enjoyed painting together and having a chat over biscuits and a cuppa.
The suggested subject was Jane Austen as this year is the 250th anniversary of her birth. Unfortunately it was not a popular subject with only one member having a go. The picture took a long time to draw out so only a little watercolour paint was added at the session and it will be finished at home.
Other artists drew and painting to their own subjects with many themes started or continued in watercolours, acrylics and coloured pencils.
Our next meeting is on Friday 21st November 7-9pm when we hang all the paintings for our Open Day on Saturday 22nd November. It’s a normal timed session from 10am to 3pm, with visitors from 10.30am to 2.30pm.
Please email Steve asap with details of all your paintings! Thank you :o)
Tracy took part in Inktober 2025 by drawing an image every day using a 4-coloured ball point pen. By dividing up 2 pages of a sketchbook each box was only 5cm x 7cm. Each small picture took less than 5 minutes, including a quick sketch in pencil.
Every day was suggested by a list of prompts. Tracy’s favourite days were the 4th – ‘murky’, the 20th – ‘rivals’ and the 26th – ‘puzzling’. The 30th – ‘vacant’ was the easiest!
Tracy also finished her ‘Girl with a Pearl Earring’ picture, now called ‘Zentangle Girl with a Holographic Earring’. Drawn using a black waterproof pen, a Faber Castell Polychromos coloured pencil in Cold Grey III and some holographic nail varnish.
Chalk Art Group 