How lovely to get back to our Saturday meetings, this being the first of 2019.
There were 30 of us including some new members who were made very welcome.
Here are our varied interpretations of the subject. Everyone took part, and we had an excellent day. It was good to see long standing members giving some advice to our new friends, encouraging them when needed. We hope they enjoyed themselves.
JANUARY
Wednesday 9th 7-9pm – Fast and loose
Brush off the cobwebs and get drawing and painting in a relaxed but speedy style. Any subject, but if you’re stumped for an idea look through your Christmas cards for any scenes or subjects you can tackle with a flourish. Try out ideas in your sketchbook if you don’t want to commit anything to watercolour paper or canvas. Also paying subs and having a natter!
Saturday 26th 10am-3.30pm – Depth of Field
Think about your composition before you start painting. Look at the foreground, main subject then the distance. Is the foreground too plain? Can you add details, texture or vary colours to draw the viewer’s eye into your painting? Try painting a winter scene from a photo or a Christmas card, or if you’d rather be somewhere warmer, bring in a summer holiday photo to paint from.
The fee for today is £6. No need to book.
FEBRUARY
Wednesday 13th 7-9pm – Miniatures
Try painting on a smaller scale than you usually do to see if you can really pick out important details. Paint on a postcard, paper or a canvas no bigger than 4” x 6”.
Saturday 23rd 10am-3.30pm – Texture
Following on from last month, think again about your compositions. Can you add texture to give your paintings more interest to the viewer?
With acrylics or oils use modelling paste on your canvas, add sawdust or sand to your paint, or use a palette knife.
With watercolours prepare your paper before the session by gluing on tissue paper, other watercolour paper or white material. Make sure the glue you use will accept watercolour paint on top. You can also use ‘watercolour ground’ directly on the paper.
Alternatively, use today as a mixed media session with any textures you like. In the past we have been amazed when people use flowers, material, patterned card, nail varnish, sand and even dead bees and spiders in their paintings.
The fee for today is £6. No need to book.
HAPPY NEW YEAR to everyone and THANK YOU for your continued support. 2018 was another good year for our group, the highlight being our Open Day in November, with lots of visitors, membership enquiries and several paintings sold.
In 2019 we’re having our Open Day on Saturday November 23rd and will be painting at Chalk Church in the summer.
Our blog continues at www.medwayandchalk.art where the newsletter is published every two months, together with anything relating to the group and with photos of the sessions. This also gives you the opportunity to have your work on show, so please continue to look at the blog and email Susan your paintings for inclusion.
Please become a ‘follower’, if you haven’t already done so, to ensure that you get email alerts every time something is posted on the site. You click on where is says ‘follow’ on the home page and put in your email address. Then go to your emails, find the one from WordPress and click on the link to confirm you want to ‘follow’ the blog. If you don’t have an email address or internet access you can ask a family member to follow for you and they can also look on the blog as it is a public site.
This coming year all Wednesday evenings will be free, unless we have a guest artist or model. No bookings are required for Wednesday evenings and non-tutored Saturdays, but please book for all Saturday workshops.
We know Wednesday evening sessions aren’t as popular as the Saturday ones, but do please try to come along to support these sessions as they’re always good evenings.
Free coffee, tea and biscuits will be provided at all meetings.
The session ideas we suggest are to help you think of what to paint. If you’re already working on something else, no problem at all, please come along anyway for a cuppa and a natter!
Membership for 2019
The annual membership fee of £15 is now due and should be paid by the end of January 2019.
A paying-in form is provided with this newsletter and cheques should be made payable to ‘M & C Art Group’. Please send forms and cheques to Susan as soon as possible (an email has been sent with her contact details), or hand your form and your cash/cheque to her at the next meeting.
If you will be on holiday then please email or phone Susan, so she knows your membership fee will be paid on your return.
Year after year we have members who don’t reply to emails, letters or phone calls, but then still want to be members a few months later.
We feel we have to be stricter now and say that if your membership fee is not received by the end of January 2019 then you will no longer be a member. If you wish to rejoin after that date then your name will be added to the waiting list and you can return when a place becomes available.
We do have a waiting list of several people who wish to join and be active members as soon as they can, so if you no longer wish to be a member then email or phone Susan asap, so your place can be offered to another person.
Workshop etiquette
On some Saturdays we have workshops with visiting artists. We will continue the ‘first come, first served’ policy of putting your name down for a workshop. We feel this is the fairest way as everyone can see the newsletter on the blog at the same time. If you don’t follow the blog then you may miss out if you can’t see the newsletter when it’s first published. Even if you receive a paper newsletter you can ask someone to check the blog for you regularly, before the newsletter is posted to you.
Many tutors only want to teach 15/20 people, but we always persuade them to accept more at our group. However, any more than 25 and we run out of tables and time for the tutor to speak to everyone is limited.
If we have more than 25 members wanting to attend, we will have a waiting list.
When you see a workshop you want to attend…
On the day of the workshop…
Have you got a new diary/calendar for 2019? Write down the dates of our meetings in 2019 or print them out:-
| 2nd Wednesday | 4th Saturday | |
| January | 9th | 26th |
| February | 13th | 23rd |
| March | 13th | 23rd |
| April | 10th | 27th |
| May | 8th | 25th |
| June | 12th | 22nd |
| July | 10th | 27th – Chalk Church |
| August | 14th | 24th – Chalk Church |
| September | 11th | 28th |
| October | 9th | 26th |
| November | 13th | 23rd Open Day (Fri 22nd hanging evening) |
| December | 11th – party |
Saturday dates are for the 4th Saturday. Some months have 5 Saturdays, but we meet on the fourth one.
2019 ANNUAL SUBSCRIPTION
Please complete this form and post to Susan with a cheque for £15.00 payable to ‘M & C Art Group’. Alternatively hand in with cash or cheque at the next meeting.
Name_________________________________________________
Address________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________
__________________________________________________
Postcode_______________
Telephone Number___________________________________________
E-Mail Address________________________________________________
Your email address will be shared with M & C Art Group members only. Please advise if you do not want this information given out.
Medway & Chalk Art Group 