AGM 2016 and TALK by CHERYL DAY

MARCH 23RD  2016  A.G.M. and TALK BY  CHERYL DAY.

 

A detailed account of the Committee changes will appear later but the most important item is the resignation of Anne Hamerton as our Chairman after many years. She has been the inspiration for many changes in the society (e.g. the use of the video camera for demonstrations) and has seen them through to a high standard. Anne has always been  keen to try out new ideas and is usually at the heart of any event making sure it all goes smoothly. We are all very grateful for all the time and effort she has put into the Society and hope that now she will enjoy spending time on her own painting and enjoying herself.

In her place we welcome Kate Rodrigues. Kate is already known to us as an accomplished artist and has recently run a Collage workshop for us. With her warmth and enthusiasm we are pleased she has consented to be our Chairperson and wish her great success and all our support for the future.  

 

After the A.G.M. we continued with a talk by Cheryl Day.

 

Cheryl  has worked for the Ambulance Service since 1989 and took up painting after seeing the work of another wildlife artist and subsequently attending an evening class.

Besides learning techniques it was during the classes that she realised the importance of contrast in a painting.

 Cheryl started with graphite and then felt the need for colour in her work and so went on to using pastels. She worked with finely pointed pastel pencils and Unison pastels. Pastel paintings are difficult to transport and are often mistreated at exhibitions so after a couple of years she started using acrylics. Cheryl also likes oils and intends to do more work with them. Carbon pencils are another favourite medium sometimes used with colour and acrylic ink. The carbon pencils give a very dense black.  Acrylic retarder is mixed with the acrylic medium 1-1 and blended in to produce a very smooth background. Sometimes she uses acrylic ink in an air-spray. Green is not a recommended colour for the background and Cheryl usually prefers a warm brown-orange colour.   She prefers to work on paper to an A3 size although she has found that paintings of young animals work well at large sizes but older ones don't.

Cheryl starts by getting the eyes and prominent features accurately depicted and tends to concentrate on one area at a time. The overall composition is based on the natural posture of the animal. She takes many reference photographs of her subject from as many different positions as possible  including close-ups of e.g. tails, ears etc. 

The first exhibitions Cheryl entered were at Marwell but as these no longer take place she enters the National Exhibition of Wildlife Art in the Wirral.  She also publicises her pictures on her website and on Facebook making sure that they are well covered for copyright and safe from plagiarism. Cards are printed by a printer but she uses a Canon pro 5000 printer to make her own large prints doing 3-4 for each image. 

Working during the day means that Cheryl only paints in the evenings and usually produces 6-8 paintings a year.

We are very grateful to Cheryl for giving up an evening to tell us about her painting life which we found absorbing and inspiring . So "Thank You", Cheryl, very much!