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.
… 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
We enter the new year with loads of activity for you. This is partly fuelled by having two life drawing sessions in the month, the first this coming Sunday at the Dovetail centre, MR3. Details
The following weekend, Saturday 10th we have a workshop with Jean Turton, Jean is a recognised expert in Chinese Brush Painting , and participants have been given a list of essentials to bring, but Jean will be providing the specialist Chinese brushes, ink and paper, so all we have to do is listen, learn and paint.
Wednesday 14th January is our first Drop-In Session of the new year. A chance for you to get those painting materials out to keep your new year’s resolution going, perhaps? I shall be putting my new pencil sharpener to the test … maybe even turn up at the drop-in…any time before 1pm is your start time. Details
Saturday 17th is our New Year lunch, this time at the Concorde Club in Stoneham Lane. The menu looks exceedingly nice, and the company will of course be magnificent. Contact Lisa for further information: Lisa is at cfageventcal at gmail dot com
We are back at the Dovetail Centre the next day for a second Life Drawing session of the month. If you didn’t get your application back before Christmas, you could check if there are any vacancies, but usually, there’s a waiting list.
Our Sketching Group plans to make hay while the sun shines on Monday 19th, so let’s hope for a mild, sunny day with excellent light. Although as the last few sketching challenges of December were about shadows, light and dark, night scenes and so on, obviously our sketchers can cope with anything, anywhere.
We end the month with a Zoom demo, hopefully the one we had originally planned for December. But at time of writing this is not confirmed. So, Wednesday 28th, Elizabeth Hammond may or may not be doing a demo involving Life of Plants. Watch your email inboxes for final details and connection links.
Our November demonstration event was thrown into chaos at the last moment, when the scheduled speaker had to postpone. We are very grateful to Catherine Beale for stepping up from her end of January slot. This did mean a few technical difficulties at the start, as all that preparation time had been lost, but Catherine nevertheless gave us an intriguing glimpse into the methods of her magical watercolours. As well as painting in her studio, she’s taken to painting on her holidays as a souvenir!
Catherine has won numerous awards for her watercolours, despite starting in oils. She thinks it could be because she still uses basic techniques for oils that are more or less unheard of in watercolour. She demonstrated this by using runnels from her paints on the piece to create more features within the landscape, or to cast shadows where there were none before. She also scraped or wiped off paint like a sgraffito effect.
She starts by dropping small amounts of her tube paints into the sectioned palette, which already has water in it. This leads to very little cross-contamination of colours through brush rinsing. It is a restricted palette, as most of the colours will be made on the page, and a lot of the actual shades and depths become a matter of serendipity. Some might call it chance, but of course it is also luck!
Unusually, she focuses on the effects of sunlight by including the sun as white paper. She chooses where the sun will be and leaves it empty. Sometimes she creates lighter patches in a scene using masking fluid, but mostly she’ll go with where the paint wants to leave gaps and build them into her landscape. Two exceptions she showed us were the hayfield, where the strips of hay left behind were masked before the darker earth colours went in, and the bracken in the woodland scene, which were masked over a lighter green that was darkened.
This is wet in wet with a vengeance. Her aim is to float the colour on the page, not to brush it in. This allows colours to flow together and create their own magic. She showed us how she manipulated edges and took paint from one patch to another, and even rubbed things out!
A few technical hints: She uses Daler Rowney Artfine watercolour paper or paper board, which she finds easier to work with, although there are many other brands. The same applies to paints: she uses a mixture of brands, but aims to get the more transparent ones. Avoid lemon yellow if you want to see through it. She also advised that Hobbycraft is discontinuing their stock of A4 paper; the smallest will be A3 in future. But you can get A4 at other outlets and online. I probably need to nip down to Hobbycraft for some A4 frames, in that case.
And a final practical note: remember to dial up the strength of your colours as they will dry to a paler tone.
Thank you, Catherine, for a very interesting demonstration at short notice!
Yes, it’s October, and time to take advantage of all the bright cheerful days to get out and paint the fabulous autumn colours. Alternatively, take your muted palette out on a grey day and get the seasons of mists down on paper, canvas, or surface of your choice.
And here’s what the group is doing this month.
Loose landscape, from the June workshop
We have a life drawing session on 5th October (see below) to oust the drop in session from its usual lead spot! The Drop-in will be on Wednesday 8th October at the Community Large Hall . If you’re not that comfortable painting autumn in public spaces, I could remind you that just outside the hall there are plenty of large trees, hedgerows, plus some interesting cottages just a few steps away. Buddy up and keep each other company! But just do your own thing until 1 pm. Details
Our workshop on Saturday 11th is fully booked, but hopefully the skies will be bright both inside and out for George Popesco’s ‘Watercolour Sky-scape Challenge’, at the Dovetail Centre Hall details
George Popesco’s artwork
Our Life Drawing afternoon sees some changes this month. It is now taking place fortnightly at the Dovetail Centre MR3. Roy has been busy reallocating places since he has fitted in two more sittings in October and November, but they are all fully booked. Smaller groups, smaller and warmer room, but more of them. If you haven’t confirmed your reallocated place(s) with Roy, please email him. Details
The third Monday of the month (20th) sees our Sketching Group out and about. Sadly September’s meet was cancelled at the last moment due to the scheduled torrential rain. Fingers crossed the rain keeps itself away from Mondays for the rest of the winter.
Podi Lawrence – Shadows
And the fourth Wednesday of the month (but not the last!), 22nd October, will be our first Zoom Demo of the winter season. Podi Lawrence will be showing us the tricks of painting shadows. This is something I love doing, especially working out the angles for leaves against walls… Details of the zoom log-in will be emailed a few days before. I suggest you log on early in case you need to download and install the latest version if, like me, you haven’t used Zoom since last March 🙂
Autumn Exhibition
Don’t forget to get your artwork ready for the Autumn Exhibition 8-9 November at the Dovetail Centre Hall!
(featured image by Evelyn Macpherson: Winter Sunset over Worthing Beach)
Our 26th February Zoom Demonstration was given by Kaili Fu, an expert in the art of Chinese Brush Painting.
Kaili showed us pictures of landscape and flower on rice paper, and others on silk. It takes time to use these, because of their delicacy and the drying time involved. For the demo she used thicker rice paper. Like kitchen roll, it absorbs water when wet. Chinese artists make ‘rice’ paper out of whatever grows locally, bamboo, rice, straw, tree bark. All brushes are from natural materials. Some brushes are soft, to wash flowers, and leaves. But for trees, mountains, rock, uses stuff brushes. Traditionally, ink is ground from a block, but to save time, she’s using ink from a bottle.
dragging the wet ink across to create ‘water’
The brush is held upright. Trees are done from top to bottom. It seemed like she was resting on what she’d just painted when she was doing detail, but perhaps the wet had already soaked into the paper.
Adding detail – carefully, and with much consideration for the exact stroke
Kaili had camera failure before we started so was improvising using her phone. All in all I think she did a good job in difficult circumstances. It may not have been the most dynamic or organised of presentations, but I loved the way she used the light, shade, and size of the trees to indicate space and distance. It was difficult to see what she’d done for a boat until she brought it close to the camera, when we discovered that there were birds drying their wings on the cross-poles of the rigging!
As some of us sketchers found when we did the February challenge prompt ‘Patterns’, there was a kind of meditative calm about watching her paint. Very deliberate, sometimes very small marks, carefully placed.
Laying on wash with an amazingly wide ‘brush’ tool
When the picture is finished, it has to dry. To support it, it is then pasted onto another sheet of stronger paper. Originally this would be a flour paste, but mostly they use wallpaper paste these days.
Stages in developing the flower. Each petal is one stroke, pooling the ink at the inner end. Surface detail was added later
The second painting was a flower. The technique was amazing, producing a wonderful 3d effect. And I loved watching the detail of the butterfly.
Paint… Chinese water colour paint. All materials are derived from organic or mineral sources. You need to check out specialist suppliers for these, and the papers and ink blocks, if you want to be authentic.
All photos are screenshots; pictures copyright Kaili Fu.
Well, I hope it brings roses for you. What the Group brings this month is lots of lovely activities.
Active Art
On Saturday 8th February, Ron Moody will be taking a workshop at the Methodist Church Hall, with a pen/ink outline drawing to be followed by watercolour wash techniques. Details
Wednesday 12th is our regular Drop-In Session at the Community Large Hall. If, like me, you got some new drawing materials, you may be tempted to get yourself away from the distractions of home, and start using them! Details
Sunday 16th sees another Life Drawing afternoon at the Church Hall 2-4pm. If you saw Paul Berryman’s zoom demonstration last month, you can brush up those same techniques using a live model, rather than working from a photo. Details
And on Monday 17th, our intrepid Sketching Group will be visiting Romsey. If It’s a nice day I might join them as there are some wonderful nooks and crannies in Romsey!
From the comfort of home
Wednesday 26th is this month’s Zoom Demo. Kaili Fu will be discussing and demonstrating Chinese brush art, which is bound to be interesting. Details
Everyday Sketching Challenge
Lisa has set up a February sketching challenge. She will be emailing participants a prompt for a 5 minute sketch each day in February and people can share their outputs in a private group. Check the January newsletters for more details and the link to the sign up page.
Don’t forget your Postcards
Your postcard theme this year is ‘Flora’. Any medium, any interpretation, on a postcard sized piece of card. Must be with Roy in time for the AGM in May… but try not to leave it till the last minute!
Early Warning – Spring Exhibition
This year’s Spring Exhibition is at Hillier Gardens, from 24 April to 6th May 2025. The ‘higher’ standards apply to framing for exhibitions at Hilliers, so spruce up or stand by with your work and make sure you’re meeting the submissions requirements, which will be circulated shortly.
Paul Berryman provided our first Zoom Demonstration of the new calendar year (although the Group’s year ends in March!)
Paul has done workshops and demos with us before, and they are always excellent. This was no exception. He took us through the construction of a monochrome portrait drawn from a picture, lettings into the secrets of his ‘process’ on the way.
First some tips on your subject.
The Subject: what makes a good photo to work from?
If you can, select a photo that does not look face on. It gives you problems with matching two (probably actually asymmetrical) sides. Ideally, a three quarter shot, so the tip of the nose is more or less ‘touching’ the line of the cheek behind, give you a good composition.
If possible, get a photo with a single point light source, so that you have strong shadows.
If you’ve got a colour photo, then use your phone or computer to give you a monochrome version.
Paul’s Process
SHAPES
TAKE YOUR TIME over the shapes. You want to make light marks to get the diagram of the face down, but just drawing lines of main features, lines not sketches. The minimum amount possible to get the shape described. You want to aim to block all the main features so you do not have to change them later. Getting them in the right place at this stage saves so much time later.
At every stage of this drawing, check whether what is down is right. It’s easy to change it. AVOID DETAIL. If you aren’t at a drawing board at an appropriate angle you can get a lot of distortion. Your eyeline should be direct to your board.
Don’t chase the desire to make it human: concentrate on shapes and shadows. Chase the moment where it suddenly becomes a human (followed by, does it look like the human in from of me!)
Neck and height of shoulders are key in matching what people are in real life. Again, gentle indication, concentrate on shadows first and anatomy second, indicators that something goes in that position. AIM FOR ACCURACY
You don’t want to be changing things once you move into shading. You need to be really satisfied that all the marks you’ve made are in the right place.
All this detail is the equivalent of weighing your ingredients before you make your cake.
SHADES
Blocking = Identify shadow shapes and block them in. Very straightforward – is it shadow or is it not.
a Value scale of shading; if you have toned paper, do a scale up on it with white pencil too.
At this stage you have to pay attention to background. Shades are relative to the bacground.
Add shades in the simplest way possible, the more care you put in at this stage, the better chance of achieving what you want.
Where there are highlights, you may want to use white pencil. Adding white over black is not good, you need to leave clear paper for the highlights
EDGES
Paul showed what he meant by edges with a piece of paper; curved and folded.
Sharp shadows versus transitions = edges.
Blending is good in moderation. It also needs sharpness. If using a stump/torchon for blending, you can also tidy up by using some of your drawing charcoal on the stump to draw with.
Paul is in favour of letting the portrait fade away if the golden triangle (the face – outside edges of the eyes down to the mouth/chin) works. Draw the viewer where you want to look, sharpest, deepest contrast… should be in the golden triangle. Ignore or fade ears! We choose where the viewer looks. Underdraw things elsewhere rather than overdraw.
TEXTURE
Shouldn’t be a thing, but it exists in portraiture. Treat texture as the thing you do at the end. Hair, lizard skin, all texture to be done last if needed.
The human brain can add in all the gaps if you give some wellchosen sections.
The temptation when you finally get the white pencil is to go in on the obvious highlights. First off though, think about where you have the lightest values. It may not be where you think. Use your shade chart!
Paul was using:
Strathmore Tonal paper
Tombow Mono eraser (3mm round tip, he never uses the square tip one)
White and Black Charcoal pencil (General)
Takeaways:
slow start; put down what you want, build the scaffolding, take your time and everything else is colouring in.
Happy new year – although the Group’s year starts in April, so the calendar currently ends in March.
The year seems to be having a blustery start, what with fireworks displays cancelled and all sorts of festivities curtailed. I confess that I have no trouble with the lack of fireworks. Silent ones would be fine. I may even have a go at painting some in the coming weeks!
Possibly at our Drop-In Session, which is on Wednesday 8 January at the Community Large Hall on Hursley Road. I received a set of new drawing pencils for Christmas, so I may even join in to get started with them.
If you have pre-booked, then on Saturday 11 January Jake Winkle will be taking a workshop on light & movement in watercolour. We look forward to seeing what participants make of this!
Saturday 18th January sees our new year’s Social Lunch at the King’s Court Masonic Centre. This was a highly enjoyable event last year, but you had to book for it in December, so if you haven’t, make sure you do next time!
We hope the weather will be kind and the new heating in the church hall will be operational on Sunday 19 January for our first Life Drawing session of the new year in the Church Hall.
The sketching group is meeting on Monday 20th: meet up details are in the next newsletter. These don’t appear on the website as it is for members only. Contact Lisa Marshall with any questions about it (you can use the contact form on here to reach her if you don’t have her email).
And provided your computer doesn’t need you to upgrade your Zoom app yet again, make sure you are at your computers and tablets and phones on Wednesday 22 January for a Zoom Demo from Paul Berryman. This time he’s doing a portrait from a photograph in Charcoal/Pastel. Sign in details will be circulated to members about a week beforehand.
Looks like that’s another opportunity for me to use my Christmas present.
The clocks may have gone back to sensible daytime hours (yes, I know you prefer light evenings) but it isn’t stopping our art.
Autumn Exhibition
Sat/Sun 9/10 November 2024 – Church Hall
Yes, it is far too late to enter now, but your help is still needed for stewarding, and most importantly getting everyone you know along to have a look. There will be artists doing their thing if you think the kids might be too bored just looking at things stuck on walls.
Other Activities
Wed 13 Nov 2024 – Drop-In Session – Community Large Hall – Details
Members are always welcome to drop in and get on with your own activities if you’d like company, or a warmer room than your own (not guaranteed). Bring your own equipment, and a mug, and something to protect the floor and furniture from paint splashes (and £5 towards to cost of the hall).
Sun 17 Nov 2024 – Life Drawing – Church Hall 2-4pm Details
Let’s hope the heating holds up in the Church Hall for a new winter season of life models posing for our confoundment. Getting perspective right can be a challenge, and if you find a pose too difficult, you can move, or sit it out, but why not just give it a go?
Mon 18 November 2024 – Sketching Group
I’m really pleased the Sketching Group is keeping going while the weather holds. Yes, there have been one or two Mondays rained off, but on at least one occasion, they made an impromptu decision to postpone it to the Tuesday instead. Contact Lisa Marshall (details on the newsletters)
Wed 27 Nov 2024 – Zoom Demo – Les Darlow – winter landscapes in soft pastels over watercolour – Details
This promises to be another excellent demonstration, with a tutor we have enjoyed in the past.
Zoom details will be sent to members a few days beforehand. If you haven’t used your Zoom since the spring, you will probably have to download a new version (that’s my excuse for being late to the last one. It took twenty minutes to load and process itself, even with the new ‘faster’ wifi connection.)
Workshops for 2025
Bev has circulated the sign-up form for our workshops in the first quarter of 2025. Please get yours in by 27th November if you want to participate in any of them. For a quick reminder of the menu, see the Workshops page here.
