Eleven members met last Wednesday evening with the suggested subject being to draw and paint a fruit and vegetable still life.
Fruit and veg comes in all shapes, sizes and colours so the resulting sketches and paintings are really colourful.
Other artists started or continued with their own themes.
The next session is on Saturday 27th September from 10am to 3pm. Hope you can make it! :o)
The last payment of subs due for 2025 is due by the end of the month so look out for an email from Steve how to pay. If you don’t get an email from him then you have already paid for the whole year and don’t need to do anything, just keep coming along to the sessions :o)
We’ve not had any still life subjects for a long time so let’s concentrate on that theme for this month.
Wednesday 10th – 7-9pm – Fruit and vegetable still life
As farmers harvest their field crops it’s almost time to celebrate harvest festival. Bring fruit and/or veg to draw and paint in detail. Look at the individual shapes they are and different colours, then cut some open to see the interesting patterns inside. The lighting in the hall is unfortunately very dim, so please remember to bring along a lamp to light your items to see them better!
Saturday 27th September – 10am-3pm – Still Life with objects
Continue with your fruit and veg still life or bring other objects from home and set up a still life in front of you. There are single tables in the store cupboard if you want to place one in front of your painting table to set up a still life with boxes or draped material as a background.
Hobbies – Gardening – flowers, a trug, gardening implements. Walking – a map, compass, walking boots, rucksack. Art – a paint palette, paintbrushes, jar of water, pencil case. Cooking – recipe books, utensils, weighing scales. Driving – a map, gloves, car keys. Photography – a camera, flashgun, tripod, camera bag. Music – musical instruments, sheet music.
About you – bring interesting items from home – jewellery, books, childhood toys, dolls and teddies, a relative’s fob watch, ornaments, vases with or without flowers, your favourite foods, a wine bottle and glasses, plants, statues, a teapot, cups and saucers, shiny objects that reflect other things, glass objects that you can see through, a globe, candles, shells etc.
Group similar objects together or bring a random collection.
Whilst you can draw and paint these items individually, it’s more challenging to set up a still life and create a picture with the objects in relation to each other, looking at the relative shapes, shadows and opposite or analogous colours to think about. Use any media or several in one mixed media picture.
Thank you to Kay who gained permission for the art group to meet in the King’s Orchard, the private gardens behind Rochester Cathedral. Ten members enjoyed sitting in the gardens drawing and painting the rear view of the cathedral and the stump of a 250 year old sycamore was interesting with insects flying around and into the tiny holes in its trunk. The day was due to be dry but overcast so we were pleased that the sun came out for most of the day and it was lovely and warm. We had a whip round and the cathedral will gain £72.50 including Gift Aid.
A few pictures are finished and others are works in progress to be completed at home. We used pencils, coloured pencils, watercolour pencils, felt tip pens and watercolours. A beautifully drawn squirrel and a hairless cat called Potato join the pictures.
Here are a few views in and around Rochester Cathedral. In the nave is a Short Scion floatplane originally built in 1937 and mini golf with a bridge theme in the garth is free to play. Both are there for another week if you want to visit.
Thank you for a most enjoyable day with arty friends for a good natter whilst drawing and painting en plein air.
The next session is back at the hall on Wednesday 10th September from 7-9pm.
Last Wednesday fifteen members attended the session on a very warm evening. Most painted on the black and white and lightly tinted postcards, bought from eBay for a few pounds. They were mostly views from the West Country, Kent, the Lake District and Scotland, with a few other places too.
Acrylic paint applied thickly and thinly worked really well to add the colour, as did thick watercolour paint, ink, coloured pencils and felt tip pens. Some of the postcards had been used and the earliest message and stamp dated back to 1908!
Some artists drew and painted to their own theme.
Well done everyone, the painting on a postcard challenge was well received and very enjoyable.
Our next session is on Saturday 23rd August in the private gardens behind Rochester Cathedral. Please email Tracy asap if you can come or not.
Here’s what we’ll be up to in August, but as usual you can draw or paint anything you want to.
Wednesday 13th – 7-9pm – Paint on a Postcard
It’s now the summer holidays when many of us go away then send a postcard home of where we are visiting. Picture postcards were first sent in Germany in the 1880s but the UK used postcards just to write on until in the early 1900s black and white photographs were printed on one side of a postcard, with the writing and the address on the other.
Whilst sorting through her late mum’s items, Susan came across some postcards of Mount Fuji which have been painted in rich colours. Aren’t they beautiful?
What a great idea for a session. Lots of old black and white postcards of UK scenes have been bought from eBay, with the idea that we paint on them and give them a new, colourful, lease of life. Acrylic paints used thickly work best, though you can use them thinly and still see the photo below. Coloured inks work and coloured pencils, though don’t press too hard or you’ll dent the surface. Watercolour doesn’t work on the shiny postcards but might on the rougher-surfaced postcards and Posca pens don’t work well either, unless you want really bright colours. Gouache and pen markers might work but haven’t been tried yet.
Use colours that would be in the scene or use different colours for a more mysterious or abstract effect. A few postcard have already been lightly tinted and the subtle effect is very pleasing.
Some of the postcards have been used and still have stamps on from the 1920s, 30s and 40s, with words saying having a lovely time, the weather has been good, or it’s been raining. No different to what we write nowadays!
Here’s an article found by Susan about the Japanese postcards. It’s an interesting read…
Saturday 23rd FROM 10am-3pm – Rochester Cathedral’s private gardens
We will be meeting in the King’s Orchard, the private gardens behind Rochester Cathedral, for this month’s outdoor session. We first visited these gardens three years ago and Kay has kindly gained permission for us to sit and enjoy the gardens again whilst either drawing and painting the view or painting our own ideas.
There are a couple of benches but not enough for everyone so you’ll need to bring a folding chair to sit on and your own water to rinse your brushes in. Bring lunch too, but hopefully the cafe in the crypt will be open on the day if you fancy eating there. Travel light with your art equipment, don’t bring everything or you’ll be stuck with a heavy bag on the day. If you use acrylics be aware there will be nowhere to rinse equipment, so bring a carrier bag to take home your unwashed palette and paintbrushes. Watercolours, pastels, coloured pencils, sketching pencils or ink pens would be a better choice.
The toilets are a few minutes walk away round and through the Cathedral and into the garth (gardens) where they’re on the far side.
Please email Tracy asap if you would like to attend or not, as we need to know names for the lanyards that must be worn at all times.
Further details about dropping off your art equipment and parking information will be sent by email nearer the time.
In the garth at the mo is mini golf… https://www.rochestercathedral.org/new-events/2025adventure-golf and in the nave is a fully restored Short Scion Floatplane… https://www.rochestercathedral.org/floatplane
Start praying for good weather, but if it rains we will still meet but inside. If this happens we can’t use any water, so bring pens, pencils etc as ‘dry’ mediums to use.
The Cathedral are not charging us to use the gardens so we will be having a collection on the day.
On Saturday 10 members visited Chalk Church for our annual outing there and enjoyed drawing and painting together in the gardens around the pond and Monet bridge. It was cloudy but dry so the artists stayed outside during the day.
Most members painted the view in front of them but others chose to continue with their artwork from previous sessions or their own theme. Several mediums were used to great effect.
Everyone one had an enjoyable and productive day, well done!
Next month’s newsletter is due on 1st August with the next session on Wednesday 13th August 7-9pm back at the hall in Chalk as usual.
A date for your diary is Saturday 23rd August when we will be returning to the private gardens behind Rochester Cathedral. There are 5 Saturdays in August this year but we meet on the 4th Saturday, which is also bank holiday weekend. Tracy will be taking names soon so please check your calendar and ‘save the date’.
Tracy saw a handmade ceramic plate online of a boat and colourful, curving waves. She painted something similar using watercolours in many shades of blue, green and purple, then outlined all the shapes in gold watercolour paint. The boat’s hull is currently white but she might paint it orange or red or maybe vermillion, as the colour in between the two. Decisions, decisions!
Last year we had a session on drawing and painting on printed paper, including dictionary pages. One of Tracy’s daughters loves capybaras so that page in the dictionary was cut out and finally used this year. Tracy used coloured pencils and very dry watercolours for the capybara and left the dictionary entry of capybara free of colour. Once framed the page was given as a present.
For the last Wednesday session the theme was the Live Aid concert of 1985. Tracy drew Freddie Mercury singing under a spotlight in white coloured pencil on black craft paper. She’s pleased as the effect is what she was aiming for.
If you complete pictures from previous sessions please send them to Tracy or Steve. We’d love to see them finished!
Angela drew Bob Geldof’s portrait for the recent Live Aid 1985 session and completed it at home. Beautifully drawn it captures Bob and his intense stare at the viewer. Good work, Angela!
Thirteen members attended the session on a muggy summer’s evening, but the aircon kept us cool. Some artists painted the theme of Live Aid, the dual concerts held in London and Philadelphia in July 1985. Freddie Mercury and Bob Geldof were the most popular subjects to draw and paint.
Chris W’s painting of an animal carcass in a barren landscape and an RAF C-130 aeroplane carrying food and supplies is a sombre reminder of the concerts’ aim to raise money for the 1983-5 famine in Ethiopia. £40 million was raised on the day, equivalent to £100 million today.
Most pictures are works in progress to be finished at home or another session.
Other artists drew and painted to their own theme, including a finished picture from Peta of the Angelina Tea Room in Paris which she visited last year.
Lovely work everyone, well done!
Our next session will be on Saturday 26th July at St.Mary’s Church in Chalk, from 10am to just before 3pm, not at the Parish Hall.
Twenty members met on Saturday to start or continue drawing and painting for our annual competition, which is a friendly affair, not fiercely contended. There was lots of chat throughout the day and we enjoyed painting with like-minded folk.
At the end of the session nineteen pictures were entered and after studying all the pictures we voted for our favourite one. After counting there was a clear winner and runner-up, with the rest of the votes evenly spread to other paintings.
These were the entries…
The runner-up was Chris W with her watercolour painting summing up the theme ‘Summer”. Her entry was all about Wimbledon with the winning men’s trophy, tennis rackets, tennis balls, a net and strawberries and cream. Well done Chris, what a fabulous picture!
The winner was Steve with his water mixable oil painting giving summer vibes of drinking wine on the beach in the sun with the blue sea lapping nearby. Congratulations on winning, Steve, we loved your painting!
Other artists drew their own pictures, brought in paintings from previous years with a summer theme or didn’t enter the competition.
Well done everyone, you rose to the challenge with your amazing paintings!
The next newsletter will be published on 1st July, with the next session on Wednesday 9th July from 7-9pm at the hall.
Chalk Art Group 