 Jane introduced herself and showed examples of work and cards. She then told members about herself and working process. She creates work in 3 medias; painting on silk, watercolour but is best known for her ceramic sculptures which are often from her imagination. She has a Studio and Gallery in her back garden. In her foundation year at teacher training college she met Ifor Freeman a ceramic sculptor. She changed careers 7 years ago, after losing mum and best friend to cancer, and became a full time professional Artist. She uses school clay, which when fired turns biscuit colour, then she adds colour if required. Work is started by building solid form, when it's almost finished she take a Cheese wire to hollow it it out like a melon and then put it back together like a 3d jigsaw puzzle. It then dries out before putting in the kiln. When dried she decides whether to add colour. The Plinths are source locally to which the sculptures are added. She won episode 15, series 1 on BBC1 program 'Home is where the Art is.' This was viewed by over 1million people and she won with a ceramic sculpture head. She also works with 'Artistsinc' .. with Miker Art and has collaborated on memorial art where we incorporate the ashes into their artwork. Members were they able to watch her working with the clay to produce this sculpture.
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 We arrived with anticipation for our first demonstration for over eighteen months. This first one by Mike was to be in the new Learning room at Salford Art Gallery and it was interesting to see the suitability of this room. Having set up Mike passed round a couple of his black and white drawings made up of dots, before explaining other working methods. For some paintings he started by throwing paint at the canvas and had slowly refined this style. Some of these are shown below. For his demonstration piece he used a board he had prepared himself. This was coated in Acrylic masonry paint with children's play sand added. This gives a rough surface that he likes to work on. Having sprayed the prepared board with water, he started by adding the underpainting, blues and oranges etc. in the sky, changing brushes for each colour so that the colours didn't become muddy. These colours are then blended to create the effect he wanted. He then drew the buildings in paint and added clouds, before adding Pendle Hill in the background. Continuing to define parts, and using a 3/4 inch flat brush, he added trees, the road and the wall. The painting starts to come to life as areas are continually worked on. All too soon the session was over, which was a shame, although looking impressive, the painting needed a little more development. It's always good to see an artist's working methods and we realise that in the studio a painting like this would take a couple of days. Our first demonstration in the room and not too many problems. There was enough room for the number that attended and as no projectors etc. were needed no other problems arose.
Fortunately, Mike didn't start throwing paint at this painting so no cleaning up was need and the front row were safe! We look forward to the next demonstration next week. |
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