Tag: workshop

The Magic of Gouache

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Gouache Workshop by Jill Iliffe 11th July 2026

by Bev Dunstan

Jill returned to Chandlers Ford to provide an excellent workshop explaining and demonstrating the use of Gouache. Many assumed that Gouache was just another type of Watercolour medium but Jill explained that it was more akin to Oils, insofar as it produces a strong flat colour and you can build up layers, even adding white over black.  The key difference though is that, unlike oil or acrylic, when you add water it becomes wet again and mixable on the painting. 

Jill brought plenty of examples illustrating the versatility of the medium ranging from the flat poster type look through to the finer watercolour effect.

Jill explained that watercolour brushes and paper were to be used with gouache and she demonstrated how to use the paint including the technique of blending a colour into white; dry brushwork and mixing the colours both on the palette and on the painting.  Jill brought along a selection of photos to use or the artists brought along their own images to work from.  The attendees returned to their tables to experiment with the medium.

Jill took time to talk to each person and offer advice on tips and techniques as she went around the room.

 The final Gallery provided a wonderful display of how gouache can be used for bright flat colour, simple design and intricate seascape.

Don’t forget to visit our Summer Exhibition at the Hillier Gardens – open 10-5 until Sunday 16th August!

Abstract Acrylic Workshop with Rebecca Hurst

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by Bev Dunstan

Rebecca Hurst came to the Chandlers Ford Art Group and provided a wonderful Abstract Acrylic and Mixed Media workshop full of inspiration and insight into using marks and different media to create loose and vivid artworks.

Rebecca provided various demonstrations throughout the day showing how to make the best of random objects such as rag and corrugated cardboard to produce amazing marks, which in turn provided the underpinning of the finished artwork.  She demonstrated the colour wheel and how best to balance the colours in your painting whilst keeping to a simple palette.  

One such demo used her photo of a locked padlock on a colourful shed door to dramatic effect.

The members took the ideas back to their tables and worked them into their own paintings, producing a myriad of paintings throughout the day.

Everyone had a great time, even a watercolourist was converted to the joy of Acrylic!

How did June get so busy?

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No, it’s not a rhetorical question, or even an inquiry into a mysterious lady from the past. It simply reflects the amount of activity going on within the group this month… and there isn’t even an exhibition (although there’s a great deal of planning for August going on!)

We start the month with two (fully booked) special events — Behind the Scenes visits to Southampton Art Gallery. I’m looking forward to hearing a report on these from one of the attendees – it doesn’t have to be as detailed as Bev’s workshop reports, but it would be nice to know what you saw and what you thought!

These are speedily followed by the first of our Life Drawing afternoons on Sunday 7th, when Rowan Roberts will be revealing all. I never cease to be amazed at the ability of our life models to stand still in poses I could not adopt for more than a few seconds – they hold them for a few minutes or up to an hour (usually the longest we ask for is a half hour).

Note: this may not be the model for June.

The day after, on Monday 8th, sees the first session in a new Sketching Course, taken by Mandy Axtel. The other sessions take place on 22nd and 29th June, and 6th July. We look forward to seeing your sketches of the St Cross area.

Relegated to a lowly spot, in the listing, but still on the second Wednesday of the month, our drop-in session runs from 10:00-13:00 at the Hursley Road Community Hall.

This month’s workshop is on Saturday 13th, and promises to be a lively Abstract Acrylic and Mixed Media with Rebecca Hurst. It is speedily followed by the Sketching Group’s outing to Romsey Abbey on the Monday, and a brief pause before our second Life Drawing session on the 21st.

Finally we round off the month on Wednesday 24th, with a lively live Demonstration from Jake Winkle. A good time will be had by all.

And that takes us to Midsummer! You realise we will then be closer to next Christmas than last Christmas? Start painting your cards now 🙂

How hard can it be?

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by Bev Dunstan

‘How hard can it be’ – Watercolor Workshop, Saturday 11th April.

Catherine Cartwright brought a fantastic and lighthearted approach to Watercolour painting with her beginners class.

She began by explaining her background and joy in using watercolour in her work and promised to share tips and tricks that she’d learned over time and wished she knew sooner.

Catherine demonstrated the techniques and provided helpful handouts for the class to practice the different methods used in Watercolour including ‘wet-in-wet’ and ‘variegated wash’ – where the watercolour paint is moved down the wet paper without the reapplication of paint.

wet in wet / variegated wash

The group members took the time to work through the techniques and practice the various tips including creating cloud formations and using splatter for increased mark making. 

Cloud formations
Splatter techniques

Another great tip was to use the edge of a credit card, length cut to suit the need and dip it into the paint to mark lines – useful for fence posts in a landscape.

Catherine encouraged the class to use a minimal colour palette and mix greens using lemon yellow, cadmium yellow, or raw sienna with ultramarine and cobalt blue combinations.

colour chart

After lunch, members put the new found knowledge into practice by creating a landscape painting.  

i

The group had a wonderful time and learnt many new things. There was plenty of time to practice the techniques and Catherine was ready to answer questions and help when asked.

Happy Easter – now paint!

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Happy Easter to you all, and let’s hope the weather is benign over the holiday weekend. A chance for you to get out and paint, perhaps?

Our month starts with the drop in event on Wednesday 8th, 10:00-13:00. I’m sure you know by now that this is a free to ‘do as you please’ event on Wednesday morning at the Community Hall on Hursley Road. I think it’s still with free coffee, tea and biscuits! 

Catherine Cartwirght

On Saturday 11th our Workshop is intriguingly entitled “How hard can it be?” It’s a Watercolour Workshop with Catherine Cartwright and I’m looking forward to finding out how hard it is!

The following weekend we resume our Life Drawing sessions (Sunday afternoon). The form for the next quarter was sent out recently, and has already closed. If you wanted to apply, please do so more quickly when the form comes out for the next quarter!

Monday 20th sees our Sketching Group heading up to Olivers Battery. I hope the weather will be decent for that. A new year of sketching monthly prompts will also be starting: these will now be sent to everyone, so just ignore those emails if you don’t want to be inspired. You don’t even have to do anything with your sketches, although if you want to add them in the Facebook Group, do so. For any help with this, contact Lisa Marshall.

A couple of days later, Wednesday 22 April, we have a social event, particularly to welcome new members, but everyone is invited. There will be an art-related Bring & Buy sale, and a clinic on presenting your work for exhibition.

And please note your entry form for the Spring Exhibition must be in by the 21st April.

There’s still time to do your Postcard painting – theme of Film Title, so you could bring that to the social too. And perhaps pick up some flyers to promote the Spring Exhibition to your friends and neighbours.

Chaos and sloshing with Jenny Muncaster

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by Lisa Marshall

We had a great workshop on Saturday 14th March.  It was a bit chaotic at times, lots of water and sloshing about, lots of fun. But no mishaps and a full house, with a waiting list.

Jenny started by giving us an enthusiastic walk through of her art life. She has so many ideas she needs to investigate before she runs out of time.

She bought with her an array of her beautiful work.

She is a promoter for Daler Rowney Acrylics and often visits the factory and works closely with the development team. There are 4 different textures in the system 3 range 

  • Heavy Body
  • Soft Body. _ Original
  • Fluid 
  • Ink
  • DR Acrylics are highly pigmented

She talked about different brush types and their uses and other tools we would need like sponges, pipettes and pallet knives. Then she demonstrated the colour wheel using CMYK and  process yellow, magenta and cyan which gives a brighter mix.

We completed two projects and watched her demo a third

16 Square Grid

We started with 16 square grid  taped and chose 3 of our colours to make as many different marks as possible in each of the sections. Results: we produced many varieties of patten and texture.

Zine (1)

Next we started our Zine (Magazine like folded paper) 

We painted the first side with a base layer then a contrasting top colour which we sloshed with water while it was still wet and waited for the paint to dry, but not the water, then wiped off with a wet sponge – this leaves a splashy effect and can be repeated multiple times.  Embrace your mistakes!

We then worked on the second side of the Zine

Oil pastes and make marks right up to the edges then watery paint all over the give a contrasting effect. We made lots of texture marks with grout scrapers, bubble wrap printing, scourers, corks, cotton buds and finally ink flows with a straw.

 Jenny’s Demo

While that was drying we watched Jenny Demo a Flower Meadow 

The picture is inspired by one that she has created on a much larger scale for cruise ships. – Acrylics are so versatile. She used 5 colours and White.

If you are on Instagram, there is an instagram video she has made of the process.

Zine (2)

Finally, with all the paint dry, we folded and cut our Zines 

A fabulous time was had by all!

Jenny has written a book which will be published in March 2027, and has an Exhibition starting on 3rd June at the Arc Winchester for 6 weeks (The Colour Factory).

On the cusp of March

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Well, February whizzed by, so here we are, on the cusp of March, with sun, rain and daffodils, so it must be spring!

As always, we have a packed calendar, including a zoom demonstration on the fourth Wednesday, with the ‘new members’ social, although everyone is invited, now taking place in April.

We start with our now customary first event of the month – the Life Drawing session on 1st March. The form for the next batch of sessions was circulated to members a few weeks ago, and the form closed on 22nd February. There are unlikely to be any spaces, so if you missed it, get your application in earlier next time!

Wednesday 11 March is the Drop-in Session at the Community Centre on Hursley Road. Start 10 am, finishes at 1 pm, and you can drop in any time you want!

Our Workshop for this month is WOW with Acrylics, hosted by Jenny Muncaster. WOW is Wet on Wet, and the description of buckets for water, and huge brushes, plus sponges and goodness knows what else, suggests that the paint will run freely! There was a long waiting list for this event, probably thanks to Jenny’s demonstration last year. A good time will be had by all.

The next day, Sunday, we have our Life Drawing session, this time with a female model, and the following day, Monday 16th March, the sketching group heads out to Southampton Common, weather permitting. 

After that we can rest for a few days until the last Zoom demonstration of the season, on Wednesday 25 Mar 2026. Scott Swinson will be doing a Large Seascape in Watercolour,  Details. It looks lovely!

And don’t forget to get your picture on a postcard done and brought to a session. The theme this year is ‘Film Titles’. Please write your name and film title on the BACK of your postcard before hand-in.

There are only four weeks in February

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… but February is even more packed with all the things the group is doing!

We celebrate the end of January with a Life Drawing session at MR3 at  Dovetail Centre (at the back). This is Sunday 1st February! The Life Drawing sessions are mostly oversubscribed with waiting lists, and that’s just these early spring ones. Watch for the next sign-up list if you want to get a place in the following quarter. Details

On Wednesday 11th is our Drop-In Session (second Wednesday of the month) at the Community Large Hall on Hursley Road. If you meant to get on with your new year’s resolution of painting more often, now’s your chance. – Details

The second Saturday in the month is the 14th. This was going to be our workshop with Elizabeth Baldin but unfortunately she has had to cancel, but Bev has already rearranged with her for next year.– Details

The third Sunday in the month is the next day, and sees our second Life Drawing session of the month.  Details

If you really are an art addict, you can then go sketching somewhere interesting the next day, Monday 16th, with the Sketching Group. Of course, the Sketching group has been sketching on themes all through the year. They also have something planned for a daily challenge like they did last year. If you were on the email list last year, you’ll hear all about it. If you weren’t, contact Lisa Marshall (pictured).

And after a weekend off, you can settle down in your armchair with your favourite beverage on Wednesday 25th for a Zoom Demonstration with Paul Oakley, who will reveal all the secrets of the Colour wheel and tonal value – Details

Sounds like fun to me!

A Chinese New Year?

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by Bev Dunstan

Well, no, it will not be the Chinese New Year until next month. But we started off 2026 with a workshop of Chinese Brush Painting by Jean Turton. And it was wonderful!

Jean introduced the attendees to the wonderful world of Chinese Brush Painting with her amazing stories of her visits to China to witness the making of the paper, the creation of the chops (stamps), the history of the brushes and visiting the country to paint the phenomenal landscape.

Soft, absorbent surface

She began by ensuring that we all were working on a soft and absorbent surface, explaining that the Chinese paper would surprise us all in how quickly it would take up the water.  Any hard or plastic-finished surface would encourage the water to spread under the paper and that was avoidable with the correct base surface – newspaper was ideal and Jean used a piece of felt,

Jean explained that, although there were many brushes to choose from, we would really only need 3 types (1) a narrow brush for thinner marks (2) the sheep brush, made from sheep or goat hair which was very soft and absorbent (3) the stiffer wolf brush (actually made from weasel hair).  This brush was harder than the sheep brush and kept its point during application.  Jean kindly lent her brushes to the class for the workshop. 

Jean supplied the paper and she was NOT wrong regarding its water absorbent properties!  It was like painting onto cheap toilet paper!  Great care had to be taken to remove the excess water from the loaded brush before making the mark on the paper.

Jean supplied the Chinese ink and explained its origins.  The black was ground from Oil-soot or Pine-soot.  The vibrant red paste used for the chop marks (generally messages of good luck and the like) was cinnabar, an ore made from mercury sulphide, which is toxic and to be handled with great care.

Narcissus and Camellia

Introduction over, she demonstrated the techniques used to create a painting of narcissus and camilla using the narrow and sheep brushes to define outline and infill colour respectively.

Iconic mountain landscape

After lunch, Jean demonstrated the different techniques used to create the iconic Chinese mountain / pine tree landscape.  It used the stiffer wolf brush and included the ‘push’ technique of the brush, causing it to wobble and expand the mark as it crossed the paper surface.

How to paint bamboo

To complete the day, Jean shared her technique for painting bamboo and its leaf patterns.  One leaf (passing boat), two leaves (fishtail), three leaves (goldfish tail), four leaves (swallow) and five leaves (landing goose).  Jean’s enthusiasm for the poetry and symbolism of the marks was infectious and we all thoroughly enjoyed the day.

The results of our labours:

Heads in the clouds… in Watercolour

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October’s watercolour workshop with George Popesco

by Bev Dunstan

The day began with George setting up his camera and projector so that everyone could watch him demonstrating his tips and techniques on how to create cloud structure using watercolour.  

George shared his inspiration for cloud painting including some of his favourite books, namely “Constable’s Skies: Paintings & Sketches by John Constable” by Mark Evans, “Turner” by Bockemuhl Michael and “A Cloud a Day” by Gavin Pretor-Pinney and The Cloud Appreciation Society and reminded us to learn from the A-listers!

George began by explaining the different types of watercolour paper and how to prepare it for painting by taping down to a board.  He then continued to demonstrate the wet-in-wet technique of coating the watercolour paper in clean water before applying the paint and produced some examples of cloud formations. This was followed by a more controlled application of water to assist in forming the different cloud shapes.

The class took to practicing on small sheets of paper and the best two from each participant were then displayed for all to review.

After lunch, George provided plenty of inspirational photos from his own vast collection for people to use as a guide to create their own Cloudscapes.

Whoever suggested that Watercolour painting was easy was either a professional or a delusionist!  Controlling the paint over the water and mastering the saturation of the colour took patience and focus and there was not much banter in the room as we all worked to complete our final pieces. 

Time passed very quickly and all too soon 3.30pm arrived and everyone helped in packing away the room, which was gratefully received.