Members Talks July 2024

#salfordartclub #salfordmuseumandartgallery #salfordartists

Always looking for new ideas for a session David Norris suggested it would be interesting to let a few members talk about their artwork and inspiration.

Susan Leech

Many of Susan's ideas relate to France and its culture. First, she showed her one-inch paintings completed during lockdown, featuring items from her house in Lymm. Having had a cottage in France she has collected many items which provide inspiration for her paintings. Next, she showed one of her concertina art pads and has started one based on French literature. She displayed and spoke about a painting based on a French museum and the artists she likes. She enjoys sticking collage on her work and then adds writing and paint on them. Another concertina pad was based on visits to Tenby.

Chris Basson

Chris was born in Swinton and several of his first works were around where he lived and featured a church and other buildings that are all gone now. He had a good teacher who inspired him, and he encouraged him to do an arts scholarship. One of his tutors was Ernest Goodman who started Salford Art Club. Chris worked as a commercial artist and had to relearn the art of drawing for this job. He was then conscripted into the army, and met a good bunch of people, which led to a lot of travelling. He then showed sketches from his trips in the army.
After leaving the army he struggled for a while before eventually meeting his good wife and when they got the chance, they sailed around the world. He continued sketching, always enjoying life as an adventure. For inspiration he likes capturing a moment in time. He then showed a portrait of Martin Luther King that he had painted.
His recent work has strayed into surrealism and showed us a recent painting based on Manchester with a small cityscape and other themes on it.

Derek Croft

Derek talked about how, many years ago, his firm had a calendar made based on the Old Masters paintings. This interested him and he decided to ‘have- a- go’ at painting one of the images from this. Unfortunately, these early attempts were not to his liking and the painting was put away into storage,  to be brought out on occasions to work on. He came across a book containing this particular artwork and after learning more about it, he had another attempt at reproducing it. This time he used acrylic, not oil paint. He felt that this was successful and so brought the finished piece to show us.

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Philip Westcott

Philip talked about his art education at Salford Grammar school and the excellent grounding this gave him. Moving on to College in Leeds to study Art and Design he found that the art projects set were based on skills already learnt and was disappointed that these sessions did not develop his knowledge and technique.
He then showed his first figurative painting based on local people. One artist he liked was Edward Hopper, an American artist. He explained that whereas Hopper’s main focus was on isolation in his work, Philip focused on the interaction between people.
To do these paintings, he sketched the figures out in a yellow watercolour pencil and then tidied them up with a brown pencil. Finally, the outlines were drawn in waterproof ink. Before stretching, the paper was soaked, and the pencil washed away leaving the ink drawing to be painted in acrylic.
His other painting was one of his landscapes painted in oils with a palette knife during one long session. Watercolour studies as well as photographs are used for references. These scenes tend to focus on an isolated area rather than a large vista.

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 Tim Ward

Tim was born in Salford and when looking at his work as whole, he realized that his themes throughout often focused on reflections, water and cats!
When starting out he bought pastels and started to paint images of animals. He also used watercolours, but often returned to pastels. Tim then showed us a watercolour painting of Venice he had completed. Looking for a way to learn more about art, he joined Salford Art Club and was inspired by the other members and the materials they were using.
​Other paintings shown included a pastel of Broughton Park, a favourite place of his to visit, as well as a watercolour of Lake Garda and one of the Lake District.
He is very much into pastels as they have a very tactile feel to them.
At one stage he decided to re- learn how to paint in oils and began by painted waves. His recent painting was of a tiger looking at a monkey, which included his theme of reflections. His final piece, on show, was a return to pastels but this time using pan pastels with a painting of a lighthouse.

Robert Watson

Robert always had an interest in art and achieved an O' Level in it. He showed a talent for pencil portraits and continues to do these from high quality photo books, improving his skill over the years. He worked for Wigan council and was often asked to do sketches by other members of the staff featuring their children or animals.
As life progressed, there was less time to pursue his interest in art, and it wasn’t until he retired that he started to draw again. Joining Anthony Barrow’s class, he was introduced to colour, but was still working from photographs. Needing more inspiration, he joined Salford Art Club where he could draw from life, as he believed he could capture more of the soul of the sitter. His artwork has moved on and he feels that his work has improved. He finished by stating that he enjoys working from life now! ​

An enjoyable session that will hopefully encourage other members to participate in a future session. Thank you to David for organizing this.