21 May 2025
14 May 2025
Today we started our ‘larger’ artworks. Some of the works in the photos are works-in-progress, and may be changed when you next see them! So far, we have three works that are on the large A1 paper that I brought in. One person used willow charcoal to draw a beautifully observed scene of another student at her table with curtains, bunting, and arched window behind her: large, light and flowing strokes were used; there is a lot of life in this drawing. Another student used dynamic and expressive black willow and various compressed charcoals along with red pastel / conté to draw a fittingly large oriental poppy onto her A1 paper. These two images were photographed outside (after being ‘fixed’) to give a sense of their scale.
On another sheet of A1, in pencil and using an artist’s work as a starting point, we have the beginnings of a series of human and animal faces and bodies flowing into and out of each other - very evocative. Then we have a continuation of the very worthy cat experiments, in chalk pastel, working with the pastels to create both flat and three dimensional forms of various parts of the cats, as well as studies in mixing pastel colours to create depth (as opposed to a single colour, such as instead of using the black pastel, using a variety of dark colours to create rich ‘blacks’). It is always good to spend some time on studies, we learn a lot.
A sketchbook flower study using line drawn with ink pen has been turned into a larger, more abstract and vibrantly coloured piece (not yet finished). Then, taking inspiration from Joni Mitchel’s artwork is the starting point for a very moving double self-portrait in graphite pencil. After that is a calligraphic study using a beautiful pen, and a blackbird in coloured pencil shows the workings out of an idea for a bigger piece - a beautiful example showing the power of text and image.
Finally, impressively woven papers and magazines make the background for two paintings: one, a seaside scene with houses, tiles, boats and netting; and the other, a woman holding a child, created by painting over - and sometimes incorporating the original images from - magazine papers. Truly inspirational.
AMAZING work, everyone, I am so impressed, what a fantastic session!
30 April 2025
Today we continued working on our ideas for our larger piece of work. Also, it was absolutely beautiful at the hall, and so how could at least one of you not go outside?! It was glorious and it is good to take advantage of the weather whenever possible. You are always welcome to draw and paint outside at anytime, regardless of what project we might be working on; the result is a sensitively drawn landscape in graphite pencil, with focus on differing textures of the wall, gate, tree, filed, sky, path and vegetation: very good markmaking.
There was also experimentation with a set of new waterproof inks, using flower motifs to try out different techniques to see what results happen. Also glorious experimentation in colour with burnt orange wallflowers, using watercolour. Another image shows exploration of creating depth in very dark purple-brown hellebores, a challenge that is working really well.
Then we have some compelling portrait studies in differing media on light brown paper to see how each media behaves. Another student tried out chalk pastels for the fist time in her ongoing exploration of different media using cats as the subject matter, with some lovely and creative results in the use of colour.
And then we have someone who did watercolour explorations from a live flower, as well as tackling one of Rosie Sanders watercolour artworks, creating a careful and beautiful study of one of her watercolour pitcher plants (from one of the books that I brought in).
Thank you, everyone, and I will see you on Wed 14 May.
23 April 2025
During this session, more artwork was made in the “circles sketchbook” using a variety of mixed media including watercolour paint, posca pens and tissue! Someone else took the opportunity to test out their new coloured pencils, looking particularly at the three primaries (red, yellow and blue) and having two of each, a ‘warm’ and a ‘cool’; they then played with mixing them (by overlaying the pencils marks over each other) to see what happens.
We have some beautiful waterlily leaves in the “leaf sketchbook” which I believe is now completed! Another sketchbook shows some studies looking into light, pale colour ideas as well as experimentation with a multi-view picture composition. And a watercolour test (there were more) of flowers, trying out different techniques and compositions in preparation for the larger work.
Well done, everyone, such fantastic and wonderful ideas!
9 April 2025
Here are some photos from today’s session, the start of our preparatory work in our sketchbooks, for a large piece.
These are all studies and works in progress and some changed even after I took the photos (apologies, I didn’t get photos of everyone’s work). Ideas for the prep sessions were studying flowers, looking at other artists’ work, creating a mix of images to create a narrative, experimenting with different watercolour techniques, trying out techniques for drawing sheep (I missed off some other great sheep drawings here), exploring coloured tiles using woven newspaper and magazines, exploring allotments, and exploring washing on a line.
All wonderful topics to be playing with. For some, these first ideas will morph and change. A wonderful session, thank you for your participation!
26 March 2025
We continued in our hand made sketchbooks today, including wonderfully energetic, mixed media red and purple circles, creating a vibrant composition across a long landscape format. A limited colour palette of water soluble pencils were used to create green leaves that come alive from the page. Yellow violas were used as a way of testing a brand new watercolour set, and the watercolours and skill have brought out the sweetness of these minute flowers. More exploration on the moors theme continued with testing out chalk pastel and water soluble pencils, as well as experimenting with adding depth to the original watercolour from last week. A damaged sketchbook was the inspiration for trying out a series of abstracted designs that are energetic and full or movement and even music!
A cat silently walks in exotic water-soluble floral undergrowth. With a nod to the next project, we have studies across sketchbook pages of hands, faces and whisky tumblers: what a characterful hand. A chalk pencil cat washed itself in front of our eyes and we can sense it is about to turn around and stare at us. Chalk pastel pencils are positively glowing against black paper, whilst gouache daffodils invite quiet and calm within their serene gaze. Pencil cats studies from another artists’ work have been drawn with care and consideration to the subject matter, making the drawn lines speak to us of soft fur, twitching ears, and sensitive whiskers. Finally, a visual poem story that takes us on a journey over each individual, beautiful page. A great session, thank you, everyone.
19 March 2025
To start off, we have a sketchbook made from a single folded sheet of A4 paper, (so like a card) creating 4 pages with four different continuous line drawings (trying out ideas for abstracted drawings of buildings). Someone else (who loves trees) worked across a double page of their sketchbook creating a tree skyline in ink pen - experiments in ink pen has been the focus of this sketchbook. A colour wash may be added over the top of the ink.
The ‘leaf’ themed book was continued with, experimenting with drawing very dried and curled holly leaves in various media and in differing techniques, and all within interlocking circles (another theme of the book). Another person drew from seashells that they brought in, and then created differing compositional ideas using shape and colour inspired by the shells to create a variety of effects using pen and watercolour wash.
Someone else did a landscape experiment in their handmade watercolour sketchbook, from images that they had come across linked to the same theme and colours found in Kate Well’s heather moors artwork - the watercolour has been used very sensitively with regard to its innate qualities, rendering the differing parts of the scene, allowing the paint to be loose and free. And the experiments in cats continued with pen and wash, experimenting with putting cats in different environments, including one in a beach sunset scene, rendered lightly and thoughtfully, and again, allowing the watercolour to be expressive. Well done, everyone!
12 March 2025
Today we had the pleasure of welcoming artist Kate Wells to our lovely art studio space. Kate very kindly brought lots of sketchbooks and artwork to show us, and gave us the most beautiful talk about her work.
Kate began by talking about the paper in sketchbook and how she feels an affinity with certain types of paper. She explained how she likes a firm sketchbook as it keeps all her work safe. She related that a “sketchbook is how you live”: sometimes organised, sometimes not. She expressed how a sketchbook is a very personal thing, and we all will have our differing preferences. She showed us her latest small sketchbook (Moleskine), that goes with her wherever she goes and is always at hand, together with a small selection of drawing and painting media. She even demonstrated how she might use a sketchbook outside, firstly with pen which she smudged with spit, and then with a travel watercolour set and water pen. She carries with her a piece of elastic to keep her pages from blowing about outside.
She described how she leaves the first pages of a sketchbook free to write inspirational words on. The quotes that she read out were from people “who all knew about the sacredness of art and how it feeds your spirit.” She spoke about the “aliveness of line” and how the drawing tool that you use becomes part of your hand, your body: “a live living line that communicates”. She said that what she draws in her sketchbook might find its way through to the sewing machine [and this could be any method that we use to create art]; “there is a language and an aliveness that comes through to what I might play with in the studio.”
She showed us the process that she went through to create a stole that featured children’s colourful hand shapes at the base and flowing rainbow colours sweeping up the stole. She revealed how she began to keep ‘themed’ sketchbooks that she termed “working books” that contained her “working thoughts” and would enable her to keep similar studies, samples, experiments, etc, for a piece of work or series of works, in one sketchbook. These books are labeled. She shared with us a book in which she created studies of moorland heather, and where she had used gouache paint as opposed to water-colour, because it is thicker and it can be scratched into. She had also used candle wax over acrylic paint to portray dried plant stems. She observed that the studies in her sketchbooks are “never formulaic, it is always trail and error”, and she often finds herself looking to see what she can salvage. She had a book printed featuring studies from a sketchbook that she used whilst researching for a landscape commission based in North Norfolk. The printed book showed her progress towards the final and finished stitched artwork.
Her bigger books are Seawhite of Brighton (you can get them in Calder Graphics in Huddersfield, as well as online art shops). She has also created studies on paper and fabric that were too big to go into a sketchbook and so she made ‘sketchbooks’ from portfolios using plastic sleeves
Kate finished by saying that “…creating art is a form of praise because this world is beautiful.” Kate’s website is here: https://www.katewellsartist.co.uk/
A huge thank you to Kate for giving us a very special talk that we will always remember. And thank you everyone, for your enthusiasm during the session. We will be inspired for a long time to come!
26 February 2025
19 February 2025
Today we continued with our handmade sketchbooks (including one very fancy piece of side-stitching), as well as works on paper.
Some people worked from still life items such as leaves, lichen covered sticks, catkins, and daffodils. Some worked from printed out photographs and some worked from imagination - so lots of different approaches to filling our sketchbooks.
Media used included: brown pen, collage, sparkly nail varnish, gouache, pen and wash, watercolour, graphite, acrylic pens, coloured pencil, and graphite and watercolour.
Another very exciting sketchbook session, thank you everyone.
12 February 2025
This week we had a go at making our own side-stitched (or ‘stab stitched’) sketchbooks. We made one with drawing paper (folded paper and with a cover) and one with watercolour paper (single sheets of paper and no cover so as to speak - the top page is the cover).
We also worked on our saddle stitch books including a beautifully textured book that has been put together with three sets of saddle-stitched papers (two folded papers in each set), and put together by stitching up the spines of each, and then with a stiff cover added by glueing it to the outer pages and adding small bits of fabric to act as ‘hinges’; this book has started to be filled up with colour coordinated abstracted square designs using mixed media. And we also have a marvellous orange saddle stitched book, that may be filled with all things orange!
One person has started to fill their saddle stitched book with brightly drawn scenes from the south of France, using coloured pencil and fine liner pen. Also we have a very well observed and delicately drawn grouping of daffodils (hard to draw!). And last but not least, experimental textured chimney stacks in pen that have so much life and character to them.
Thank you everyone, for a really fabulous session, and thank you for working so hard on your sketchbooks!
29 January 2025
Today we continued with our handmade sketchbooks. Some of us were still in the process of making our books, taking time to contemplate different ideas and approaches whilst playing around with papers, textures, patterns and colours.
Some of us starting working in our sketchbooks. One sketchbook was created to give as a gift to someone else to make their own artwork in. Another was filled with lively and detailed sketches from a familiar street and is intended as a gift to a family member.
Another person took the opportunity to explore a brand new set of pens using the theme of chimneys (inspired by a fellow student’s accordion book), experimenting to see what lines, marks, textures, tones and characters the different pens made.
Someone else took inspiration from the Henry Moore sheep book using his sketches to explore mark making, texture, form and expression.
Another person experimented with window views from inside the hall using graphite pencil and watercolour to create well observed paintings, full of light, life, and movement.
Someone else looked at the work of the Danish-French artist, Camille Pissarro (1830-1903) and experimented with his figures, creating luminous blue and enlivened figures. And also we have expressive gouache clouds, inspired by another artists’ work.
Well done, everyone!
22 January 2025
Today we made saddle stitched sketchbooks. We used a variety of different papers to go inside our sketchbooks including drawing paper, watercolour paper, and found papers including lining paper, wrapping papers, packaging papers, waxed papers - all sorts.
Most sketchbooks were made by folding the paper in half, and stitching the papers down the middle to hold them together. One book though was made using unfolded paper laid flat, with a folded over spine area and saddle stitched from the front of the sketchbook to the back.
Many of the covers were made using Daler Rowney pastel paper (paper that has a slight tooth on it, created for using chalk pastel on). We used book maker’s waxed linen thread, as well as various other threads of neutral and bright colours. People brought in threads and papers to share. Some people even got so far as to start working in their sketchbooks!
15 January 2025
Welcome back to art class everyone and thank you for your participation this week. Here are a selection of photos from today.
We had a warm up session where we experimented with drawing and painting from still life objects. We did the warm up exercise to start with where we draw with our non dominant hand using a continuous line and without looking at the paper: this activity really helps to train our eye when looking. It was a fun activity to do our our first day back. And remember that you can do this activity as many times as you like, or just each time to sit down to make artwork, you can do it as a quick warm up.
A variety of media was used today, pen, graphite pencil, watercolour, water soluble coloured pencils and conte. We also have an abstracted mixed-media pattern sample sheet, a landscape collage made from left over Christmas wrapping paper, and a finished concertina book, which has has been crafted using mixed media including pen, pencil, coloured pencil, watercolour and collage.
A really wonderful session, thank you all so much for your hard work and enthusiasm.
18 December 2024
Today, the last session of 2014, we had fun creating group accordion books. We only had an hour to create five books - each person had to create five images (one in each book) and had only 10 minutes per image. But we did it! How talented you all are, I was so impressed. Really well done, everyone! Thank you for a lovely end of year session, with some really lovely food too! And thank you for all your hard work, participation and support over this year. I have sincerely enjoyed every single Wednesday afternoon with you all, you are surely the best art group on earth, I am so lucky.
11 December 2024
4 December 2024
27 November 2024
Today we started exploring making concertina / zigzag books and we will continue for the next couple of weeks so there is plenty of time to be having an experiment with ideas.
We have a beautiful, tall and elegant sunlit book, drawn with pens and coloured pencil. We have a finished collage book with collage on both sides, experimenting with colour and composition. We have some more of the ‘fishy book’ coming along nicely, the images so far being drawn in pencil and pen. There are some more paintings on paper that will be pasted into a book. There is a rough plan of some geese flying across a landscape, one of a series of preliminary sketches for a book. And some more of the collage that is being made from tiny pieces of papers and fabrics.
Thank you, everyone, for an absolutely fabulous afternoon!
20 November 2024
We continued with our handmade artists’ books today using: observed drawing, design, pattern, stencilling, printing, figurative narrative and poetry.
We started a journey through the seasons and went down the garden path. We saw the beginnings of an unfolding cat.
Media used was: graphite pencil, collage, food dye, posca pens, watercolour, sprayed ink, coloured pencil, pen, gouache. This project certainly allows for an opportunity to play with a range of media.
Thank you, everyone for another fabulous afternoon.
