Our two sessions this month are due to go ahead, both under the ‘rule of six’ again, i.e. tables of 6, no mixing between groups, cleaning the tables and chairs and no access to the kitchen.

Hopefully you will have read recent emails from Steve saying that a small £2 fee will be due on a Wednesday evening and that the hall has already been booked by the vicar on our usual 4th Saturday session so we are meeting on the 3rd Saturday instead, 19th June.

Dates of meetings in June are therefore…

Wednesday 9th – 7-9pm – £2

Saturday 19th – 10am-3pm – £6

Here are some ideas for you to draw and paint at either or both sessions…

PORTRAIT ARTIST OF THE MONTH (PAOTM)

• Brian May – the guitarist of Queen with his mop of curly hair is this month’s challenge. Paint him from his younger days or as he is now. Add other members of Queen too if you’d rather paint a group of figures.

JUNE

• Named for the Roman goddess Juno, goddess of marriage, daughter of Saturn and wife of the supreme deity Jupiter. In Greek mythology she was known as Hera, queen of all the gods.

There are many images of her online as statues and paintings have survived to modern times and are displayed in museums.

THE THAMES ESTUARY

To tie in with this month’s Estuary Festival held in Gravesend and along the Thames, let’s draw or paint anything to do with the river and its environs.

• the Dartford Bridge was opened 30 years ago. Love it for its elegant lines or loathe it for the traffic jams on it, paint its shape from a distance or close up.
• ships and boats that currently used the Thames.
• boats that now rust and decay along the riverbanks.
• plants – colt’s-foot, marsh marigold, dog’s mercury, cuckoo flower, gorse, sea aster, yellow-horned poppy.
• animals– harbour and grey seals, short-snouted seahorses, oysters, dolphins.
• fish – did you know the Thames is home to 125 types of fish? Including Dover sole, salmon, flounder, corkwing wrasse, five-bearded rockling, goby, sea scorpions, sea bass, twaite shad, smelt.
• birds – lapwing, avocet, black-tailed godwits, geese, knot, oystercatcher, shoveler, dunlin, redshank.
• Deadman’s Island– actually in the Medway estuary not the Thames estuary, this island has been on the BBC news as coffin-buried bodies from prison hulks are now exposed due to rising water levels.

You may of course paint anything you want to. The subject ideas are there to help you if you need inspiration.