RAG Christmas Party

A good night was had yesterday at our Christmas party, Bill Godsafe from the Essex Wildlife Trust, gave a really interesting talk and film show about the flora and fauna of Hanningfield reservoir, thank you Bill, very informative and very well presented.

Reg Whiting Award

Annabelle Hern won the Reg whiting award for best painting, Annabelle is pictured below being presented with her award by our president, Brian Coppard.

Well done Annabelle, really nice painting!

Thank you to all who came to make it a very enjoyable evening, wishing you all a Very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, Keep Painting.

                                              Pauline Groves

Pauuline would like members to know that she has several workshops on Watercolour, Acrylics, Acrylic Inks and mixed media, coming up in the new year, if you are interested and would like to know more then please email her at: pauline.grove.artist@gmail.com. for those of you who may not be aware of Paulines work, check out her website at  https://paulinegrove.weebly.com/. Pauline is a member of the Society of Women Artist, The Society of Botanical Artists and The Society of Floral Painting.

Report and picture by Colin Mossman

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John Glover Demonstration ‘A portrait in Oils’ Wednesday 14th November.

We had a very good turnout for John’s demo’ on Wednesday evening, with the hall being filled almost to capacity, it was good to see so many attend and always pleasing for the demonstrator.

Although arriving a little late, (traffic as usual), John soon made up for it and got into his stride quickly.

The Model for the evening was Stewart Grove, who I might add did a sterling job of sitting still for two hours whilst we all watched him being painted.

John started on a pre-prepared canvas of a light brown acrylic wash so that he could get straight on with blocking in the main elements of Stewart’s face. John was using his tried and tested palette of colours which are, Viridian green, French Ultramarine, Burnt sienna, Burnt umber, Raw umber, Alizarin crimson, Titanium white, Yellow ochre and Raw sienna.

John explained that he would normally take several days to paint a portrait, gradually building up layers, letting them dry, slowly refining the painting until he achieved the result he required, quite a lengthy process. However, as he only had around two hours the painting of Stewart would have to be done ‘alla prima’ ie; wet on wet. Notwithstanding this, he did an outstanding job as we gradually saw Stewarts face emerging from John’s brushstrokes until finally, we were looking at a very good likeness.

 Thank you, John, for a very entertaining, interesting and enjoyable demonstration and we look forward to when you may demonstrate for us again.

To see more of John’s work, visit his website at http://www.johngloverportraits.co.uk/.

John runs regular workshops in Granchester, Cambridge, contact details are on his website.

 

Report and pictures by Colin Mossman.

Paul Vousden Demonstration Wednesday 26th September

What a brilliant demonstration Paul gave us Wednesday last, it really was most interesting.

Paul had already prepared a board with acrylic gesso and a deep purple background, he had also use a texture paste for the outline of the buildings for the cafe scene.

Before he started painting, Paul showed us his range of palette knives that he would be using, he explained that he rarely uses brushes these days, and the few that he does use are quite small and short, more like very small palette knives. He went on to show us the type of acrylic paints he uses and also, which was very interesting, he passed around a board that had the various types of texture pastes that he employed and the effect they gave when painted over.

Paul’s colours were: cadmium orange, yellow ochre, and white. The orange and yellow were applied neat at first then, by adding a little white to each colour he and putting over the base coats, he increased the effect of the stonework. Cerulean blue was used for the shutters on the windows and to give the appearance of glass he applied dabs of turquoise.

Small details such as tables, stairs railings, and people, he then included with a small brush and the edge of his palette knife. Finally, after he was happy with the result he removed the masking tape from around the edge of the board to reveal a very convincing looking cafe scene.

Thank you, Paul, for giving us such a very interesting and informative demonstration, which we all enjoyed and learned from.

Report and pictures by Colin Mossman

Demonstration by Paul Vousden

This Wednesday (26th) we have a demonstration by Paul Vousden, he will be painting a cafe scene in acrylic.”Paul trained as a sculptor and silversmith at Colchester School of Art and Birmingham Polytechnic, when he twice received the Johnson Matthey award for design. In 2011 Paul concentrated on drawing and painting in Acrylic, particularly figurative work and cityscapes, and has developed a distinctive style abstracting form through colour and light suggestive of his sculptural background.

Paul paints regularly from life models and his distinctive style led to successful solo exhibitions in 2012 and 2013, entitled ‘Life and Landscape’ and ‘Life in a Red Chair’. Paul is a member and exhibitor at the Society of East Anglian Watercolourists’ winning the Rosemary Brushes Prize at the SEAW 2013 closed exhibition and in 2013 was elected to membership of Suffolk Art Society.Paul’s work based on studies of Cafe culture from trips to Southern France and Italy featured in a solo Exhibition at the Aubrey Gallery in 2016.

Paul was (until October 2017) Artist in Residence at Quay Place, Ipswich.

If you would like to see some of his work, click on the link which will take you to his website:http://www.paulvousdenart.co.uk/

The demo’ will take place at the Cedar Centre, Castle Road, Rayleigh, 7 pm for a 7.30 pm start.

Guests are welcome for a small charge of £4, look forward to seeing you there.

John Newton

Today we all said our farewells to our dear friend John Newton. Although John , Cathy’s husband, was not a member of our art group, he was always there to be our quiz-master at our functions when required, especially at our fish and chip suppers. John also, until recently, ran this website for us making sure we could all keep up to date with forthcoming events and reports of our demonstrations and exhibitions.

John we really will miss you.

             John Newton 1946 – 2018

LOVING VINCENT FILM

Tonight at the work shop we shall be showing the film ‘Loving Vincent’. For those of you who have not seen or heard of this film, it is a rather special animation.

The film was made by using over 100 artists to paint more than 65,000 (yes that is correct) oil paintings and it tells the story of how Vincent’s postman asked his son to deliver a letter that he found two years after Vincent’s death, to Theo, Vincent’s brother).

A lot is fictional, however, the film is amazing and well worth viewing, so look forward to seeing you at the Cedar Centre this evening. 7 pm for a 7.30 pm start.

I have to add that there will be no charge for tonight as it is a commercial film, so unfortunately it is for members and their spouses or their very close friends only.

David Hyde Demonstration 11 July 2018

Well, despite the football, we had good attendance at David’s demonstration last night which we all enjoyed.

David’s subject this time was a barn owl in acrylic, he had prepared his painting beforehand by drawing the owl and painting in the background. The board he used was MDF that had been prepared by painting several layers of white acrylic gesso, sanding in between each coat with a fine sand paper to give a smooth surface on which to paint.

He started to build up the painting by using thin layers of acrylic paint, he explained that, for his style of painting, if used too thick, the paint would leave brush marks and hide the under drawing, if too thin and watery, the acrylic would eventually breakdown the acylic polymer and flake. He mixed his paint so that it was a thin creamy consistency so that each layer was quite transparent.After putting in certain dark shadows under some of the feathers he began to block in the owl body and the log it was standing on with a dark but transparent undertone to give form to the picture. Next he added progressive thin layers to finally give life to the owl, although he said normally it would take him several hours to do justice to the painting so he had to make a few shortcuts to finish in time. However, shortcuts or not, I’m sure you will agree, the finished article is a really beautiful picture.So thank you David for a really interesting, inspirational and informative evening from which I know we all learnt a lot, we look forward to the next time you are able to visit.

Pictures and text by Colin Mossman.