art

Fauvism – February 2025 – Wednesday

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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.

Steve’s and Angela’s pictures

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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.

February 2025

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In January we had a quiet Wednesday session and a very busy Saturday session where it was good to catch up with everyone. Here are the suggested idea for February based on historic art movements, but if you’d rather come and paint to your own subject that’s absolutely fine.

Wednesday 12th – 7-9pm – Fauvism

Fauvism emerged in France at the beginning of the 20th century as a group of artists moved on from the style of Post-Impressionist paintings by Vincent van Gogh and Neo-Impressionist pointillist paintings by painters such as Georges Seurat. Fauvism used strong colours and fierce brushwork and the colours used were often not connected to the colours of the subject. This style of painting emerged around 1904 and carried on past 1910, but the years the movement were most productive were 1905-1908.

Painters such Henri Matisse, André Derain and others used vivid colours straight from the tube and spontaneous brushwork that an art critic called them Les Fauves (the wild beasts). Whilst you may not have heard of Fauvism you will have probably seen many paintings by famous painters.

Choose a subject and use any media to create a painting inspired by Fauvism. Paint one of the Fauvist artists if you prefer portraits.

Info from the Tate Gallery – https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/fauvism#:~:text=Fauvism%20is%20the%20name%20applied,strong%20colours%20and%20fierce%20brushwork

Wikipedia – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fauvism

10 famous Fauvist paintings – https://www.dailyartmagazine.com/fauvism-in-10-paintings/

Fauvism paintings on Google images – you will recognise many – https://www.google.co.uk/search?client=safari&sca_esv=05dc5d931443a7b3&channel=mac_bm&q=fauvism+artwork&udm=2&fbs=ABzOT_CWdhQLP1FcmU5B0fn3xuWpA-dk4wpBWOGsoR7DG5zJBsxayPSIAqObp_AgjkUGqenLclubdwP4zrQWfEJDEVVFVXswA8wQATANG0VCCiWAMu4ejmjJF88YytNA4ooH7UaQnCzCG9kHDJcsZiEnf682ytYLMNWtL7sMF7t6s8j1r6aG8tF1Ey2OdkbWmbYM880tDLYpDJgsGVOWrdtT4dkx-ceNUQ&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjlv7HrqaOLAxU4XEEAHUiCLggQtKgLegQIEBAB&biw=1804&bih=1209&dpr=2

Saturday 22nd – 10am to 3pm – Art Nouveau

Art Nouveau, ‘New Art’, both predates and postdates Fauvism, from c1890 to the beginning of the first world war in 1914. It is such a well known and international style that thousands of examples adorn the world’s museums, art galleries and great houses.

Inspired by natural forms such as the sinuous shapes of plants, flowers and animals, the moment had roots in the works of William Morris (who was our subject in February 2024) and the Pre-Raphaelites. Using dynamism, asymmetry and movement there are not just paintings but sculptures, furniture, textiles, ceramics, jewellery, buildings and other objects. In France this time was called La Belle Époque, ‘The Beautiful Era’, and the Style Moderne and several Metro stations still have their Art Nouveau entrances.

Draw or paint anything inspired by Art Nouveau, or if you prefer portraits choose one of the many artists connected to this style.

Info from the Tate Gallery – https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/a/art-nouveau

Wikipedia – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_Nouveau#Bibliography

Paris Métro entrances – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_Métro_entrances_by_Hector_Guimard

10 artists – https://www.invaluable.com/blog/art-nouveau-artists/

Art Nouveau at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York – https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/artn/hd_artn.htm#:~:text=From%20the%201880s%20until%20the,%2C%20graphic%20work%2C%20and%20illustration.

Ballpoint pen and sketchbook – January 2025 – Wednesday

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A simple subject to start the year but illness and cold weather kept most members at home apart from two. Patrick and Tracy chatted throughout the evening and found the hall heated up quickly using the warm aircon.

Patrick had sketched out his picture for the next session of a wintry scene, inspired by a Christmas card he had received. He used coloured pencils, pastels and water mixable oil for the snow and hopes to finish the picture next time.

Tracy enjoyed researching about the history of ballpoint pens and finding out about John Loud, László Bíró and Michel Bich. For the session she brought objects from home and drew the faux plants. Firstly in just black then using a Bic pen with four colours, using the green, red and black.

Three members tried the subject at home.

Susan drew a lovely detailed scene of Smarden in Kent in black ink and it includes the church where her daughter was married last year. For the sketches of the birds different coloured ballpoint pens were used.

Angela found a picture of an olive tree and drew it with a ballpoint pen in the style of Van Gogh. It’s a beautiful sketch and the swirls with the ink give a Van Gogh effect.

Dot used a blue ballpoint pen to draw these pictures of a little girl and a teddy bear. On the girl and the teddy she achieved a really good effect of hair and fur by following the shapes of the heads.

Using a simple ballpoint pen is a very quick way to sketch, especially if you’re out and about and only have a pen and sketchbook with you. Please do give it a try!

The next session is on Saturday 25th January from 10am to 3pm and the suggested subject is ‘Winter Wonders’. See the post published on 1st January for more details.

January 2025

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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.

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  

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.

Coloured pencil workshop – October 2024 – Saturday

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Fourteen members enjoyed an animal coloured pencil workshop run by local artists Liz and Helen. They met at Gravesend Art Group and both love creating pictures of animals using coloured pencil techniques learnt through online courses. Here are examples of their work that they sell at exhibitions and they also take commissions (apologies for the reflections of the hall lights). It’s amazing artwork with so much detail to look at.

Helen made up packs of sheets of information for us to use and Liz showed us how to colour the eye, nose and fur. By learning these three basics we can go on to create a picture of an animal of our choice. Both ladies walked around all day showing people individually how to lay the colours down and generously loaned their extensive coloured pencil collection for everyone to use, along with their ceramic slices and erasers.

No one had drawn on drafting film before and we were all surprised how well the colour layers could be built up. We put a smooth sheet of hot pressed watercolour paper or cartridge paper underneath the drafting film so the colours could be easily seen. The Tombow Mono erasers were useful for removing tiny areas of colour as the eraser head is so small and the ceramic slices used to remove areas of colour for highlights and individual strands of fur.

We all completed the eye, nose and fur and although we used the same templates the pictures look individual as we used many different coloured pencils in browns, reds, yellows and greys. Everyone was pleased to learn so much throughout the day, especially using the drafting film.

We’re all looking forward to drawing our next animal on the extra drafting film sheets which were given to us. When you finish your picture please email a photo to Tracy to be included in a future blog post.

Here are the finished pictures which were on the ledge at the back of the hall. (Apologies not to get the ones left on tables whilst we cleared up.)

Well done everyone you did really well and a huge thank you to Liz and Helen for such an informative workshop!

Our next session is on Wednesday 13th November 7-9pm, then it’s hanging evening on Friday 22nd November from 7pm and Open Day on Saturday 23rd November. On Open Day we meet from 10am with visitors from 10.30am to 2.30pm.

Finished horse pictures

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The subject of George Stubbs and his horse paintings was popular last month and several pictures were started. Four have now been finished…

Mary found an adorable photo of a huge shire horse and donkey foal in a newspaper, drew it carefully and painted it in watercolours.

Angela used pastels for her horse picture, using rich browns and tan colours for her bold horse head portrait.

Janet W printed words about Stubbs on to Bockingford watercolour printer paper and painted a picture of Whistlejacket over the top in watercolour. She used the watercolours quite dryly so the words didn’t smudge. The painting is already framed as has just been exhibited in a Gravesend Art Group exhibition in the St.George’s Art Centre.

Tracy chose the Triumphal Quadriga as her subject, otherwise known as the Horses of Saint Mark, in St.Mark’s Basilica in Venice. Believed to have been sculpted in the 2nd or 3rd century CE in Rome or possibly the 5th or 4th century BCE in Greece, they were displayed for centuries at the Hippodrome of Constantinople until the sack and looting of the city by Venetian forces in 1204 during the Fourth Crusade. The four horses were then mounted above the entrance of the basilica in Venice until they were looted by Napoleon in 1797 and taken to Paris, but were returned to Venice in 1815. Copies of the four horses are now outside St. Mark’s Basilica whilst the originals are displayed inside under spotlights which highlight the original mercury gilding that remains.

Tracy started with brown paper and used black, white, yellow, orange and brown coloured pencils to create her picture of the horses.

Well done everyone! It’s always interesting to see finished pictures which were started at previous sessions.

The next session is at the hall on Saturday 28th September from 10am to 3pm.