Tag: life drawing session

September highlights

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We start the autumn season with a workshop on Saturday 9th September.

Heather Jolliffe will be working with members with oils, palette knife techniques and more. Heather will cover some simple landscape and coastal scene compositions, with an aim that you will make some mini studies, followed by something more substantial.

Drop-in Session

As usual, the Drop-in Session will be on Wednesday morning 14th September, at the Community Hall on Hursley Road. Check here for details.

Life Drawing Session

Having missed a couple of months due to the exhibition, life drawing is back, at the Church Hall on Sunday afternoon, 24th September. Places are limited, usually the season is fully booked. Check with the Treasurer if you are unsure.

Demonstration – Sally Goodden, 27th September

This is our last ‘live’ demonstration of the year – for October and November we switch to Zoom meetings so you don’t have to come out in potentially cold and wet weather.

Sally will be demonstrating how to paint animals, such as lovely fluffy squirrels, using brusho and inks.

If (like me) you aren’t familiar with brusho – this is your chance to find out. The demo is in the Church and starts promptly at 7.30. Members free, visitors £5. Refreshments tba.

Shades of Grey at Paul Berryman Workshop

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by Bev Dunstan

The Art Group held the June workshop in the cool of the church hall today, 10th June. 

Paul Berryman drove down from Cambridgeshire and provided an entertaining Figures and Life Drawing in Charcoal Workshop presented in two parts. 

In the first part he taught the attendees some basic principles of life drawing, namely tips in observation; using the 8 key building blocks of the body form; drawing curves; using negative space and finding the active line in the pose. 

He followed up with how to create tone using charcoal and applying it to show light and shade before commencing part two with two hours of life drawing. 

Poses ran from 1 minute through to 25 minutes in length and everyone continued with the charcoal and applied the techniques learned earlier in the day.

The artists all finished with plenty of sketches and were totally exhausted! 

Flaming June already?

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June is here, and how long this lovely weather will continue is anyone’s guess. It’s a great opportunity to get out for some plein air painting, but don’t forget your waterbottle (for drinking!), hat and sunscreen!

Since we’ve already succeeded at having our cream tea event, the month starts with our workshop… although the postcard portraits are still on parade outside the Dovetail Cafe until Saturday 3rd.

Saturday 10th June – Paul Berryman

This ‘Figures and life Drawing in Charcoal‘ is a must for everyone who enjoyed Paul’s Zoom demonstration last winter. You may remember his approach to the ‘terminator’ – the line dividing strong light and darkness, where the contrast is greatest, then shading away from that.

For those that have been trying to apply this in their life drawing (or even when painting figures), this workshop is a must. At time of writing, there were one or two places available, so do sign up, via Roy Brophy or Bev Dunstan (members only). 9.30 to 3.30 in the Church Hall.

Drop-In session

Wednesday 14 June sees our midsummer drop-in session. This is probably the only event that continues month in, month out, so if you want to meet up regularly with some like-minded people and get on with your own project, this is the space for you. Members only, £5 per session, at the Community Large Hall on Hursley Road.

Sunday 18 June – Life session

This gives you a quick opportunity to put that learning from Paul Berryman into practice, but you can do any style you like. 2-4 in the Church Hall (members only).

This will be the last life session until September, due to the Summer Exhibition using the same venue.

Wednesday 28 June – Roll Up, Roll up for our Demonstration

We are delighted to welcome Curtis Tappenden to give our demonstration this month on Circus Art. 7.30 – 9.30 in the Methodist Church. I suspect he has many stories to tell about circus life!

If you enjoy this, watch out for details of the workshop that Curtis has kindly agreed to next year.

Seven Days in March

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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.

Your treats for February

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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.

Welcome to 2023!

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We welcome 2023 in with our first Drop-in session of the year, tomorrow 11th Jan, at the Community Centre Hall on Hursley Road.

New calendar

You’ll find the new programme has been updated here, with as much detail as we have until June, then mainly listings. Undoubtedly, like me, you will find the workshop you really, really wanted to do clashes with something else you’re booked for. With me, that is the Paul Berryman workshop, on June 10. I even got some of those charcoal pencils he recommended, as a Christmas present!

I’m also really interested in the Batik demonstration in March, and several other events.

batik from handprinted.co.uk

The highlight of the spring must be our Tabletop Exhibition on the last weekend in April (29/30) at the Church Hall. It’ll be eighteen months since our last one! How time flies.

January feast

January has a feast of all your favourites: a workshop with Helen Talbot on Buildings in Pen and Wash; Life Drawing Sunday; a New Year Lunch (sign-ups closed in December), and we finish with a Zoom Demo by Roger Dellar – Demo in Oils – on the last Wednesday of the month.

There must be something for you here, so I look forward to seeing you at one of the events (or online!)

Paul Berryman – the Terminator!

Posted on Posted in DemonstrationsTagged , , , 1 Comment

report by Jacky

At our Zoom demonstration last Wednesday Paul Berryman showed us his secret to shadows – use the Terminator!

Apart from a film character, ‘terminator’ is the word used for the border between sunlight and dark on a planet or moon. So this border between light and shade is what Paul focuses on when drawing life models.

He showed us how he draws, quickly and in one considered line, the outline of the model. Then he outlines the critical edge to the deep shades – the terminator. If I said he then fills it in and blurs it to the correct tonal values that would make it sound easy – but in essence that’s the plan.

Screenshots showing the terminator effect – sorry they are out of focus

What to use

It does depend on what you use, and Paul generously shared the tools he used on the demo as follows:

  • General’s Charcoal pencils – (orange) recommended 2B, 4B, not so much the 6B – very soft!
  • Tombow eraser – 2.3mm (try Jacksons for suppliers)
  • Seawhite newsprint pads A4 or A3 depending on your preference
  • Helix A5 Metal Pencil sharpener
  • Blending stumps, widely available anywhere

I was happy to see I was on the right lines with my first Life Drawing workshop as I’d brought a stack of newsprint (saved from packing when I moved) as it seemed a good medium with charcoal. But I must get those pencils and the Tombow eraser – and a good sharpener – I’ve already had several useful pastel pencils eaten by an ordinary sharpener!

Enjoyable

I really enjoyed this demo – possible the more so because I could watch it from home and scribble as many notes as I liked. Paul also sent links to his model photos. I’m planning to practice on some of them.

The discussion on schools of drawing and the animation approach was very interesting. If you’ve missed it, or want to go over it again, Gill sent the link to the recording of the demo, but it’ll only be available for another week, so act now!

Lighting

We had a quick discussion on lighting the models for our life drawing workshop, so I hope our organisers can get some good strong but low energy lights to enhance our model’s shadows for next time.

Comments from other members

It is certainly great not to venture out in these dark evenings.

Thank you for all the demo information on materials. There was a lot of information from Paul last night.

Thank you for forwarding the list- yes he was magic I thought. For me, best we’ve ever had. 

Thank you so much Gill [for the recording link] that is excellent.  We are looking forward to watching this demonstration when we have a moment.

It was a super demo, I shall enjoy it a second time with the recording, and I’m sure learn even more.

Life Drawing reaches new heights

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By Peter Maule

The final Life session of the year took place on Sunday with Vince as a new model to the group.  He quickly got into some challenging poses, challenging for the artists that is, although he managed to maintain the poses with commendable stillness.

A surprise to all attending, was his standing pose atop of a double height structure giving all the chance to try a vertical standing pose. I think many hearts were in mouths while he settled himself, but he clearly knew what he was doing. We were all treated to various foreshorten poses, adding challenge and variety to the excellent session. We are all looking forward to starting again in January next year.

We’re still having some challenges with the heating in the hall for the model, but hopefully all will be sorted out soon.

November reminders

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A gentle reminder of this month’s items…

Drop-In session

The Drop-in is next Wednesday, 9th, at the Community Hall on Hursley Road, 10 till 1. If you haven’t already made your piece for December’s social event, you might like to fix that here!

Workshop

Phil Biggs
Phil Biggs

Sunday 13th is the watercolour workshop with Phil Biggs, which looks most interesting, but is fully booked. And please note it is Sunday, not the more usual Saturday.

Life Drawing

The following Sunday is month’s life drawing session, and like the watercolour workshop, is the last one of the year.

Zoom Demo

We start our winter demonstrations on Wednesday through the medium of Zoom (at your own home, or place of convenience). Life drawing in charcoal, by Paul Berryman. Watch for the members email with log-in details.

A warm welcome at October’s Life Drawing

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We welcomed some new members to our life drawing workshop in October (16th), but the main warmth was the hall itself. Not overly so, but much better than September!

Our model posed in several demanding poses over the two hours, for both him and the artists. Standing or bending over, using a support, were quicker poses (5 – 10 mins). Lying tended to be for 20-30 minute poses. Perspective from the foot up on a prone pose was especially difficult.

Digital using Sketches on iPad (Jacky)

A quick check on a sample of attendees revealed several media in use. Pencil probably most common, but charcoal, pastel, inks, pastel pencil, and a first attempt at digital life drawing all made an appearance.

Pastel pencils on paper

Don’t forget: our last live Demonstration of the year – Peter French -is on Wednesday at the Methodist Church.