Charles started by showing us some of his work and explaining his usual working process. He uses  a variety of pens, brushes and ink brush pens in his work.
Working from a photograph, he draws the bridge in pencil first, straight onto the white paper. When doing these in the studio or live, he  often does a thumbnail sketch first.  After the bridge, he draws the  mountains in the background before adding the trees. Then he uses a 0.3 pen to add details on the bridge starting with the keystone in the middle. Some structural mark making is added as well. 

 Ink is put in a small container with a dropper, then a couple of containers are made up by mixing water to ink on a 4 to 1 ratio for the darker wash and 8 to 1 mix for the lighter wash. Using a couple of nylon brushes he paints a light wash to add mountain detail at the back before doing the mountain on the left side with a  dark wash.
He then starts adding texture on the bridge and the darks under the bridge using brush marks to get the right effect. He can darken this, if needed, by going over it again. As he goes along he builds up areas adding some more darks with the brush, then more details with the pen.

Then he sketches in the bridge's reflection with a pencil before wetting that area of the paper with clear water and starts to add the reflections in a horizontal fashion. The trees are added behind the bridge before working on the stones along the riverbank making the large one at the foreground more textural.
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He carries on adding detail continually working on different areas as well as adding darks to harmonize the  painting. As the session comes to an end he adds some final details such as the  shrubbery .

Another interesting and informative session from Charles and I'm sure he will be back in future with a new demonstration.

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.
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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.

Having started by doing illustrations for books, such as  "Hidden Places" Les was spending up to twenty five hours working on a single painting. Pricing an artwork to sell, after spending so long on it,  made it difficult to price. Then he discovered pastels, where a painting could be produced  quite quickly and a whole new world opened up to him.

Talking about the wide range of pastels available, all with different hardness,  he moved on to talking about 'Pan Pastels',  a high quality medium that he uses. These can be mixed like paint and can create a watercolour like effect.
​You are also able to draw over them with a variety of pens and markers, as well as erasing highlights.  He then demonstrated colour mixing and then adding marks on top of these areas.

Les, then started his first demonstration, using a photograph as a resource. First, he  prepared a light background using soft Yellows. Working light to dark, he next added Magenta and Pinks, as well as Ultramarine, to portray clouds. At the bottom of the sheet he had masked off an area to try out his colour mixes. The pastel was applied with a specialist sponge and then detail was added to the picture, using a marker and ink pen.

His next demonstration showed us how easy it is to do a sky. Again, he started with the lighter colours before using a rubber to take out highlights. A masking tape was added to give a line for the sea. After this is removed, he added a distant rock formation with a building on it, also adding reflections in the sea. Darks were then added and we were shown how the edge of the sponge could be used to add details.  Again marker pens were used to add further details and finally a hard pastel was used to give texture to the sand at the front.

For the last demonstration Les decided to do a dramatic sky from his imagination. Following his usual process, lights were added first before the darks. Marker pens etc were used to add detail. 

A fascinating and informative demonstrations and it's not often you get three completed pieces of work in one session. Les Darlow says that he likes to create energy and movement in his work to stop it becoming static, and he certainly showed us how this can be achieved.  We look forward to his next demonstration at the club.

  Elise told us that she likes doing animal portraits and the one she was going to demonstrate was of a Field Mouse done in one of her brown sketchbooks. In this instance she was working on a grey mount board.

She started by sketching out the picture with a white gel pen before adding some background colour in watercolour paint. Using Lemon Yellow around the shape, some of the white outlines vanish a little. At this stage she used colours such as, Carmine Red and Indigo very loosely; keeping the edges soft. She then did some more drawing with the gel pen before adding colour to the mouse.

After adding the eyes with a black marker, she continued to build up definition to different areas.  Again with the black pen, shadows were added where needed and these were smudged with a finger  for a softer look. 

She continued to use gel pens in order to add the fur as well as the whiskers.  Next, she gave the  berries more definition.

 A fascinating demonstration, although it was a shame that feedback on the audio visual equipment stopped it being shown on the screen. Elise worked hard and even had to do some of her work upside down, so people could see. 

It was also interesting to see the demonstration done on the grey mount board, especially within a restricted time frame and to be able to compare and contrast it with the original painting.
There was a good turn out for this event, which was nice to see. Let's hope this may continue.

One of the innovations at the art club this year, has been the benefit of club members' skills in running workshops, giving demonstrations and talks. The last two weeks Lynn has run two workshops telling us about Mono printing and then allowed members to try it for themselves. 

Fortunately, the technique was fairly quick, so we could produce a variety of prints starting with rolling ink on a plastic sheet, then placing paper on top of it before doing a simple drawing. We were then able to experiment with adding offcuts of cloth, wallpaper or other materials to the sheet, and after inking them up some interesting abstract results were accomplished.  To take this further, pastels or paints could be added at a later date. Different effects could be achieved and we could also print on coloured paper.

Having seen David's work in exhibitions. we were looking forward to seeing how he achieved the effects in his work. 

Although described as Urban sketching, we started by experimenting with a painting of a still life, using a candle for a resist and ink or watercolours. This was to get us used to using the materials.

David demonstrated his technique and we could then experiment with this style ourselves. Considering this was new to some members, the results were quite impressive with a wide range of end results, often reflecting the individual's own interpretation of the still life.

​After a short break and a chance to view some of David's impressive Urban Sketches, we returned to either sketch along or watch him demonstrate how he drew a recent picture of Ordsall Hall.

Having already splattered some resist on the paper and roughly sketching out the building, he started to apply different shades of black ink, to block in areas. Using a smaller brush, he then added details. The next stages involved several types of white pens and markers to add highlights and window frames etc.  Finally, finishing by using an old toothbrush to splatter ink on areas of it and a block of carbon to darken the sky. 

This is a very simplified description as the sketch started to appear from those first early marks. Obviously, to do this has taken many hours of practice and like a lot of good artists he made it look so simple. Below is the original sketch on the left and the one on the right, completed for us in just over half an hour. 

A fascinating evening and one in which we all learnt a few tips to help with our sketching and ones which several of our members, who go out Urban Sketching, will be able to use in future.

After an interesting workshop last week looking at paintings by Mondrian and Kandinsky and then experimenting in the session, members were looking forward to this week's workshop.

The theme was Abstract Expressionism. Danny started by introducing the subject and then moved on to looking at how Jackson Pollock progressed from his early studies and paintings using early native American symbols, to his more well known action paintings.
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​Our first task involved the use of a pipette and black ink. We experimented with mark making using squeezing the pipette to get different thickness of lines and creating bubbles that popped to give splatter effects.  Considering that we all had the same starting point, it was interesting to see the range of results. It was enjoyable to have the freedom to experiment and it was easy to see how these could be developed further.

After the break, we looked at the work of Jasper Johns and particularly his paintings using the numbers 0-9. It was interesting to see how these could be combined and give a different painting.
We were asked to pick a word of four or five letters and design a composition built up from these letters. The distracting spaces could be filled up with shapes if we wished.  Again, it was interesting to see the range of work produced and often difficult to guess the word used as they were so well done. 

Another superb session by Danny and it certainly made us think about creating more abstract work. There was even enough material for at least another two sessions! Hopefully, we will be able to expand on this, with him, on a future date.

After an informative demonstration last week, it was our turn to have a go at the technique Anthony illustrated.  He completed his painting in about one and a half hours whereas, we probably needed twice as long. Having said that, there were some impressive paintings by members. It will be interesting to see if anyone carries on in this style and we may even have some examples in our exhibition, at the end of September.

To introduce the topic, Anthony showed us a series of his paintings demonstrating a range of techniques, before  revealing the Manchester scene that he was going to do.

He uses a limited palette of Burnt Sienna, Processed Yellow, Cerulean Blue, Ultramarine, Phthalo Green, Alizarin Crimson and Titanium White.

Starting by finding the horizon line, he then applies a quick wash of colours allowing them to drip and run. Next, he starts to draw the subject using a paint brush with a dark colour. In the foreground he blocks in  rough shapes, of the figures that he wants to include in the painting. This helps him to create depth. He then adds the buildings to balance his composition, before painting in the sky.

 After this, he starts painting the buildings, adding shadows and some warmer tones. Here details are starting to be added. The figures are then painted with thicker paint and as the painting progresses, opaque paint is added to the road and buildings. Here he is looking for negative spaces to bring the composition together and make the figures stand out.

He continues to add details, where required, constantly standing back to see where adjustments are needed. His marks are still applied quickly, as he works all over the picture. He looks for highlights and starts to add faces etc to the people in the foreground.  Finally, white is used in areas to finish the work. He explains that he has started with mid tones and then added the lights and darks in this painting.

Like all good demonstrators, he explained his work as he went along and produced a skilled final composition. Next week, we will all be following along on our own work, hopefully it will be as easy as he made it look; although I doubt this will be the case.