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Welcome to the Art Events Newsletter which we hope you will find interesting and informative. We have just published the new winter and summer 2008 programme (details are on the Programmes page)which provides a wide choice of one-day workshops and 3-week mini-courses in watercolour, acrylics, pastels, pen and ink and mixed media plus our popular four-week course 'Introduction to Watercolour' in February. If you have any suggestions for our website, items of interest, new tutors you have met, or anything that you would like to share about the leisure painting scene, then please do get in touch via our e-mail: arteventsgroup@aol.com. Keep Painting! Linda  2008 started in cracking form with a Saturday workshop on 26 January, 'Capturing the Coast of Cornwall' with Chris Forsey. The workshop began with a 'step-by-step' painting where we followed Chris as he took us through from the first wash to the last detail. This gave us all a chance to produce a decent painting at the beginning! In the afternoon we were on our own interpreting a reference and using our own imagination and skills to produce a completge painting. The standard throughout the class was high with some beginners also achieving good results. As always, Chris was inspiring and encouraging, demonstrating his wonderful artistry and skill to a packed class. The workshop ended with him giving an informal 'crit' of over 35 paintings! Some pictures below. FARMYARD SCENES our first mini-course in January was taken by Karen Pearson who has become a firm favourite with Art Events. Unfortunately, due to her busy schedule we can only have her in January. As always, she handled this subject with great flair and inspired the class with her choice of colours and beautiful soft painting of geese, ducks and pigs. She also showed us her sketchbook of scenes from Antartica where she had been on a trip. Stunning images of the ice floes, penquins, seals and enormous winter skies giving a dramatic backdrop to the icebergs! The Wednesday class does not usually like painting animals but they excelled themselves and showed a great improvement overall. INTRODCUTION TO WATERCOLOUR our four-week course for absolute beginners in February with Roger Lewis proved yet another success with a full class of eighteen attending. Everyone gained the basic techniques of colour mixing, laying down washes, tonal values and brush strokes to enable them to join other classes with confidence. The course ended with Roger demonstrating a step-by-step painting which the class followed. This was a good start with most students booking on further Art Events classes. TOWNSCAPES: A DIFFERENT VIEW IN PEN, INK AND WATERCOLOUR with Chris Forsey in February was a delightful course with, again, full attendance. Starting with a reference provided by Chris, we drew a quite complicated scene in pen and ink, then added the watercolur washes. For the remainder of the course we decided on our own references and everyone produced a varied range of pen and ink pictures. It seems that using the pen released us from any worries about perspective and we all managed to draw quite accurate buildihgs without trouble! This was very encouraging, due to Chris's expert guidance and we agreed to repeat it next year. PUTTING PEOPLE INTO PAINTINGS with Roger Dellar on March 8 was a true Master class! In the morning Roger gave a breathtaking demonstration of a scene with three main figures playing boule in a park. Taking a photograph as a reference he started right from scratch, using water mixable oils, and talked us through his thought processes until the end producing a glorious, loose, atmospheric painting in just over an hour and a half. In the afternoon we attempted our own paintings with excellent help and encouragement from Roger who also gave a crit at the end. We were working in a variety of media with only a few of us trying out the water mixable oils and his gentle encouragement and expert guidance to everyone was very much appreciated. An inspiring day! Some pictures below (last one a previous painting of Roger's - not his demo). ADDING INTEREST TO FLOWER COMPOSITIONS with Sandi Grey in March inspired us all. Sandi is not only a very accomplished watercolourist but a delightful teacher giving everyone excellent guidance as to the best way to achieve a good result. We worked from fresh flowers starting with single blooms with the composition and background adding the interest. Moving on to the second week where we added some still life and on the third Sandi showed us how to paint lace for further interest. This was a very informative and useful course which we all thoroughly enjoyed. WATERCOLOUR FOR BEGINNERS: EXPLORING TECHNIQUES on April 5 with Sandi Grey was packed with information. Covering how to lay a wash, lifting out, scraffito, spattering, using masking fluid and tape,sponges, cocktail sticks, resists, wet-in-wet, wet on dry, brush control to name but a few! In the afternoon students attempted their first full painting using references supplied by Sandi and under her expert guidance. Everyone thoroughly enjoyed the day and went away full of ideas. FUR AND FEATHERS our mini-course in April with Chris Forsey turned out as something of a surprise as we rarely attempt animals! However, under Chris's guidance we learnt first how to use a fan brush to indicate the fur on a tiger - lovely subject. In the second week we attempted a Canada goose with wings outspread and in the third week we used out own references. The results were very encouraging as all the animals and birds were very well drawn to start with and then painted in watercolour to a good standard with the individuality of everyone in the class showing in their paintings. As always with Chris, the course was lively, fun and we learnt something new. Pictures to follow. LOOSEN UP WITH EXPRESSIVE PAINTING with Chris Forsey on April 26 with WATERCOLOUR FOR BEGINNERS: FOLIAGE AND BLOSSOM taken by Liz Ashurst also on 26 April proved a bumper day. Both workshops were filled to capacity with a total of over 40 students working at the same time. Chris gave his class the opportunity of working without pencil or brush! Instead they used sticks, tissues, fingers and sponges for some of the work. After a morning getting used to this idea (and of standing up for a change!) Chris gave them all a reference to work from. All in all they did four or five paintings each throughout the day. The results were a collection of highly individual and atmospheric paintings created with enormous impact and brio. It just shows that sometimes a brush is not needed and working at speed can produce a better result than slower, more considered work. Liz took her class of beginners though a variety of techiques for painting leaves in the morning and in the afternoon they put that to good use but adding the flowers and blossom this time with a pencil drawing first. Everyone worked extremely well and produced work of well above standard for beginners. All in all an excellent day for everyone! IMAGINATIVE WAYS WITH PEN AND INK on May 10th with Chris Forsey again provided an opportunity for experiment and challenge. Chris likes to encourage the use of many methods of painting other than using a brush! In this workshop students used sticks, sponges, pens, fingers, credit cards in fact anything to make creative marks. The results were paintings full of dynamic individuality and vivid expression. Everyone had a wonderful day and took away many ideas to expand their horizons. With a full class there is not room to show all the work as each one deserved a place but a few examples are below. WATERCOLOUR FOR BEGINNERS: SKIES AND WATER with Liz Ashurst was also on May 10th and again was a packed class. Liz took the students through the basics of first drawing clouds with Aquarelle pencils which produced some excellent and dramatic results. This was followed by adding colour and then in the afternoon tackling the tricky subject of the sea. Liz also uses many methods to produce a result including white gouache, masking tape and fluid and salt. Everyone enjoyed the day and produced a great variety of work. 'PAINTING FROM PHOTOGRAPHS' with Jo Hudson in May proved a valuable course. We examined all the pitfalls of using photos such as the difficulty with tones, the 'flattening out' and composition. We were advised not to slavishly copy our photo but only use it as a guide, to make tonal sketches or paintings first and even to turn the photo upside down. The course content was a technical challenge which was much needed! MARTIN IRELAND gave us a demonstration on June 4th of a figure in water which we all enjoyed. His experise in depicting this difficult subject was a joy to watch. From the first sketch of the figure the whole painting was about movement. Using masking fluid, a limited palette and an angle brush plus 2" wash brush he gave us a master class in tonal values, skin tones and the application of layers of colour resulting in a delicate yet powerful painting. ACRYLICS WITH TEXTURE on June 21 with Soraya French was packed with interest. Soraya always inspires us and began by showing how she tackles a mixed media painting from a reference. Using torn up tissue paper, or newsprint she blocks this in first, putting the glue straight onto the support. Then she adds the acrylic, either paint or inks or pastel, or all three and proceeds to develop the painting. As she says, with watercolour you start out with pristine, lovely washes and end up with chaos, but with mixed media you start with chaos and then it only gets better! We certainly discovered that using this technique leads us in directions we would not have thought of as the random nature of the 'underpainting' with the paper makes the work far more abstract than we would normally attempt. There were some outstanding pieces of work and the whole class produced some exciting and varied paintings. EXPLORE YOUR CREATIVITY: MAKING PAINTINGS PERSONAL with Alan Brain on July 12 was an extraordinary workshop. Alan started by explaining how he had done all the painting classes and followed all the instructions given but still felt dissatisfied and frustrated. Then he went on a course in the States which changed his whole painting life. He was encouraged to paint from within himself without any conerns about the right or wrong way, the techniques, the drawing, the correct use of watercolour or of handling any media. He was then free to do as he chose and never looked back! After this introduction he asked us to do the same and do it right away - no references, no demonstration, no instruction, just get stuck in immediately and paint. This was startling! Rather nervously, and in complete silence we all began. Tentatively at first but slowly gaining confidence. After an hour and a half Alan gathered us all together and we looked at every single painting; some people had done four or five so this took a while. But it was fascinating to hear how each peron had arrived at the images they produced -some had made a difficult personal journey by just applying the paint. After lunch we once more plunged in and after Alan had briefly shown us how he applies watercolour with very little water and big brushes, we produced another series of paintings. Again, we looked at each one and shared the inner thoughts involved in the creation. The results made a great impact on us all. Truly personal, each painting had real meaning and expressed a part of the artist either in the choice of shape, colour, drama or design and all with great imagination and creativity. There was a wonderful sense of the freedom Alan himself had experienced and much more satisfaction and enjoyment than when we struggle to follow our tutors' work! LEARNING FROM MONET in July with Tessa Spanton was our last course before the summer break. Tessa took us through some of Monet's life, the colours he used, his inspiration and his garden at Giverney. Giving us a small section of one of his paintings we endeavoured to copy this using the colours he would have used placed next to each other in dots and dashes rather than the usual watercolour washes. This was hard! Then the class produced some lovely work using only tiny dots, pointillism, and the results were surprising - with the colours vibrating as complementaries were placed next to each other and depth. This was an interesting course which opened our eyes about the famous Monet.    
 CHRIS FORSEY is in for a very busy year with no less than five galleries needing paintings from him. With his commitments to teaching he can hardly find time to paint!  
  NEWS TO COME!  thumbnail.jpg) 
 SUMMER OUTINGS THIS YEAR ARE AS FOLLOWS: Wednesday Augst 13 Heathfield Nursery, Flanchford Road, Reigate Heath, RH2 8AA. Meet at the Skimmington Castle, Reigate Heath at 12.30 or 2pm at Heathfield. Great views, Victorian greenhouses, conservatory with tea/coffee if wet, many interesting nooks and crannies plus plants to buy! Wednesday August 20 Priory Park, Reigate. Meet at Si Restaurant, 59 High Street Reigate at 12.30 or 2pm in the Priory Car Park. Lovely lake, new gardens, theme park for children and cafeteria. Wednesday August 27 Leigh Village Meet at the Plough Pub, Church Road, Leigh RH2 8NJ at 12.30 or 2pm on the village green. Old pump, medieval houses, ancient church with 500 year old oak, pretty pub. You will need your painting or sketching materials plus a garden chair. There will not be a tutor so painting is optional! Our visit to Heathfield was very pleasant despite the threatening weather and true to form only one of us managed to sit down and paint! The rest enjoyed lunch, shopping and chatting and exploring the nooks and crannies of Heathfield, including the discovery of two Shetland Ponies hidden away and two Giant Rabbits - not to mention tea in the conservatory with wonderful views over the North Downs.  ACRYLICS - Either use a staywet palette, cover with wet kitchen paper or spray with water as you are working to keep the paints moist. BRUSH STROKES AND MAKING MARKS - Our brushes can achieve a great deal more than we normally use. Try splaying the brush with your fingers (not your best sable!) and then dragging it on the paper for making marks - great for texture. Also, laying it flat on the paper and replacing it in random places - good for walls or stones. Dry brush we know about usually, also great for texture. Using fingers, sticks, feathers or anything you fancy can be good for making interesting marks. Try applying a blob of deep, gooey colour then taking a sharp pointed stick (bamboo is great for this) and making quick upward strokes through the paint - great grasses! BENT BRUSHES - If your brush has been bent out of shape just dip it into boiling water until it regains its shape. Tip from Rosemary Brushes. COLOUR MIXING - Chris Forsey always works out the colours he is going to use in a painting before he starts. It is well worthwhile taking the trouble to do this as it avoids the syndrome of 'maybe I will try a little green here - or perhaps not - just a bit more blue might work! We have all been there and the result is sludge! Chris also advised us to try mixing the colours on the paper sometimes to get interesting effects and avoid a bland look. See below an example of Chris's painting. DRAWING - In our mini-course 'Winter Trees and Woodland Scenes' in watercolour, Tessa Spanton gave us the following tip. Before putting pencil to paper follow the outline of your subject first in the air with your finger. Or, if working from a photograph run your finger around the subject. Then use your pencil or brush on the paper. Apparently, our muscles have a 'memory' and by using this technique our drawing will be more accurate. Sounds strange? Try it and see how you get on! DRAWING - Margaret Clapperton gave us a good tip in the mini-course 'Drawing for the Terrified'. When using a pencil - hold it lightly and in the middle rather than tightly near the end. This gives much more flexibility and produces a more artistic effect. If a darker tone is required, then more pressure can be used, but going over the same patch again and again with a light touch gives a better result. Also, when drawing objects or figures draw the spaces in between first (negative drawing) the objects are more likely to end up in the correct relationship with each other. Seems difficult at first but works! FIGURES - Margaret Clapperton's method of drawing figures from the feet up and concentrating on the negative spaces has proved highly successful in getting people who are scared of this subject to produce good results. FIGURES AGAIN - Roger Swan has a different approach and advises a method to ensure that figures have life and movement. Start with a short stroke to indicate the angle of the head and follow this by a quick 'line of movement' which shows the attitude of the whole body. This is important as then the drawing will follow this line and ensure a dynamic result. Do not ever start to draw an outline from the head down, but 'scribble' lots of lines with quick fluid movements and then only use the ones that are accurate. Of course, measure as you go! FLOWERS - Julie King, in the Saturday workshop on painting spring flowers always drops in a dash of warm yellow when painting red or pink flowers as this gives the colour depth. FLOWERS - Julie King in her workshop on 'Inspired by Gardens' showed us her simple method of keeping flower colours fresh and vivid - simply paint them first! She splashes on delicate washes where the main blocks of plants are and then works into them later. Greens come afterwards so do not 'muddy' up the colours of the flowers. FLOWERS - For those flowers with paper thin petals Jo Hodder uses white gouache over a watercolour background. Stroking on the gouache delicately gives the impression of transparency with the colour showing through behind, and for the highlights she just drops in more gouache. FREEING UP - Roger Swan gave us a good tip for those who feel their work is too tight and wish to get more freedom and artistry into their paintings. He explained that is is no good painting in the same slow paintstaking way that a botanical artist, for instance, would use, but that we should put some fast music on and speed up! FUR AND FEATHERS A fan brush (mongoose is best) is very effective in making marks on fur and indicating feathers. HAKE - In our mini-course'Winter Trees and Woodland Scenes'in watercolour, Tessa Spanton introduced us to the versatile and often underused hake brush. They come in three sizes and we used the small one. This brush can make some very useful marks, from broad washes; turned on its side for tree trunks; on its end for grasses and tufts and if the hairs are gently separated and excess water squeezed out, it makes great twigs. It does, however, soak up paint and so really big washes have to be prepared in advance. Well worth trying. See Tessa's painting below all done with a hake. LACE - Sandi Grey gave us some good tips for painting lace. There are several methods starting with masking out; using a soft shadow colour to paint the negative shapes. For raised embroidery on the lace she again paints around the shape in shadow colour. She advises not to paint and entire section of lace in detail but only a small part leaving the viewer to supply the rest. Adding lace to a still life or flower painting never fails to add interest and is much simpler than it looks! MASKING FLUID - Karen Pearson gave us a good tip about using masking fluid. She first dips her old brush or toothbrush into some washing up liquid and then dips it into the masking fluid. This makes it much easier to rinse off afterwards. She sometimes uses masking fluid throughout a painting putting it on after each wash when it is dry which would be a good experiment as most of us just use it at the beginning. MARTIN IRELAND also gave us the same tip about using masking fluid but he uses a bar of soap before dipping the brush in the fluid. He also uses a spray bottle to blow masking fluid onto his painting. PAINTING BEADS - Another useful tip came from Roger Swan in 'Decorative Art'. When drawing or painting beads around a neck or adorning any part of a figure, do not show every bead in detail. Fade some out and only partly paint others - this is not only more artistic but helps to emphasise the shine in the detailed ones. PREPARATION - Chris Forsey advises that a quick pencil thumbail sketch made before the main painting should always be done first, even if we are working from photographs. This enables us to change the composition and work out the tones before starting which saves making too many alterations as we go along - a hazard we are all familiar with! PROGRESS - Chris also advised us to take our best painting from the year, frame it and put it up at home to enjoy. After a while, he said we would look at it and say, 'It's time that came down, I have done a much better one!' There is also no better way to monitor our progress than putting our paintings into an exhibition. Once our work is up there with all the others we will get a much clearer idea of its worth than when it is sitting at home on its own! SKIES - Wen painting skies in watercolour it is essential not to overwork it. The best results are usually gained by laying down the glazes and washes in one go without returning to fiddle about which will only obscure the transparency. Put it down and leave it! The white of the paper should also be allowed to shine through. Constant obversation of the cloud shapes is vital, otherwise you end up with a string of sausages. Chris thinks that it takes ten attempts to produce one great sky! TONAL VALUES - Chris Forsey advises us to turn our references upside down and then use a pencil to sketch the main tones from the darkest dark to the lighest light. This is a very good tip and makes an amazing difference. Try it yourself and see! 
 PETER RUSHTON an Art Events member is offering an on-line gallery for artists to display and sell their work, either as original paintings prints or greetings cards. For more info check out www.artrush.co.uk HELEN MILLS who has recently attended some Art Events courses and who is a part time artist and photographer, has her own blog at www.scarletdesigns.blogspot.com Helen says 'I would thoroughly recommend joining their classes. They are friendly, fun and great value for money!ck o A new on-line art supplier Rainbow Island Art might be of interest to members. Check out Rainbow Island Art Art Events member Dr Julia Wycherley is in the New Year Honours List for 2008 and will receive an MBE for her service to Amphibian and Reptile Conservation. Julia's love of nature and her interest in newts, frogs, toads, lizards and snakes is reflected in her beautiful paintings. Well done, Julia - a great achievement! LOOKING FOR A PAINTING HOLIDAY? Check out the website below www.coeur-de-france.info CHECK OUT THIS HOTEL IN LONDON - GREAT FOR ARTS EVENTS AND WHAT'S ON www.guesthotels.com/whats-on-london/ AN INTERESTING WEBSITE FOR GLOBAL INFO ON ALL SUBJECTS http://www.edirectoryworld.com/Arts.html |
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