Happy Christmas

Happy Christmas and a very creative and healthy New Year to all members of Exmouth Art Group. I hope the white stuff disappears from pavements and roads before long to make it safer for us all to venture out more.

Angela

David Harris

David Harris gave a talk on the influences and history of architectural lettering and also talked about his calligraphic artworks and the techniques he employed to create them.

Exhibition Over

Shane Tiernay presenting the cheque for £1200 to Hospicecare.

Lorna porter picking the winner.

Annual Summer Exhibition Now Open

After some hectic setting up on Monday the majority of paintings were hung.

The preview party on Wednesday was VERY well attended.

Norah Pearse Winner Jean Esther Brock

Norah Pearse Winner Averil Wooton

Norah Pearse Winner, Len Fry

Graham Jowett-Ive Demo

Some quick jotted notes I made during the interesting demo by Graham Jowett-Ive.

Notice the sky colour on clear sunsets/ sunrises, there is a general rainbow effect.
Use same colour in water as sky, calm seas easier.
Don't use pure paint or pure white.
Mixing oils on greaseproof paper.
Use of liquin as a reducing oil, this is a drying and smoothing agent.

A favourite colour is permanent rose, use with cobalt blue for cloud shadow colour.
Hue in title of paint = cheap pigment .

Seas
Blue sea = sunny day, Green sea = overcast sky
Think about scale and perspective.  Dry brush acrylic paint to start, bluish green horizon.
Don't make waves too steep.
More paint and darker, use brush tip to put on thin strokes.
Leave acrylic to dry (10 mins drying time is big advantage), then use oils.
Liquin or turps for thinning. Watery wash of blue makes sea comes to life
Add light then dark then light .... maybe 20 layers, repeating lines, finished with rigger. 
Make broken waves curl over top of shadow side with off white.
Accentuating sides of waves also dark and light side of picture. 
Paint waves on waves.
Mix pale blue then accentuate some of the lines, i.e. spume, make light touches on the waves.


For masts and rigging use special triangular ruler and  cheap rigger brushes.
Paint clouds first on white canvas, use big brush to stop fiddling .
Only use titanium white, mix in tiny amounts of colour, e.g. Yellow ochre + Cobalt blue for clouds.
Cerulean blue + white for sky colour,  paint around clouds and blend bands of darker colour towards top of sky. 

Thursday at the Gut and Lee Ford

The thursday sketching days are proving very popular with around a dozen of us at the Gut this week. The weather was perfect. Next week we muster at the free car park behind the public hall at Budleigh at ten o clock and for those who can stay will probably meet for lunch at the steamer steps area of the beach around twelve thirty.

The date for the Lee ford reception has changed to Tuesday 3rd August at 5:30pm. Many of us painted in the grounds and since Alan Cotton wiil be making the selection I do encourage you to submit your paintings. Alan Cotton is a fine artist but he is also a very good teacher and his critique is likely to be very enlightening.

Of course all members are invited to the Reception irrespective of whether they are entering the competition

Upcoming Events

The A la Ronde Exhibition is starting on the 19th June continuing until the 30th. There will be a preview for members and invited guests at 5;30pm on Friday 18th.
A performance work by Katie Etheridge is also taking place there on the 19th. See here for details.

Anyone interested in botanical painting will be interested in this

http://www.botanicalpaintingtoday.com/cms/media/wholesite/SUMMERNEWSLETTER2.pdf
Also keep up to date with Exmouth events at http://www.exmouth.gov.uk 

Shauna Southam Demonstration

Shauna demonstrated her pastel portrait techniques on Thursday the 4th and we all learned something and were impressed by her style and communication. See below for some ad hoc notes I made.

• Using Canson paper.
• Put 6 extra paper sheets behind surface to give a bounce.
• Prefers Unison pastels.
• Start with hard pastels and move to soft later.
• Important to get initial composition, 'Draw the egg', remember the facial proportion guides.
• Can 'cheat' and use or trace photos.
• Blending not as good as cross hatching over previous (perhaps complementary) colours.
• Stand back to compare, use a mirror, half close eyes for contrast comparison.
• Position of light important, this was like Vermeer's 'girl with pearl earring'.
• Teeth difficult, use bluish grey, with one or two highlights.
• Same for eyes.
• Different colours in shadows, greens blues violet.
• Use flesh cols 2nd to last, lastly use whites, highlights but don't overdo.

Exmouth Town Hall & other Exhibition's

The art group exhibition at Exmouth Town Hall is now open with approx 70 entries. Dates are 28th May until 3rd June.
The Lympstone Art Group has it's annual exhibition on soon from 30th May until 6th June, and...

Alan Cotton has an exhibition on at the Kingfisher gallery in Sidbury from Sat 29 May to Sun 6 June.
Mon - Sat  11am - 5 pm,  Sun 11am - 4 pm.

The Exhibition has now finished, click here to see the Mayor's prize winners.

Art in Action offer

ART IN ACTION Thursday 15 – Sunday 18 July 2010
It’s less than eight weeks until Art in Action opens its gates for another four days of fine art and master craftsmanship in the Oxfordshire countryside. Over 150 artists from around the globe will demonstrate their skills in a wide range of disciplines for an audience of enthusiastic and enquiring visitors.

The fine artists include those working in oils, acrylics, charcoal, water colour, marbling and more, and the content ranges from landscapes and traditional scenes to contemporary and still life, from large bold canvases to Russia miniatures.

Art in Action has a special ticket offer that we'd be delighted to offer to your members. Purchase 3 standard online Adult tickets and receive a 4^th free; for any day of the event 15 - 18 July 2010. The total cost will be £42 for 4 tickets, a savings of £14. Come together in one car and help save the environment.

This offer applies only to tickets purchased online at www.artinaction.org.uk before 11 July 2010 using the promotional code ARTCLU

Drawing and Painting at Lee Ford

On Thursday 20th May about a dozen members of the Thursday Group visited Lee Ford as a result of Mr and Mrs Lindsay-Finn's kind invitation to go along and draw or paint their beautiful gardens. The weather was warm but a bit overcast and everyone had a lovely time. It was very difficult to choose the best spot because there was a painting around every corner.

Shauna Southam at the Devon County Show

Shauna Southam is holding a chalk pastel on paper demonstration in the Exmouth Tent Area at the Devon County Show on Saturday.

Michael Norman Demonstration

< Mike Norman demonstrating his pastel landscape techniques.







Here are a few tips / techniques which I manged to jot down or remember of the session:
Surface is a pastel card with a brownish tint.
Spray fix over initial charcoal drawing to fix it.
Start with a brighter underpainting.
Drag down with hand over underpainting to soften & blend.
Put in details.
You can add and repaint a lot more than I thought.
Use a bristle brush to scrub off pastel if the surface is too clogged.
Keep pastel in ground rice, shake to clean.
To get distance on hills etc, drag down or tap (scumble) a strong blue over them.

The (almost?) finished painting >