Category: active art

An Italian Workshop

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by Bev Dunstan

Ron Moody presented an excellent Pen and Watercolour Wash workshop on Saturday 8th February using a sketch depicting Lucca in Italy as the basis for the day.

He began by demonstrating techniques on transferring the image onto the paper; either by tracing or by copying the image by eye.  Once this stage was complete each participant had their version of the image drawn in waterproof ink.

Deep in concentration

After protecting the roofline using masking fluid, the sky came next using the wet-in-wet technique and tilting the paper to allow the pigment to flow across the paper before allowing it to dry.

Ron Moody adds shadows

The painting continued to develop in simple stages, allowing plenty of time to learn and progress without undue pressure as Ron moved around the group to guide and mentor as needed; concluding with the final shadows and key ink strokes on the building facades.

Even though everyone began with the same image the final paintings showed a wonderful diversity of colour and interpretation.

To summarise a wonderful day “we all drew the pictures and coloured them in!”.

Lucca JMP and Ron Moody

Sketching through February

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Thanks to Lisa Marshall’s excellent co-ordination, we’ve been sketching to a different prompt each day through February. Lisa (with Marc and Roy’s help) set up a private group on Facebook so we could post our efforts, and ‘like’ and comment on them.

The prompts have been many and varied. The opener of ‘hats’ set the scene, and was followed up with ‘monsters and fantasy animals’. ‘Sweet treats’ and ‘Under the sink’ were slightly easier to find subjects for (although some of us have to be contortionists for the latter). A surprising number of us do not have anything in our houses that counts as ‘red’, and resorted to mobile phones for ‘knobs and buttons’.

By mid-month we were tackling ‘something you saw on a walk’, and ‘something beginning with G’.

To join in, contact Lisa Marshall.

Here is a selection to inspire you, from Lisa, Caroline, Jacky, Gill and Sue. All pictures copyright the artist, of course.

Caroline Haines
Chair
Jacky Pett
Red
Sue H-M
Chair
Gill Brophy
Foliage
Lisa Marshall
Foliage
Red
Gill Brophy
Cans
Jacky Pett
Seen on my walk
Caroline Haines
Inspired by Music

Wet in wet, lost and found: Jake Winkle shows how

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by Bev Dunstan

Saturday 11th January saw Jake Winkle return to Chandlers Ford Art Group with a workshop ‘Light and Movement in Watercolour’.  

Jake provided a dynamic ‘seat of your pants’ experience of working wet-in-wet in watercolour.

Using a big mop brush the members were shown a step by step guide in how to use a simple palette of colours to produce a quayside scene in deep shade and bright sunshine.  As the workshop was about using watercolour and less about drawing, the members were encouraged to trace the image onto the paper, thereby leaving more time to apply the paint.  Once the sketch was complete then Jake demonstrated how to mix and apply layers of watercolour to build up the painting; beginning with simple washes and finishing with darker pigments to define the sun kissed areas on the roofs and water.

In the second half of the workshop, Jake illustrated the technique of ‘lost and found’ in a painting.

The drawing was again traced into the paper to maximise the time to apply the paint.  The technique was to paint just the darker tones, working from top to bottom and wet-in-wet.  

This produced an image showing how, by just painting the shadows on the people and donkeys and not completing the whole outline, the human eye can capture the full intensity of bright sunlight as it falls on subject in hand.

Our results!

A Priceless Workshop

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Adebanji Alade held an ‘Urban Landscape using Acrylic’ workshop for
the Art Group on Saturday 14th September.  What a fantastic day!

The day began with Adebanji offering to gesso prime our canvases –
which we all accepted – and providing various images of London
demonstrating light and shadow.  He showed the group how to mark out a
grid by dividing up the image into smaller triangles and mimicking the
grid onto the canvas.  His tip was to use a canvas or board that had a
ratio of 3:4 to provide a balanced rectangular painting.

He completed an hour’s demo, talking us through his technique of
sketching in the image to create a tonal sketch; blocking in the darks
before completing the stage by using white to create a monochromatic
painting.

He then continued to add the sky, progressing to the ground and then
working with the darkest areas towards the lightest points.  He
continued to work on the painting during the session and has kindly
signed and donated the piece for CFAG to auction off with the proceeds
going towards the Eastleigh Mayors’ charities.

It was then the turn of the workshop participants.  What seemed to be so easy in
theory took much effort and concentration to even get close! Four
hours later and with much encouragement and assistance from Adebanji
sixteen paintings were lined up for review.  Adebanji was absolutely
amazing – he was willing to help – offering advice and assistance to
all – be it adjusting the painting, mixing the right colour or just
providing words of encouragement.

Adebanji then ended the day by completing a two hour demonstration in
the evening – first sketching and then completing a portrait of a
Vagabond – aka our Chairman Roy.

A splendiferous workshop.

Bev Dunstan

Watercolour Plus! Wild Flower Meadow Workshop

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by Bev Dunstan

Wendy Jelbert presented a ‘Watercolour Plus! Wild Flower Meadow’ Workshop for the Chandlers Ford Art Group on 8th June which took place at the Dovetail Centre.

Wendy began with explaining some amazing techniques using watercolour including the effects of using permanent and non-permanent inks with the paint and using cling film to enhance the texture of petals and leaves.

Wendy provided plenty of examples from her intensive archive on best techniques to produce images of wild flowers.  This included using oil pastels and masking fluid to enhance the flower stalks and daisies within the meadow.

References

She also introduced Brusho powders and the best methods of applying them, namely puncture the lid and use it as a pepper pot to sprinkle the powder into the wetted paper. [oooh, thanks for the advice!]

Discussions

The group then set about creating their own interpretations from the flower meadow images provided by Wendy and she was attentive to everyone throughout the day providing help and advice.

Photos copyright Bev Dunstan, images copyright variously Wendy Jelbert and members

Sketching Group news

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Our Sketching Group (for members only) had its first outing on 20th May, when a lovely crowd took advantage of good weather at Lakeside Country Park to sketch and chat.

Fortunately the weather held, and plenty of good work was done by all.

The next sketching meeting will be on 17th June at Rhinefield House Hotel, Brockenhurst. Full details will be emailed to all those on the Sketching Group list. If you didn’t sign up originally, but would like to join in, contact Roy.

We have word of a possible exhibition of views of Eastleigh Borough (celebrating 50 years this year!), so don’t be shy about turning your sketches into something you’d be happy to exhibit.

Life Drawing Update

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A couple of amendments to our programme:

The Brian Reynolds Life Drawing Workshop on Saturday 11 May will now take place at the Community Hall on Hursley Road (same venue as the Drop-in Sessions). All the other details are the same.

The Life Drawing session on Sunday 19th May has been cancelled for reasons outside our control.

All those booked on these events should by now have received an email updating them, but if you can’t locate the email, this may help!

Chris Tappenden Workshop – a monoprinting blast!

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by Bev Dunstan

Curtis provided the Group with an amazing Monoprinting workshop on Saturday 10th March 2024.  After demonstrating the basic techniques, everyone had the opportunity to try for themselves, pulling the monoprint and then the ghost print from the inked plate.

He generously provided the plates, inks and paper and there were soon plenty of examples spread across the floor as people perfected the art of inking up the plate and scribing the image onto the paper before removing the paper and seeing the resulting print.

An alternate method, known as Additive Process, was introduced.  This required the artist to paint the image on the plate.  The paper was then applied and pulled to provide the mirror image of the print.

The final technique of Subtractive Monoprinting was demonstrated by Curtis.  In this method the ink was applied over the plate and then the image was developed in negative by removing the ink from the plate using various tools.  Placing and pulling the paper then produced the Monoprint as a negative image.

The 6 hours flew by as everyone gained confidence in applying ink and using different textured tools, including lego tyres, potato mashers, embossed wallpaper and dried leaves to produce some wonderful pieces of work.

Helen Talbot Collage and Mixed Media Workshop

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by Bev Dunstan

Helen returned to the Art Group to provide an entertaining workshop teaching the various techniques of preparing textures and mark-making that could then be used within a finished artwork.  

These included:

  • using inked print rollers to create ghost prints and when combining the roller with string produced amazing shapes on paper;
  • acrylic ink with water on absorbent wallpaper that, when folded, created marks that hinted at woodland scenes and flowing water.

She also brought generous amounts of tissue papers, coloured images, music score, pastels etc to use and experiment with.

Helen shared her knowledge with the members throughout the busy day, ensuring our creative juices continued to flow to produce pieces of art that were all displayed at the end of the day.

Jake Winkle Workshop

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by Bev Dunstan

Jake Winkle orchestrated a fantastic workshop for the group on Saturday 13th January, entitled “Going Wild in Watercolour”.  

Following an excellent demonstration during the morning session, fifteen members undertook the ‘wet-in-wet’ watercolour application to produce a painting of a cheetah.

After a brief stop for lunch, the second demonstration illustrated how to use watercolour to create the impression of light shining off an object – in this case the shell of a ladybird.

Jake took the time to  explain his choice of paper, paint and brushes.  He described all of the steps of the processes during the demonstrations and offered assistance and encouragement to the members whilst they created their own paintings throughout the day.  

The workshop finished with a display of all of the work for all to see and review.  An excellent day was had by all with many going home to continue practicing the new techniques learnt during the day.

PS Don’t forget the Zoom Demonstration on Wed 24th – your email from Gill has the details!