Lynne Davies Demonstration ‘Shaun the Sheep’

Lynne Davies is an enthusiastic and charming artist who has been a finalist in the BBC Wildlife Artist of the Year competition three times and voted the public’s favourite artist in the SAA Artist of the Year competition. She created an inspirational and beautiful portrait of a sheep using acrylics on canvas at our May meeting.

Her favourite brushes are one inch decorating brushes. She also creates irregular marks to suggest texture with a brush which she has trimmed to an uneven shape with scissors. Her canvases are primed with gesso. When demonstrating Lynne may prepare a pencil drawing and seal it with hairspray, otherwise she omits the drawing stage. Her approach maximises spontaneity and creativity. She interprets a black and white photograph rather than copying it. Lynne says that copying a photograph makes the painting ‘dead’. 

Using a dark mixed with ultramarine, cadmium red and olive green, Lynne roughly painted in the darkest areas. She then used raw umber to paint medium tones, allowing the drips to run down the paper. Shades of yellow ochre were added to the face and other areas. Next cobalt blue negative painting helped to throw the sheep forward. Light areas and dark areas gave greater definition and dimension to the head. The eyes had a streak of bright yellow.  Thin squiggles of a dark colour and pale cream applied with a rigger brush provided the finishing touches.  

The subtlety of the finished painting owed much to the use of a few colours boldly applied. Lynne urged us to “Be brave – do what you feel like doing” and “don’t beat yourself up”. While all the time keeping the composition in mind, Lynne prefers to listen to music, relax and ‘lose herself’ while painting. There is certainly a lot of emotion in the end result.

The large display of Lynne’s cards and prints was a popular attraction and many of us were inspired to use some of Lynne’s techniques in our next painting.

Places to see Lynne’s work:

Winchester Art Market on the third Sunday of the month (March – December) 10am - 4pm Middle Brook Street and High Street 

Lynne’s website:    http://www.lynnedavies.com/

 

Di Alexander

Programme Co-ordinator

 

ADVENTUROUS ARTISTS

 

The next event on our programme is the first of our sketching days. Members are to meet at Tudor House Museum at 10-30am on the 15th. May to try their hand at sketching different subjects. If the weather is bad there are plenty of subjects indoors to keep everyone busy. Hopefully this will be well supported and these days will become a regular part of our programme.

 

WATERCOLOUR WORKSHOPS

 

The three workshops held on 25th April were well supported with about 25 members enjoying the day. The subjects for the workshops were quite different.

Glenys concentrated on animals in watercolour and her group  produced paintings of  different subjects including giraffes and pandas. All were painted loosely in striking colours.

Ruth's group ventured into landscape painting producing pictures of local views and even Ruth's own studio. Ruth demonstrated techniques for subjects such as water, trees and buildings and members felt they had added greatly to their painting knowledge.   

Botanical painting was a completely new subject for most of Betty's group but all enjoyed producing the detailed but aesthetically pleasing pictures which typify this branch of painting.  

At the end of the afternoon everyone agreed that they had thoroughly enjoyed the day and that the one-day workshops are a great success. Our thanks are due to Di who organises the workshops and to the three leaders -Glenys, Ruth and Betty.

Overall view of the workshop

 

Glennis and her Group

 

Ruth demonstrates

 

Betty and her group

 

David's Painting

 

The botanical painters

 

Vic Betteridge and his painting

Last Meeting

 

NAIVE  ARTISTS NEW MEMBER

Roy Fisher has been selected to become a member of the Association of Naive Artists. If you look at the website www.britishnaives.co.uk you can see selection of Roy's paintings which made up his successful application.

Congratulations, Roy! -  a great achievement.

 

AN EVENING WITH VIC BETTERIDGE

 

Vic first showed us how he drew and sketched and then produced an African scene of a lion hunt.

 

To get the basic form of a subject Vic looks for connecting shapes and curves. He uses lining paper(for wallpaper) for practising. Everything is carefully measured and drawn to scale. Movement is indicated by shading or by drawing the front of an animal in detail and fading out the rear end. Indian ink or Paynes Grey paint are used for sketching. For subjects Vic makes use of B.B.C. wildlife programmes and likes to go to sheepdog trials!.

Vic likes to use chalk on black which means highlights are drawn instead of shadows.

After sketching the subject it is traced then the back covered in white pencil or chalk and a splender blender used to rub in and shade the pencil lines.

We were then shown how Vic painted an african hunting scene.

The canvas was first wetted then the sky painted in cobalt blue, alizarin crimson and white with a large brush. The foreground was painted in yellow ochre and a touch of red. Some was removed with a paper towel to give the impression of dust clouds. Acacia trees were painted in green using a flat brush and palette knife.

The animals were then drawn using a small brush as a pencil.

Rocks and grass and dead logs in the foreground are formed by painting a block of burnt sienna and yellow and then "flicking " the paint out with a knife to show grass. Some green and paynes grey were added as more grass and shadows.

Finally more colours such as raw sienna and white were placed around the outline of the animals to give form.l

As a last tip Vic suggested we all try drawing with the wrong hand to loosen up!

Report of A.G.M.

 

The A.G.M. was well attended. Kate Rodrigues was elected to the committee and Pat Scammel stays this time as a committee member. Pat Barham said she would do the Raffle in future.  Helen Davies, Membership Secretary, announced that we have a waiting list of 5 prospective members.

Helen's painting won the Eling Mill competition and she was presented with a £10 prize. Thanks are due to all the members who made an effort and entered the competition.

The frame sale was successful and the Bring-and-Buy raised money for our funds.

All the artists who did a sketch in the SAA Lay-flat Sketchbook Challenge have been offered tickets to the SAA All-About-Art Show in July.

Di asked if there were any members interested in an Adventurous Artists Group where everyone met and sketched a variety of subjects. 10 members said ''yes'' so  more information and details will come from Di

 

The next meeting will be on 22nd April when Vic Betteridge will paint birds in acrylics concentrating on negative shapes.

 

This will be followed by the watercolour workshops on Saturday 25th April from 10am-4pm in the Palm Room.

Audience at the AGM

Our next meeting on Wednesday, 25th March is the A.G.M. - your chance to have a say in how the Society is run.

  This year it will be combined with a Bring -and-Buy sale of frames, art materials, books etc. so start tidying up your studios now!

  Also bring your painting of Eling for the competition (£10 prize)

  There are still places on the watercolour - themed workshops on April 25th.These cover Wild Animals, Botanical Painting, and Watercolour Landscape Techniques.

The cost for each is £5.   

Some pictures from Catherine Dunn's demonstration

Catherine with her nearly finished painting

Work in the tea-break

The painting