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Demonstrations 2024

February 2024 - Liz Balkwill - A Portrait in Pastel

Liz kept her whole audience enthralled. with her amazingly true to life portrait and all within two hours. Liz likes to sketch out the basic structure of the face with pastel pencils.  Here she explained proportions and alignments of various features.  She then blocks in tones with soft pastel sticks to start achieving a three dimensional feel. We were all blown away with the likeness to the sitter.

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See more of Liz's work at www.lizbalkwill.com

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Mar 24 S Martyn painting
March 2024 - Stephen Martyn - Watercolour Landscape in the Style of Edward Seago

Stephen used the style and techniques of master watercolourist, Edward Seago, to create an atmospheric coastal scene.  Interspersed interesting highlights of Seago's life.  Stephen demonstrated how Seago painted his skies by applying the cloud washes to dry paper giving them some hard edges, how he used a minimal foreground to draw the eye in and how this was all achieved in only about three layers of paint.

Mar 24 S Martyn with his painting
Apr 24 P Partington Lapwing sketch
April 2024 - Peter Partington - Wildlife in its Habitat in Watercolour

Peter Partington treated members and guests to a masterclass in drawing birds and wildlife.  Using his many years of experience drawing out in the field he is able to capture the different bird species in just a few lines.  Starting with a streamlined tear drop shape for birds and a bean shape for mammals, then adding an appropriate head, neck and legs.  Peter's paintings tend to evolve based on his previous experience and knowledge of particular animals and plants.  We were all seriously impressed by his drawing skills.

Apr 24 P Partington Deer sketch
Apr 24 P Partington
Painting critique
May 2024 - AGM and Critique of Members' Paintings by John Shave and Sue Williams

The AGM part of the meeting was swiftly dealt with then on to the fun part, the critique of about 20 paintings brought in by Members.  Professional Members, John and Sue aimed to give a positive but helpful evaluation of the diverse artwork submitted.  Their most useful advice applied to composition, the use of reflected light to allow the colours of surroundings to appear in an object to act as a link, hard edges to draw the eye to a focal point and lost edges to help an object or plane to recede.  The importance of complimentary framing was also mentioned.  A lot of food for thought and ideas to try. 

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Of all the work on display John chose the still life on a plate as his favourite, because the artist perservered with this painting and created something wonderful.

Painting choice
Paintings 2
June 24 G Webber
June 2024 - Graham Webber - Landscape in Oils

A large turnout of Members and guests enjoyed a superb masterclass in atmospheric landscape painting in oils.  Graham is a very accomplished, self-taught artist giving out many tips, tricks and words of advice to the benefit of all.

July 2024  Margaret Glass - Sky and River Scene in Pastels

The Society was extremely fortunate to benefit from the insight into pastels given by a leading pastellist of today.  Margaret is inspired by the drama of light in the natural landscape, capturing this on sanded paper, which will take many layers, with very soft pastels, in an oil painterly style. She starts with broad rough, dark strokes, fine tuning with more and more detail from there.  To achieve her vibrant colours she juxtaposes warm and cool hues, sometimes of the same colour over the top of one another and works from cool tones in the distance to warmer ones in the foreground to add wonderful depth. 

July 24 M Glass 2
Aug 24 L Townsend 3
Aug 24 L Townsend 2_edited.jpg
August 2024 Lenny Townsend - Marine Scene in Watercolour

Members were fascinated to watch a beautiful, luminous local marine scene develop on Lenny's easel.  He is a self-taught member of the East Anglian Group of Marine Artists and really has a way of capturing light and water in watercolour.  Lenny's palette is limited on the whole to a few colours, the main ones being burnt umber, ultramarine and light red, which adds a lovely cohesion to his work. He worked from the background washes, which consisted of his main colours, adding detail towards the foreground. Amazing.

Aug 24 L Townsend 1
Sept 24 P Overton
September 2024 - Penny Overton Seascape in Acrylic and Pastels

The Society is extremely grateful to Penny for stepping in at short notice instead of Bob Crook who unfortunately was unable to demonstrate for us.  We were treated to a wonderful creative journey using texture, wax resist, pastel and the use of lines and angles to create drama in her work.  Penny was a winner of the wildcard section at Sky Arts' Landscape Artist of the Year.

Sept 24 P Overton 2
Oct 24 C Griffin Watercolour
October 2024 - Carole Griffin - Still Life in Watercolour

Members were treated to a relaxed demonstration of a painting of figs in a tray, where Carole chatted about her technique, giving useful pointers in the best use of watercolour. In that the first wash is very important and to leave some of it showing at the end.  Try not to use too many layers of paint otherwise the painting will loose its luminosity.  She also used masking fluid to keep paint off the highlights which she softened once this was removed.  Carole encouraged members to walk behind whilst she was working to get a better view. 

Oct 24 C Griffin_edited.jpg
November 24 Talk on the Singh Twins_edited.jpg
November 2024 - Dr Rosy Gray - Talk on the Unique Art of the Singh Twins 

Dr Gray, Curator at the Sainsbury's Centre and a previous curator at the Castle Museum, treated us to a fascinating insight into the artwork and inspiration of the Singh Twins.  Their collaborative style originates from the techniques of creating intricate detail in Indian miniature painting. This colourful work is then greatly enlarged digitally, collaged with their motifs and borders, printed onto fabric and mounted on a lightbox to achieve an almost stained glass window effect.  The Twins like to raise awareness of historic and modern world problems: "Slave to Fashion" was a theme to one of their collections.  The colour and complex detail in their large works is amazing.

Nov 24 Singh Twins talk
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