Painting outdoors

My painting

Thanks to Herefordshire Painting Club's invite to a painting day at Queenswood Country Park, I plucked up the courage to paint in the open air for the first time. Why did I need courage? Firstly because I have been reluctant to do any sketching or painting where the public can see what I'm doing. A poor reason really as I've taken part in painting workshops and what I've attempted has been open for other participants to see and comment on. The second reason stems from an incident in 1970 when I had pencil and paper and was trying to sketch some birch trees on the Gareloch. I was held at gun-point by the Naval Provost Marshall's merry men while they established that I wasn't sketching the Clyde Submarine Base and that I was cleared to enter some parts of the base that might be barred to them.

What it really looked like

Several LAS members also belong to HPC and I plan to join when the summer programme starts up again in April. They have a weekly programme of visits to country houses, gardens and estates. I shall bring some leaflets with more details to the LAS demonstration on Tuesday 4 October. If you can't wait then take a look at their website http://www.herefordshire-painting-club.com/

Yet more pics from the exhibition

Here are more pictures from the exhibition. The quality is a bit variable as it was difficult to avoid having reflections on the glass. Some were taken during the process of setting up so the labels are in strange places. We try to get most onto the display boards to overcome a storage problem at handing in and then we rearrange and move labels to a consistent position.

Wrong time

When we set up the exhibition the display boards (heavy brutes that they are) have to be transported from the church tower to the venue on Friday morning and they are taken back on Sunday evening.



This would have done the job well but he only turned up on Saturday!

More from the Exhibition

We had good footfall over the two days, especially considering how wet it was on Saturday. We had 355 visitors, sold eight paintings (including two unframed from the browsers) and lots of cards.

I promised more pictures so here's the next batch.

Best in Show

Kirstin with rosebowl and her winning painting

With pictures of a very high standard this year the public had a difficult task choosing a winner of the rosebowl presented in memory of Kath Manistre. Kirstin's impressive painting 'Inuksuk' really caught the eye.




An Inuksuk is a form of cairn built and used by Inuit and other peoples of the arctic region of North America. Go to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inuksuk for more information.

The close runner up 'Barn at Whiteleaved Oak' by Ian Fountaine.

Exhibition Opening

Bill the Bell and the Deputy Mayor opened the exhibition
at the Preview on Friday evening.
Photo courtesy of Sue Embrey

Pictures from the exhibition

Just a few of the pictures from the exhibition in the Burgage Hall. I'll try to get some more taken on Sunday, the last day of the sale, as my first attempt had far too many reflections from the glass to be usable.

Tony's Angels

The paintings have been hung and we're all ready for tonight's preview evening.

The picture shows four of the several people who helped set up the hall and hang the paintings. Sue, Jill and Kirsten are all in Tony's Friday painting group so we're calling them Tony's Angels.


More pictures from the exhibition will be uploaded over the weekend.

This is the best show I've seen in so far.

Marion Derrett: Pastel Landscape

Marion often takes photographs for reference, which she usually crops and then develops thumbnail sketches if she wishes to adjust the composition. She brought with her the photo and thumbnails for the landscape she demonstrated today and had also sketched the scene with charcoal on the sanded paper support she used.

She began by putting in the darkest values and then added various blues to the sky - darkest at the side from which the light came. Notice the purple on the underside of the clouds.