Julia started her painting at the session on Art Deco, with colourful, geometric circles her main focus. She spent a long time drawing the circles then hours painting each one in acrylics. Many of the circles have more circles on them.
Well done, Julia, what a fabulous painting!
Fourteen members enjoyed two hours together being creative by drawing and painting portraits. After our recent soft pastel workshop it was good to see several artists using pastels for their portraits and pictures.
Some drew their grandchildren whilst others used images available online. There are a couple of finished portraits and the others will be completed at home or at the next Saturday session.
Some members drew and painted their own subjects.
Lovely to see so many at the session to have a good natter with! Please send any finished pastel animals or portraits to Tracy for putting on the blog. Thank you :o)
Our next session is on Saturday 24th May from 10am to 3pm with the subject being ‘The Diversity of Humanity’.
Dot continued to work on her Art Deco lady at home by changing the background from lots of small geometric shapes to larger ones. This has made the lady much more prominent. Lovely use of colours too, very striking.
Dot completed her orangutan pastel picture from the last session which was the pastel workshop. She’s added more hair around the head, beard and on the body using several orange and red pastels colours.
Tracy finished her orangutan pastel picture by adding more gingery colours to the body hair and and taking time on all the wrinkles and highlights on the face flanges. She particularly enjoyed creating the orangutan’s hands and using pipe lagging to soften the greens in the background.
Good work ladies, thank you for finishing your pictures for us to see!
If anyone else completes paintings or pictures from the pastel workshop, please send photos to Tracy or Steve to add to the blog.
Turner’s paintings still hold our eyes and imagination 250 years after his birth. Fifteen members enjoyed an art session based on Turner and drew and painted images based on his paintings or to their own theme.
Among the Turner paintings used for inspiration are Self Portrait (c1798/9), Bill Rock Lighthouse (1819), a detail from the Burning of the Houses of Parliament (1835), Snowstorm – Steamboat off a Harbour’s Mouth (1842), Colchester, Essex (c1825), Stonehenge and Sunset, both undated. Some paintings pastoral, some full of light and drama, a few finished and several to be completed at home.
Some artists painted their own colourful subjects.
Lovely work everyone, Turner was a challenging subject!
Our next session will be a soft pastel workshop on Saturday 26th April 10am-3pm, please email Tracy if you’d like a place.
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.
Dot has almost finished the painted she started at the Art Nouveau session, and what a super painting it is. An elegant lady surrounded by sinuous and natural floral images painted in acrylics. Well done, Dot, she’s beautifully painted!
This session’s subject on Fauvism was well attended with 13 artists and most painted like Les Fauves, the Wild Beasts, using bright colours and bold strokes.
Using original artworks or other paintings or photographs as inspiration, the mediums used were acrylic paints, watercolours, acrylic pens and felt tip pens. Some paintings are finished and others are works in progress and will be completed at home.
Some members came along and created pictures to their own subjects and there’s one coloured pencil drawing inspired by the last Saturday session on winter.
Lovely work everyone, well done for being so bold and colourful with your paints and pens!
The next session is on Saturday 22nd February from 10am to 3pm and the suggested subject is Art Nouveau.
Both artists have completed the pictures they started at the last Saturday session on ‘Winter Wonders’ and Steve has also finished a canine portrait.
Steve’s pictures were made using soft pastels and pastel pencils on Pastelmat paper. The winter picture feels so cold that you can imagine the snow crunching under your feet as you walk along the lane to the house.
The dog picture works so well in pastels as they make it’s fluffy fur look soft and strokeable.
Angela’s picture of a blackbird was painted in acrylics. Lovely use of paint with the blackbird in focus in the foreground and the background out of focus using larger brushstrokes.
Well done Steve and Angela for completing your super pictures and thank you for sharing them with us.
At last Saturday’s session about Underwater Life there were oyster shells to paint, either the traditional teardrop oyster shape or the flatter native oyster shells. Tracy had visited Whitstable beach and helped herself to lots of empty oyster shells which are thrown on the beach behind the Whitstable Oyster Company Restaurant. After a soak in hot water and washing up liquid she scraped off the last of the muscle at the dark muscle scar inside the shells, soaked them with antibacterial spray and left them to dry in the sun. The inside of the oyster shells were all clean to paint with no fishy smell and the outsides were patterned and interesting too.
Everyone who painted a shell came up with a design on the spur of the moment and drew inside the shell with pencil then painted with colourful acrylics. Kay painted with watercolours and the paint did stay on the inside. Her painting of a badger’s head on a flat native oyster shell was much admired and we all agreed it was the highlight of all the shells.
Well done everyone, you painted the shells beautifully and it was fun to try something different!
Chalk Art Group 