Carole Baker: Landscape in Acrylic

Our demonstrator for February was Carol Baker http://www.carolebaker.com/  who tackle a landscape using a scumbling technique to apply thin layers of acrylic paint.

Carole does a lot of plein air sketching and uses her sketch book to plan her studio paintings. The image to the left shows a thumbnail and a water colour sketch for the painting she demonstrated.

Notice also that the sketchbook shows what she has chosen as her palette for this painting. As well as three primaries, she has a light violet, white and Paynes Grey.

She always works with a limited palette and keeps a stack old Ferrero Rochet boxes with a different selection of paints in each. Here's the one she used for the demonstration.

Her support was an MDF board primed with brushed on gesso, which gives some texture, and then coated with emulsion applied with a roller. She had then applied an underpainting using a mixture of the red and Naples Yellow from her palette and would expect some of that to orange to show through and add some dynamism to the picture.

The following images show the development of the painting.

Low tide at Bosham

We have yet another response to the Painting Challenge and this one's particularly creative as Ian Fountaine has managed what Canute failed to do and has stopped the tide coming in. Yes, it was supposedly at Bosham that Canute commanded the waves without success. I bet Canute couldn't paint like Ian either.

Here's what Ian wrote when he sent in his entry. "Sorry to take so long to get around to your painting challenge.  In fact, by the time I got there the tide had gone out!  Actually this is with acknowledgement to Joe Francis Dowden who will demonstrate for us in October and who painted the same scene in this manner."

If you have ever visited Bosham you'll know that it is the houses that have a wall separating them from the road below and at high tide the road is often flooded.

LAS Challenge

I thought I had better have a go at the painting challenge I set last month and tackled it with watercolour. Some parts of my effort I found quite pleasing but I really fiddled too much with the grassy areas and the rippled water. I also found the more distant buildings a little too strong and there is one building near the right where I have distorted the perspective. I really should have used a smaller brush for the windows or at least avoid overloading it. My other problem had nothing to do with painting but everything to do with my ability with a scanner. Never mind, at least I've increased the amount of painting and drawing I do since Christmas.

Valerie Briggs - Pastel demonstration

A misty start to the day

Valerie Briggs produced two different pastel paintings during her demonstration of atmospheric landscapes. 

Her first is shown on the left. Both this and the subsequent painting were produced without reference materials. She obviously has an excellent visual memory which, I'm sure, is the result of well developed observational skills.

Before starting she gave us some useful guidance on types of pastels and the various supports available and how well they held the pigment. It seems the "dreaded velour" sheds the pigment rather rapidly. The demonstrations were on Canson Mi-Teintes. Looking at the images of the second demo painting I can see that the right hand edge of the paper is lightly embossed with the brand name - probably not something you would want to show up in your work.

First responder

by Diana Forsyth

Here's the first painting in response to the painting challenge based on a photograph of Bosham. Thank you Diana.

Now on tumblr

Yes, we have a second blog https://ledburyartsociety.tumblr.com/ This is a bit experimental so we'll see how it develops. You might like to look at some of the other blogs on tumblr as there are a lot of artists using it to show what they're doing.

A good way to start the new year

The January issue of Paint, the SAA magazine, arrived today complete with an article about Ledbury Art Society on page 44.

New Year Resolution No. 1 - join Ledbury Art Society if your not yet a member. Go to the Membership page on this blog and download an enrolment form.

Paint also introduces the SAA Challenge 2017 and you can find lots more about it online here. I'm sure many LAS members do draw with confidence but some of us need a bit more practice. You may remember I set myself a challenge to learn to draw in 2017 - see Painting/Drawing Challenge which I put on this blog in November. You'll see another challenge in the post immediately prior to this, though that is probably better done as a painting.

New Year Resolution No. 2 - take up at least one of these challenges.

Val Briggs at work

New Year Resolution No. 3 - come an watch our demonstration on Tuesday 10 January when Val Briggs will demonstrate Atmospheric Landscape with Wildlife in Pastel

There's more information on the Coming Soon page, including a poster that you can download. Val's website is http://www.valeriebriggs.co.uk/

But don't just come in January. Take a look at our 2017 Programme