Programme

Tutorials & trips

2016 

4 Nov - Trees in charcoal - Karl Sylvester

2017

23 Feb - Constructing Mandalas - Ann Thomas

9 March - Painting Mandalas -Ann Thomas

11 May - Landscape in pastel - Karen Pearce

20 July - Trip to Denmark Farm, Lampeter, tutor Karl Sylvester

27 July - Printing - Judy Macklin

12 October - Day trip to Porthmadoc (gallery & sketching)

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ARCHIVE

2013 - 2014

Aug/Sept Food: ideas from everyone 

Oct/No Building: Mervyn, including drawing and perspective

Dec/Jan Decay: Gerti, including spontaneity and abstraction

Feb/Mar Engineering: Anne Soloman - including printing linocuts and collage

April/May Plants:  Juliet, including sketching, drawing, watercolour, patterns 

June/July People: ideas from everyone eg cartoons

2012 - 2013

April - May, 2013: Pen and wash
Led with demos by Anne Soloman and Juliet Regan
11 April, 6:30. Anne 's workshop on mark-making in pen and ink.

Anne can supply paper and has enough pens of different sorts.
If people bring any pens they have already that would be good. Sketch books of cartridge paper would also help. We would also need a couple of pencils and rubbers. Old type scratchy pens would be good too.

 It may save time if we could come with a simple sketch ready for the evening and it may be more interesting for everyone to use the marks and cross hatching I demonstrate to finnish of their sketches/drawings. I'm not sure how to pitch this demo, or how many of the group have done pen work, so if we have a little sketch ready we can progress from there.

June - July: 2013 Sea Life.
Resources: photos taken on trips to the beach and images from natural history books.
Week 1: bring in shells of crabs, shellfish, starfish, etc. to explore techniques to portray their hardness, spikiness etc. try using pen and wash techniques.
Weeks 2 – 3: Final piece: Develop a still life painting of objects collected at the beach.



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HISTORY: completed months 

September 2011: Hats in preparation for the Big Draw competition 22 September - Sian will model hats for us to draw. We can all bring in some hats, and dig out pictures of hats from the papers, magazines and art books, and photos of family weddings. A camera will be useful as a supplement to the drawings, so that the work can be finished off at home. Final piece: a drawing to submit to the competition which have to to be in by 30 September Marion will collect take any entries on Thursday 29 and take them for us.

October 2011: Non-flowering plants and fungi.
Mosses, liverworts, lichens, toadstools. We can all bring in specimens of non-endangered species, and old twigs colonised by these little plants. Drawing techniques with pencils and pen and ink Juliet will tutor for a short time each week -These are the suggestions week 1 - Drawing Non flowering plants and fungi using a magnifying glass and having a stereo microscope ( which I have) to look at detail. Use cameras and computers to enlarge material and understand the detail. week 2 - Using drawings from previous week to work on creating a design which can be quite abstract or purely botanical week 3 - Using colour in medium of your choice to colour your design week 4 - finishing work

November 2011: Tone.
The importance of balancing light and dark – optical science shows that light-and-shade is more important than colour for visual perception. Drawing and painting in monochrome: charcoal, pencil, ink, hatching, watercolour. Looking at work of artists famous for chiaroscuro. The number of subjects is infinite (almost). Beryl has agreed to tutor the theme.
Subject: a still life of a few treasured objects. We will be moving from monochrome studies to a full-coloured final piece. A COMPLETED, ATTRACTIVE, COLOURFUL STILL LIFE PAINTING This should not look like a photograph - but be a painting, with pleasure taken in textures, colours and brush marks etc. Also, all of the picture should be interesting - not just a few objects and a boring plain background. Use water colour/ pastel/ acrylic. Acrylic is easiest as you can change your mind and paint over bits you didn’t like! Thick paper, stretched will do - but canvas board or canvas has a nice surface for the paint. Beware - if your board is too small the details will be fiddly and you will be disappointed with the result.
TIPS TO HELP COLLECTING YOUR OBJECTS
1 You might enjoy using some favourite things or items for a favourite hobby or special family items. 2 Have enough but not too many things - and choose various sizes. One may be the ’star of the show’. You will need darkish, medium and pale surfaces. 3 To make it interesting - choose a variety of surfaces - smooth and shiny - matte - furry- dimpled etc. and there may be reflections in shiny surfaces, see through effects with glass, or interesting shadows cast on the base, or texture with a plant. 4 Get specially nice and rich colours - patterned fabrics or fruits can be useful. 5 Have an easy to carry base, on which you could mark the eventual position of objects for setting it up again in the hall and at home.
STAGE 1. AIM - to make an arrangment of your group to give you a really pleasing ‘composition’ (structure) for the painting. 1 Bring your objects and their base, and a sketchbook or pieces of white paper, and soft pencils - e.g.2B and 4B If you can, draw on a board or firm sketchbook and tilt your drawing at an angle (as at Art School) this gives the best results. We will begin by trying out various arrangements, drawing little thumbnails (to fill a rectangle picture shape) in a sketch book or on bits of paper with a soft pencil. We will be getting a quick impression of lines and tones, to eventually choose the best. The spaces in between are especially important to consider. The darks/medium and light tones should balance - look good all ways up! Plan an interesting background - objects could stretch nearly to the edge of your planned rectangle - use drapery perhaps - or part of a bigger item behind etc.
MEANWHILE AT HOME Set up the group where you can paint - Choose one main source of light - it makes it much easier - side lighting works well - top light, immediately under a lamp could be interesting. Then, if you can, TAKE A PHOTO of your group to help with colours and lighting when working in the Hall.
STAGE 2. AIM - to make a presentable drawing of the group on grey paper, using darks to nearly white, to understand the range of tones in your group. This will help with your painting. Finish it, at home if necessary. You will need; Your group, and an A3 or thereabouts sheet of GREY paper, with black and white conte pencils/crayons/ charcoal/chalks or pastels - and a soft cloth and rubber to help with mistakes. (Black and white pencil will not make strong enough marks) Work on an easel, board or firm sketchbook to tilt your drawing at an angle . Bring a photo of the group if you can.
STAGE 3. The final, full-colour painting. _________________________________________________________________________ December 2011: Expressive drawing. As Christmas approaches it should be fun to unwind and do things we wouldn't usually do. Here are some examples: drawing blindfold, drawing an object with the paper under a cloth, drawing from memory, drawing to music, group drawing (we all make some marks on paper, then pass it on for someone else to have a go), using the 'other' hand, copying an image upside-down, developing ink-blots, making marks expressing different moods and emotions. drawing by candle light, which simplifies shapes and emphasises shadows. It's not scary – honest.
1 December - Harry to lead.
8 December - Art and social evening. 17, 24 Dec and 5 Jan - No meeting ________________________________________________________________________

We start again on 12 Jan 2012.

January: Illustration drawn from the imagination, including character drawing.
(led by Sian) Illustrating a favourite story, poem or piece of text.

I thought we could start the session with some basics on character drawing, by looking at some key artists in Disney in character development, Japanese Art and line work, followed by some fun games involving drawing characters to spark our imaginations up. Then we can move on to the principles of illustration and putting our characters into a scene, using our own individual style to our own advantage.

If you have a poem, story, children's tale, a sentence, a word, a concept or a picture that inspires you, that you think you would like to illustrate, then feel free to bring this along and once we have played some games and looked at the principles you could begin to work on your own interest. If you don't have anything in particular you would like to illustrate don't worry: I will bring lots of picture books and images with me to so we can look at them and be inspired.

Also Marian mentioned a lovely way of putting a book together, a way of folding the paper to make a little book so our ideas could also progress to this, either in this session or through into the next one!
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February 2012: Collage and composition.
Thumbnail sketches of works of the great masters, working out the lines and blocks of tone. Balancing blocks and colours. Framing or close-cropping an image to get a semi-abstracted design. Collage of cut-up magazines to make a picture (landscape, still life). Collaging small flat objects. (e.g. bits of wool, string, cork, rusty metal, wood). Final piece: a representational or abstract image in collage.

 2 Feb: Beryl has kindly agreed to get us started on the first week.

Here is her programme.

There will be a brief talk and examples to see. Then, we'll get down to it. In the weeks after Jean Napier's talk we can progress under our own steam, or carry on with other projects.

Choice of subject: landscape, interior, portrait, fantasy (e.g. parts of machines), abstract, colour study, photomontage,  transcribe a favourite art work (in the medium of collage), and so on. Or, you can assemble objects until they remind you of something (e.g.a bit of old plywood reminds you of a landscape), and develop that idea.

Collages can be 

1. Flat, constructed from various papers (art papers, old paintings, old magazines …)

2. 3D, using string, threads, wood veneer, pasta, seed cases, fabrics, dried flowers, feathers, nails, tree bark, buttons, doilies, corrugated card …

Materials

1. A firm base that will not curl up when glued to, e.g.: heavy paper, card, old mount-board.

2. Adhesive: paste or diluted PVA (for paper),  PVA (for 3D objects).

3. All kinds of paper. Coloured tissue paper (useful as one colour shows through another), magazines, computer printouts from your photos to cut up or tear, paper you have painted yourself. Be aware that not all of these will be light-fast. Also, if you wish, some 3D objects, such as those listed above.

Method

If there is to be a background, do it first. Then, play around with the pieces, arranging and rearranging them until you are happy.

Then, glue down. (Apply glue sparingly to fabric, as it can soak through and spoil it.)

9 February: VISITING LECTURER Jean Napier will give a presentation with slides on Composition. Jean is a local photographer whose work can be seen in A Tale of two Rivers: Mawdach & Dyfi. and widely elsewhere. She teaches Photography and her primary motivation is to promote photography as an Art Form.

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March 2012: Birds.
  Getting beyond copying photos, but using them as a resource to develop pictures. Bring in reproductions of how great artists painted birds.
First week. Painting in pastel – using bold strokes to paint a colourful bird e.g. peacock, pheasant, fancy fowl.
Later weeks. Abstracting bird shapes; building patterns from them; feathers. Repeating patterns of bird shapes in flight to give the impression of flight.Making an Easter card (Easter is in early April 2012).

VISITING LECTURER 19 April: A presentation ‘The Colour Blue’: Dr Brian Davies
Dr Davies is a biochemist who has spent many years researching about colours. His presentation will keep you spellbound.

VISITING TUTOR 1 March: Karen Davies tutor for Pastels and Birds. Karen is a local artist who exhibits her work in Machynlleth. She has drawn the Dyfi Ospreys and you can see pastel drawings of hers at the osprey centre. She excels at drawing birds and animals and often works in pastel.

May - June 2012: Trees.
3 May: No meeting as the hall is in use for polling.
10 May: Annual General Meeting.
At this time of year the leaves are just coming out, so we have the fresh green foliage but also can see the branch structure.
Comparison of media (pencil, ink, charcoal, paint, etc.).
Making trees look three-dimensional (i.e. how to make branches look as if they're coming towards you). Their place in the landscape. Patterns derived from branches and roots, texture of gnarled old trunks. How to portray trees in winter, trees in summer.
We will need to bring in photos, sketches, and bits of tree.
Final piece: study of a tree or small group of trees in the landscape, or a still life of tree-related objects.*

August 2012: Patina and textures*.
How to represent them in different media (e.g. salt in watercolour, sand & sawdust in acrylic).
Resources: old tools, old walls, rust, corrosion, peeling paint, rubbings of surfaces (for collage). Bring in small objects, photograph big ones.
Final piece: a still life called Junk, in any medium or mixed media.
VISITING TUTOR 23 August:  Tracy Smith
Tracy is a local artist who works with  textures and pattern in her paintings. You may know her paintings of Aberystwyth Rooftops. She has work hanging in various local places.

September 2012: The Big Draw: Sport

Oct - Nov 2012. Rocks.
Mining at Bont Goch.
11 Oct: Presentation by James C.

Dec 2012 - Jan 2013: Distortions and reflections
Postponed from July 2012

Distortions seen looking in rivers, puddles, through drinking glasses; reflections in shiny pans and kettles.
In week 1 we can bring in a shiny objects (kettle, saucepan) and one or two objects to be reflected in them, and paint what we see.
In subsequent weeks we can use close cropping of images to develop abstracts. Also, developing patterns from our photos of ripples and reflections in water – artists have made a career out of doing this.


7 Feb: Watercolour techniques with Juliet.

14 Feb - May, 2013: Colour. How to make it work for you. 

Week 1:
Harry will give a presentation followed by a practical, on colour wheels, and how to use them.
Materials: bring your best watercolours and brushes, and cheap watercolour paper. Handouts and other materials will be provided.

 Later weeks (to be finalised):
 Colour in the environment (e.g. atmospheric perspective of land and clouds). Placing blocks of colour against each-other to see how they influence each-other. Painting in a limited palette of 2 or 3 colours – not necessarily the “primaries”.

Looking at the works of great colourists (e.g. the Fauves) – how do you respond to them?