Welcome to 2025

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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    7-9pm4th 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  

Christmas Party – December 2024 – Wednesday

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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’s pastel picture

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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’s tiger picture

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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!

Open Day – Saturday 23rd November 2024

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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!

Finished coloured pencil picture

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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.

DYOT – November 2024 – Wednesday

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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.

Finished coloured pencil pictures

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After the coloured pencil workshop Dot went home inspired and started a picture of a fox on one of the extra sheets in the packs we were given. She used several different colours of pencil for the fur and gave emphasis to the eyes as they stare out of the picture at the viewer. Lovely work Dot, well done.

Steve has created a picture of a gorilla which looks 3-D. He used several colours of browns and black for the gorilla’s hair and if you look closely the hair highlights are from using the ceramic slice to take off the colour. Well done, great work Steve.

Tracy tried the curly hair exercise from one of the information sheets in the pack. The exercise was for black hair but she used 6 shades of light to dark brown instead. The sheet says the hair wouldn’t look right for a couple of hours and this was true, it looked very stiff. But after adding darker browns the hair looked a lot better after another 90 minutes. Do give the exercise a go on the pastel paper or drafting film, it is a big challenge!

November & December 2024

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Please read everything as there’s lots of info…

Here are the dates of our next meetings-

Wednesday 13th November – 7-9pm – finish paintings or DYOT

Friday 22nd November – 7-9pm – hanging evening

Saturday 23rd November – 10am-3pm – Open Day  (Visitors from 10.30am to 2.30pm)

Wednesday 11th December –  7-9pm – Christmas Party

On Open Day you don’t have to hang your paintings on the walls or in the browsers, it’s not compulsory. We call it an Open Day not an exhibition as a way to open the hall for a day so visitors can see what we paint at our sessions. It’s a good way of showing the group to people who are looking for a local art group to join. So if you have interested friends or family please ask them along. 

If you aren’t showing your paintings please come along and enjoy a day of painting. 

Wednesday 13th – 7-9pm – Finish paintings or DYOT

We all have paintings we started and haven’t got around to finishing. Bring these paintings and finish them off, especially if they’re for Open Day. If you’ve already decided which paintings to show for Open Day bring them and mount or frame them.

If you’ve already mounted and framed your paintings then come along and DYOT – ‘do your own thing’.

Friday 22nd November – 7-9pm   – Hanging Evening

Please email Steve ASAP with how many framed paintings you will be hanging for our Open Day, along with their names and price or NFS (Not For Sale). 

Framed paintings – up to 6 and not too big to hang from the hooks. No clip frames please as they easily break. Use D rings and cord across the back with a label hanging down below the frame or on the front with your name, name of the picture, medium and the price or NFS. 

Mounted pictures – any number for the browsers but they must be for sale, all labelled front or back. There won’t be a list of mounted work, so keep a record yourself of which ones you bring along. 

If you need insurance for your artwork then please make sure it’s in place for today and tomorrow.

From 7pm drop off your paintings or stay and help hang them all up. Please bring scissors to cut the hanging cord.

If you can’t come on hanging evening then please arrange from someone else to bring your artwork. 

Saturday 23rd November – 10am-3pm –   Open Day

*****Visitors welcome 10.30am to 2.30pm*****

We open our doors and invite friends, family and Chalk locals to come and see what we paint. Please don’t be upset if you don’t sell anything. It’s lovely to welcome people into the hall to talk about art and painting. 

There’s no set subject, just bring along something to paint during the day. 

So no one gets stuck in the kitchen for hours please take your turn making teas and coffees for visitors and also wash and dry up the cups and saucers. Please wash up the teaspoons too as they don’t wash themselves :o)

Membership – If any visitors want information about becoming a member please take them to Steve who can tell them about joining the group. 

Sales – If anyone is interested in buying a framed or mounted picture please take them to Tracy for payment. We don’t have a card reader for debit or credit cards, it’s cash only.

Wednesday 11th December –  7-9pm –   Christmas Party

Come along in your Christmas jumpers, sparkly outfits or fancy festive hats and enjoy some quizzes and Pass the Parcel. No painted wood slices this year, we already have several for our Christmas trees!

Bring along a plate of food to share and pop it on the side tables. Also bring your own plates, cups and drinks. 

If your food is for vegans or coeliacs please label accordingly and place on the separate table.

Your partner/family are welcome to come along too. Please email Tracy if you’ll be coming so we know numbers for pass the parcel. Tea, coffee and biscuits will be available as usual.