Twenty two artists met at the hall last Saturday, whilst one poorly artist painted at home then sent in photos of her pictures. It was a lovely relaxing day with arty friends catching up with each other over a cuppa and biscuits. To all members ill with this sore throat/cough bug, get better soon!
The suggested subject of ‘Animals in Winter’ was a popular one and several artists produced two pictures during the day. There were squirrels, highland cattle, foxes, squirrels, deer, birds, puffins, a snow leopard, hares, butterflies, a rabbit, ladybirds, a dormouse and robins. Several different mediums were used, such as watercolours, soft pastels, graphite pencils, acrylics, coloured pencils and inks. Some pictures are finished and others are works in progress, such as a landscape waiting for the animal to be added. The last 5 pictures were created at another art group but are of the same subject.
Some artists chose their own themes to draw and paint with pencils, pastels and watercolours.
Well done, everyone, it was a very productive day!
Ideas for next month will be published on 1st February and the next session will be on Wednesday 11th February from 7-9pm.
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 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!
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.
Chris W has finished an amazing portrait of Sir Winston Churchill. It’s in pastels and she has captured his skin colour tones in such a beautiful way. Well done, Chris, super artwork!
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 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!
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.
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.
Chalk Art Group 