We Go Facebook

Famous Painting with a Twist - Frank Bingley (Seurat)

    With so many months of lockdown during the Corona Virus pandemic and no meetings, something had to be done, so during a socially distanced committee meeting in the chairman's rear garden, it was agreed that our club would go digital for the time being in the form of a Facebook page.   

   Members started to post work that they had been doing at home on Facebook, which was such a relief that we as a group were now communicating with each other again at last! During August 2020, we saw no reason why our scheduled en plein air event in Welland Park could not go ahead, providing we kept a safe distance apart. However, only a few of us turned up, which was a little disappointing.

    In January 2021, one of our members posted their painting of the "Breakfast Table" (a competition that we had missed) and it turned out that one or two of us had done a painting for this, so others started to post theirs on Facebook as a competition. There was no clear winner. 

Breakfast Table - Sally Struszkowski

    Looking at our suspended programme for 2021, we decided to go ahead with our "Famous Painting With A Twist" competition online, but not as a competition, but as a group exercise.

    Now with a third and prolonged lockdown, it became clear that we weren't going to be able to resume any of our planned meetings set out in our 2020/2021 programme, so it was decided that we should have a painting topic for each month. Each member would be called upon to suggest a topic, and Frank started the ball rolling with the topic "Blue" for February.

February Topic "Blue" - Several artist's work

    Whilst Facebook is second best to actually meeting socially together in the form of monthly meetings, at least we are connecting with each other and the take-up of our monthly challenge has been good and enjoyable to all.

    Ken has suggested Spring Flowers" as the topic for March, so it will be interesting to see what we all come up with for that.

Gorgeous Gouache

November's meeting was a mini workshop, led by Frank Bingley, on 'Gorgeous Gouache'.

Members learnt that the history of gouache dates back to the 16th century, although it wasn't until the 20th century it became available in tubes.

It is a water based medium made up of water, pigment and either gum arabic, dextrin or
chalk.

Unlike watercolour, gouache is opaque. This means light colours can be painted over dark. The other advantages are it is fast drying, has a matt finish and can be reworked when wetted.


Although it can be bought in pans, for the workshop everyone used the same colours from tubes, mixing it to the consistency of single cream. The subject was a echinacea flower, from a photograph taken by Frank.

As always time seemed short and the members had to work hard to complete the painting of the flower, but almost every picture was finished by the deadline.

Although the same basic colours were used, it was interesting to see the differences between the paintings, from the light and delicate to the bright and bold.

Text by Lynda Talbott, photos by Jane Palmer

Autumn Painting

The subject for our October meeting was Autumn. The members brought in leaves,   Autumn fruits or an image to work from. As usual there was a wide range of styles from small and delicate to strong and bold. Various mediums were used including pencil, crayon, watercolour and Gouache. At one stage the concentration was so intense you could have heard a pin drop, but coffee and a biscuit quickly livened things up!

Pictures in order were by Helen Armitt-Warnes, Sally Struszkowski, Bethany Struszkowski, Cornelia Wontner,  David Coleman, Jane Palmer, Frank Bingley, Lynda Talbott and Jill Scott.

Words by Lynda Talbott, photography by Frank Bingley

Outdoor Sketching/Painting

Foxton Locks Inn - Neocolor oil pastels by Frank Bingley

For our August meeting, we arranged an outdoor Sketching/painting event at Foxton Locks. The morning started out cloudy, but brightened up to a warm sunny day later. 10 of us attended, some of whom met up later to compare our efforts! Below are some of the sketches. The header photo was finished off in the studio.

Appraisal evening with Di Lorriman

I loved Di’s approach; she qualified her experience in all mediums including felt (much to my surprise)!  We saw a selection of her own work, and then she proceeded to tell us what she would be looking for in the artwork. This was most helpful as you can consolidate the thinking throughout the evening and apply it to your next piece of work. Her observations looked for:

·      Good composition – use of the rule of thirds

·      Tonal contrast

·      Perspective

·      Use of complimentary colours

·      Visual description, exploiting all the ideas

·      Mood

·      Mystery, have you given your viewer something to think about?

·      Balance, somewhere for the eye to rest

·      Texture

·      Importance of good framing

No time was wasted as the images arrived Di was scanning the work. Di ensured that individual artists remained anonymous and consequently every one received an impartial good honest critique. If this were a review I would give her full marks.

April Painting Together

The subject of our Painting Together evening was "Animals". Most of us managed to complete the work Alla Prima. The images below are some of the completed works, which will be shown in a separate display at our exhibition to be staged at the Harborough Theatre in October.

Work shown here (in order) are by Alan, Carole, Cornelia, David, Frank, Lynda, Pia and Sally.

Workshop: Figures and Movement by Ken Lilley

Ken's red carrot figure and MW figure

 This month we had a workshop led by Ken Lilley. His aim was to get us all painting figures in a simple constructive way so that we would feel competent to add figures to our landscapes or city cityscapes. He said”, Very little is needed to persuade the viewer that the figure is a credible person, but the proportions must be right. To help this to be effected, he suggested that the head would go into the length of the body 7 times. Michael, standing with his hands in his jean pockets, was used as an example for this rule.

Ken's painting expressing movement

We were not going to try to draw a figures in detail but rather give an impression. The first exercise that was demonstrated was the use of a carrot shape and then the MW concept. Further illustrations were put onto a board and onto a computer screen.

The first task in a sequence of suggested quick paintings was a line of people from the imagination with  their backs towards the painter. Next, movement with ink or pencil added to a quick painted figure to give a feel of movement. Lastly, a rainy day with long vertical shadows (from Ken’s sketch book).

Other prompts circulated were a book entitled “Learn to paint people quickly” by Hazel Soan, an SSA article in this month’s Paint magazine and another article in this month’s Leisure Painter.

This exercise gave us all more confidence in describing the human figure in a simple and economical way when using watercolour paint.

Below are works from (decending) David, Michael and Frank.