Our first Quiz evening!

Our first quiz evening went off splendidly on Wednesday. Hosted by Bev, with quiz master Jacky, refreshments by Joy and Tessa, and a good time appeared to be had by all.

About 34 people signed up and most came, some extras came which almost balanced out the no-shows, so we had eight teams of about four taking part.

The Dovetail Cafe is a really good venue for this sort of event, as you can see.

The winners were Partly Arty with 48 points (max 66), with Lifers coming second on 45.5 points after a tie-break with Hampshire Hams.

For the record, other teams were Clueless (41.5), Turmoil (39), Gaugin Goers (38.5), Just 3 (36.5) and No 42 (35.5). All very respectable scores.

The quiz had sections on Numbers, Colours, Sport, Geography, Animals and Movies. Just not the sort of questions for each you might expect. All definitely arty (but it helped if you knew what the first Bond movie was!)

And afterwards Roy said ‘we must do this again.’

I think our quiz compiler had better start looking for new questions now. 🙂


Community Artwork at the Nuffield Centre @Wessex_Health

You may remember a recent call to provide the Nuffield Health Wessex Hospital with artwork for their new Orthopaedic Wing. Thank you to everyone who submitted amazing work which was hung this week. This forms part of our Community Artwork venture, so that these pieces are offered for sale, and at intervals will be circulated between the hospital, around local medical surgeries, and council offices in Oakmount Road.

New picture rails have been installed in the new wing at the hospital, and more picture rails will be installed in phases when funding allows. It was not an easy job selecting pieces of the right size, colours and subject. The new Orthopaedic Ward and Consulting Rooms look very much better with the addition of the artwork!  They have been tastefully decorated in a grey emulsion and wallpaper, and really needed the splashes of colour our group has provided.

Artworks will be rotated from time to time, and new pieces will replace those sold.

Thank you to everyone who got involved with this project, and especially to Barbara Wigelsworth, our Community Artwork organiser.


Seven Days in March

Sorry about that, but we are already seven days into March. Apologies for the delay in reminding you what’s on!

On Wednesday, it’s our monthly Drop-in Session to help you get on with your own project in appreciative company. Details here, and remember it’s at the Community Large Hall on Hursley Road, not the Methodist Centre.

Workshops

Saturday 11th it is a palette knife landscape or seascape workshop with Stephen Foster. This was so popular that we have arranged a second one, in May. No, it’s not an aberration of the Calendar.

All the places for the workshops for this year have now been allocated. If you haven’t had confirmation of your successes and waitlist places, please contact Roy. And don’t forget to pay. You should have had all the details in an email around 22nd Feb.

Sunday 19th March we have our monthly Life Drawing workshop in the Church Hall. Wrap up well as the priority for the limited heating is our poor model! Life drawing workshops were also booked last month, check your email for around 22nd if you don’t recall getting one. There are a few spaces left for both March and April (16th).

Our Quiz Night!

Wednesday 22nd brings us a Quiz Night hosted by Bev and led by Jacky. Tea and coffee etc in the interval. And… there may be prizes! Jacky says this is not a test of how much you know about art. Hopefully you may learn a thing or two (she has, in setting the questions) but the main thing is to have a fun evening. Laughter, bafflement, and a few groans, probably!

The Spring Tabletop Exhibition

Spring Tabletop exhibition at the Dovetail Centre, 29/30 April 10 till 4

We are preparing a print run of flyers for you to give to your friends, neighbours, and anyone else willing to spread the world.

Thank you Sue Bowery for letting us use her lovely picture.

Please let Gill know how many flyers you think you could use asap. The poster can also be downloaded here for those who would like to spread it around their social media. If you can do that with a banner style on a webpage, that’s here.

If you are not a member and wish to take part in workshops and other active art, then why not invest a very small amount of money in joining us? Contact Gill (cfagmemsec at gmail dot com) for details.


Report on Kirstin White Workshop – now with video!

by Beverley Dunstan

The February Workshop was presented by Kirstin White, a successful local artist who specialises in on-the-spot painting at Weddings and Fetes in addition to teaching watercolour painting.

The workshop was full with 16 members who were guided through a series of watercolour techniques.

Starting with the three primary colours the participants learned how to produce colour tones and placement of shapes.

Using a photo of two traction engines as the basis of the workshop the participants experimented with techniques including the use of salt and shaped objects to alter the paint surface; masking fluid, masked areas and candle wax to assist in maintaining colours whist layering the pigments and the use of collage to enhance the shapes within the painting.

A selection of the finished paintings, plus works-in-progress!

Kirstin has also put information about this on her Instagram site, and sent us a 2 min video which is on YouTube, and a 46 second one here:

Your treats for February

After five Mondays in January – such a long month – we have a short and snappy February programme.

On Wednesday, it’s our monthly Drop-in Session to help you get on with your own project in appreciative company. Details here, and remember it’s at the Community Large Hall on Hursley Road, not the Methodist Centre.

Saturday 11th it is the Watercolour workshop with Kirstin White. We put out a call for a late place available last month. I think it’s been taken, but if you are interested, contact Roy.

Sunday 19th Feb we have our monthly Life Drawing workshop in the Church Hall. Wrap up well as the priority for the limited heating is our poor model!

Wednesday 22nd brings us a Zoom demonstration from Chris Forsey entitled ‘Moorland in Winter’ in Acrylic. This looks to be very interesting. Since our painter in oils decried the plastic used in acrylics, it will be interesting to see what Chris says on the subject.

Members will have received two emails with the opportunity to book workshops (life drawing and tutored painting ones) late in January. If you haven’t already responded you may be too late, but check the email anyway. The process after taking all workshop requests is for a computer to allocate places taking account of whether you’ve been successful in the past or not. The aim is to ensure everybody gets at least one of their choices. Then there is the waiting list, so all is not lost if you miss out on a place you hoped for.

If you are not a member and wish to take part in workshops and other active art, then why not invest a very small amount of money in joining us? Contact Gill for details.


Roger Dellar zoomed around the allotment

by Jacky Pett (notetaker!)

Our January on-line demonstration by Roger Dellar took a photo he’d taken in an allotment, and turned it into an oilpainting.

Plein air painting

Roger commented that it is perfectly acceptable to do this sort of plein air painting, but do ask the allotment’s association for permission, all the same. Many are happy to let artists work in their space, and get used to the idea of small groups of people coming around if you want to set up a regular visit. Always, with regard to painting in public, even if in not much doubt, ask!

The starting point was a photo that many of us might have passed over as a subject: a man kneeling on the ground planting his potatoes in a trench. I didn’t realise that was what he was doing, although after he’d said I realised what some of the other objects on the ground were. This was not just an issue for watching on a screen, though. Roger commented later that the more you look at a scene to paint it, the more details you see. He ‘discovered’ some tools in the foreground and those bags of potatoes quite late in the evening.

Finding the painting

First was a quick sketch of the main lines that he saw, making them connect to each other, to provide a substance to his work. This was in a thin umber that would be completely covered. Roger commented on ‘finding the painting’ many times. ‘Let it come to you’ seemed to be another motto.

Then he worked around the painting to block in the darkest tones first. This surprised me, as there were huge blocks of near-black he put in, but I had forgotten two rules of oil painting:

  • Use thin dark colours first, and thick light colours.
  • Make the dark colours slightly large as the thick light will go over and hide unwanted edges.

It certainly seemed effective, and enabled those black blocks to be toned down.

‘Look at masses and shape, and think about complementary colours. Let the painting come to you.’

Occasionally he reminded us of complementary colours, such as purple vs orange tones. Lots of green shadows use purple to make them dull green. Also, when mixing greens, cobalt blue give a fresher green foliage than ultramarine as that has too much red in it.

Another tip was to add perspective, eg by drawing furrows in the ground, even if they aren’t actually there. It’s a painting you want, and the painting needs perspective.

How long to dry?

In response to questions about waiting till oils dry, he said “painting wet oils is about laying out the paint, thinking about how to paint your scene, work from dark to light. It’s a myth about having to let it dry. It’s about pressure, about working from lean to fat.”

He also recommended doing a weekend oil painting course to improve our understanding and technique.

Of course, you could also take an art holiday – he’s doing a Crete trip with Art Safaris. It sounds blissful!

I must admit, the picture at the end looked most interesting, and I learnt a lot about making art out of what at first didn’t seem a very interesting subject. I still don’t see that line of light on the jacket hanging up, though!

Screengrabs by Roy. Images copyright Roger Dellar.


A Happy New Year Dinner

by Jacky Pett

A happy crowd gathered at the Kings Court Masonic Centre on Saturday 21st for a New Year’s Lunch.

I believe this was a first for the group, and it was well received. Feedback on the venue, food and arrangements has been very good.

Starting with a welcome drink, we gathered and chatted, and inspected the seating plan. Alex Phillips confessed it had been quite a close thing to fit nearly forty of us into this venue, but in the end we had a little room to spare. There is a larger option, with a dance floor, but most of us felt this was a nice room, private and cosy, if a little on the loud side.

The food was very nice, and lots of it (served on quite small plates!). Opinions differ over whether Yorkshire pudding should only be served with beef, or whether it goes with anything. Cue anecdotes of fathers who had jam in theirs for ‘afters’, of Glastonbury queues for Yorkshire pudding with chips and gravy inside, and many more…

All in all, members were left asking for more… dinners, not to eat today. The puddings made sure we were well filled when we left!

Thank you to Alex and everyone involved in the arrangements.

photo by Roy Brophy

Roger Dellar on Zoom this Wednesday

Don’t forget to check the details to access the demonstration with Roger Dellar on Zoom this Wednesday, 25th January.

Roger will be taking us onto his allotment in a presentation called ‘Living on the Veg!’ This is expected to be an oil painting, which will be great to watch. And you’ll learn everything you need to know about painting your veggies. I wonder if that gets rid of blackfly?

Members will receive their Zoom link details by email in the next day or so.

If you need help setting up or accessing your Zoom system, contact Roy Brophy as soon as possible (and not after 7pm on Wednesday!). If you need a refresher, you could look at page 8 of this lovely guide from West Hunsbury Parish Council, which I found on the web.

Not a member yet? Contact Gill at cfagmemsec


Vanishing points galore

from Bev Dunstan

Vanishing points were a key feature of Helen Talbot’s excellent workshop on 14th January, ‘Buildings in Pen and Wash’.

The workshop focussed on how to use perspective when drawing architectural subjects. 

Helen provided demonstrations showing various techniques using vanishing points and centre of vision for archways. 

Various photographs were used, either from Helen or brought in by the members and everyone enjoyed practicing the techniques. 

Everyone had a great time and found Helen to be very personable, knowledgeable and helpful.


Space available on Kirstin White Workshop 11 Feb

There is a place available on the Kirstin White workshop:

CREATIVE TECHNIQUES WITH WATERCOLOUR

This takes place Saturday 11 February 2023 from  9.30am-3.30pm at the Church Hall next to the Dovetail Centre.

We are now opening this to non-members, so if you are interested, and would like to try our Art Group out in a practical sense, please contact the treasurer, Roy Brophy.

More details of the workshop, and about Kirstin White, are here.