pastels

Open Day – Saturday 22nd November 2025

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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.

Dot’s portrait

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Dot’s portrait of Tina Turner for the different ethnicity theme is ‘Simply the Best’. In soft pastels the portrait captures Tina in full singing mode, vibrant and full of character. Well done, Dot!

Portraits – The Diversity of Humanity – May 2025 – Saturday

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Twenty members attended the session with the suggested subject being to draw or paint a portrait of a person of a different ethnicity to themselves. It was a busy session with lots of work being produced, along with cuppas and biscuits and natter as usual.

It was pleasing to see that several people used pastels to create their portrait, using techniques learned at the workshop, as well as watercolours, acrylics and inks. Most are finished but some are works in progress.

Cynthia finished her Lynx from the workshop and it’s absolutely beautiful. The lynx’s coat looks real with the highlights the hairs. Well done!

Other members continued with their wild animals from last month or drew and painted to their own theme.

Great work everyone, it was a good, productive session.

Our next session is on Wednesday 11th June from 7-9pm.

Portraits – May 2025 – Wednesday

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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’.

Chris W’s finished picture

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Chris W chose to create an orangutan pastel picture at the workshop but used a different reference photo to Paul’s. She completed the picture at home by adding to the orangutan’s face and colourful fur and putting in a soft green background. Super work, Chris!

Finished pictures by Dot and Tracy

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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.

Paul Hinks – soft pastel workshop – April 2025 – Saturday

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18 members attended Paul Hinks’ 5 hour soft pastel workshop and 2 members came along to paint their own subject. Soft pastels for some was a totally new medium and a day of learning for all.

Paul talked about pastel paper and different makes of soft pastel sticks and pastel pencils that he has used or uses now. Pipe lagging and paper stumps can be used to blend pastels and an ordinary plastic rubber can lift pastel from the paper. We were shown how to add a grid to a photo on an iPad using an app called ‘CopyIt The Grid Drawing Method’, which costs £9.99 from the Apple App Store, and how useful the greyscale tonal chart is for finding the tonal value of an area of a picture.

Paul had asked which wild animals the members would like to create in pastels and the top three animals requested were an orangutan, lynx and elephant, with a crocodile also suggested as you don’t see many in pictures. Using a large sheet of white Pastelmat paper he divided the sheet in 4 and used each quarter to concentrate on an animal.

With the orangutan Paul showed us how us how to complete the initial drawing and then add colours and shapes to achieve the texture of the hair and flanges. On the lynx we were shown how to achieve likeness of the fluffy ear hairs by using several colours of pastel pencil. The crocodile had scale shapes added and on the elephant we saw how to use dark pastel to create the trunk’s wrinkly shapes. Such a brilliant way to show all 4 animals in one go. Here’s the sheet at the end of the session…

The workshop started in a structured way as we coloured backgrounds and started sketching but soon we worked at different paces as some began adding pastel slowly and others confidently dived in with their pastels. Paul walked around several times to give advice to everyone individually and was a very personable and patient tutor as we could ask him anything and he helped us. Some members brought in their own wild animal reference pictures and he tailored his advice to each person.

Have a look at his accounts on Facebook as ‘Paul Hinks Art’ and Instagram as ‘paulhinksart’ to see his other artwork and commissions as they are amazing. Please give him a follow to see new works as they are posted.

Several photos were taken of members’ work at lunchtime as they left their desks to get another tea or coffee, but not all are shown. These photos show the many different makes of pastels being used and how we were a bit messy!

At the end of the session all the pictures were placed along the ledge at the side of the hall for all to see. The photos are grouped by similar animal, with individual ones at the end. Some are finished and others will be completed at home, so please send your photos to Tracy or Steve when finished. No one did the elephant’s head and full trunk, so will anyone give it a go at home?

Thank you, Paul, for such an informative and enjoyable workshop, we all had a marvellous day learning from you! We hope you will return for another workshop with us.

May’s sessions will be posted on Thursday 1st and the next session at the hall will be on Wednesday May 14th 7-9pm.

April 2025

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The group has had a good start to the year with five new members and most other members attending one session or other which is great news. For those too poorly to attend at the moment, we wish you well so you can paint with us again very soon!

Here are this month’s session ideas and, as always, they are simply suggestions, you can come along and ‘do your own thing’.

Wednesday 9th – 7-9pm –  JMW Turner 1775-1851

Born 250 years ago this month Joseph Mallord William Turner is known mostly for his oil paintings but he was also a printmaker and watercolourist. We had a session on Turner a few years ago when his image first adorned the new polymer £20 note, but as it was a successful session and everyone was inspired by his use of light and drama, we return to him. Draw or paint a dramatic scene using colour and light in any medium.

Info on Wiki… https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._M._W._Turner

National Gallery info, scroll down to see his paintings… https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/artists/joseph-mallord-william-turner

10 Turner paintings… https://animato.uk/blogs/news/turners-top-10?srsltid=AfmBOoo1eUNFk_g7e7rAvrq8napKD7t4z6hyZ7qacDsRkj6cHRdZ4iS2

Saturday 26th – 10am-3pm –  Soft pastel, wild animal workshop with Paul Hinks

Paul Hinks ran a workshop with us in March 2024 and as there have been so many positive comments about the day, he is returning. Paul is a local artist whose work you may have seen at an Under the Rainbow exhibition at Bluewater and at events in Gravesend. His pastel artworks and paintings are absolutely amazing and you can see them here on his website… https://paulhinksart.co.uk

Here’s the blog post of Paul’s last workshop if you want to see what we did… https://chalkartgroup.uk/2024/03/24/saturday-23rd-march-2024-paul-hinks-soft-pastel-workshop/

It will be a soft pastel workshop and the subject will be wild animals again as this is his speciality. More details of photographs and equipment needed will be supplied very soon to give you time to purchase items, but you don’t have to spend anything if you don’t want to, bring along what you have. Oil pastels are not suitable though, you do need soft pastels which are the chalky ones.

At March’s Wednesday session Tracy asked everyone what animal they’d like to create in pastel and eleven different animals were suggested, with several people not minding. Paul will find reference pictures of the top 5 animals suggested and send Tracy an email which will be forwarded to you. If you’d rather source your own reference photos of wild animals that’s absolutely fine, just make sure that you have the correct colours for that animal. It’s no good choosing a flamingo or tiger then realising that you only have blue and green pastels!

The cost will be £12 each to cover Paul’s fee, the hall hire fee already covered by your subs. Please note that Paul is booked for 5 hours from 10am to 3pm so we plan to have an exhibition of all our work on the ledge about 2.45pm to admire what we’ve created.  

Please turn up promptly to start at 10am so we don’t waste any time.  If you arrive late (we appreciate parking can be difficult at times) please find a free seat and unpack quietly.

Check the date first to see if you are available. If you are free and want to attend then EMAIL Tracy on her usual email address, or text or use WhatsApp to message her.

*** PLEASE DO NOT USE the comments box below as messages can take days to get through! ***

Once Tracy has confirmed your place please pay the £12 by bank transfer (preferred) or cash.

Paul hasn’t set a limit on numbers so hopefully everyone can come who wants a place.

Please don’t book a place then realise the day before that you won’t be able to come. Unfortunately in the past we have had members cancelling on the day or just not turning up. If you can’t come please let Tracy know in good time.

As you have already paid for the hall in your subs we aim to make the hall accessible for everyone on the day, even if you’re not taking part in the workshop. We’ll have the workshop set up towards the big window end of the hall and a couple of tables at the kitchen end of the hall available if you wish to come and ‘do your own thing’ on the day, but please work quietly. Thank you!