#salfordartclub #salfordmuseumandartgallery #salfordartists

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.

Mike introduced himself and explained how he started being interested in the arts by doing cartoons whilst working in South Africa.
The present style, he would be explaining today, he had developed over the last ten years. With this work he mainly works in black ink, although colour is sometimes added.
He started with this technique whilst on a sixth month break from work, using stencils and a French curve to get his outlines which he slowly fills in with intricate patterns. 
He often carries his small pieces taped to place mats around with him to work on when he gets a spare moment.

At this stage,

​ he handed out a booklet he has started to put together which showed more examples of his work as well as small templates for our members to use if they wished. 
Telling us he works from the top left corner, 'tumbling' his drawing downwards to the bottom right corner so as not to smudge his ink, (Hence the name for his work) He has finished ten books of his work and is now working on his eleventh.

Below are some pages from the help sheets to give us ideas as we started to do our own work.

At this stage several members of the group started work on their own interpretations of the floral theme and we are hoping to continue with this theme next week.

​Susan demonstrated an interesting way of working and I’m sure members learnt a lot from this and will be able to use these techniques on their own work in future.

Jane works in clay but also uses watercolours and other materials to enhance her work. In this instance the demonstration was using clay from a block.

She started her career working part time, creating smaller shapes before deciding to move on to be full time artist. A highlight was appearing on television in 'Home is Where the Art is' and when she won the commission,  her career really  took off and  since then she hasn't looked back.

Today, she slowly built up a head shape adding to it where needed, working in a tried and tested way that suits her subject matter. She often works on a range of sculptures  at the same time in various stages of finishing.

When working on the sculpture she says, "You must remember to turn it 360 degrees making sure that you work on all the way round and not just on the front for it to be successful."

Having started with the basic shape of a woman's head, she drew a line half way across vertically and adds horizontal  lines where the features, such as the eyes and nose, would be.

When working on commissions she stressed that it was important for her to talk to clients to make sure she knows exactly what they want.

Next, she carried on adding shapes to the head and slowly the features started to appear, She stated   that knowing the anatomy of the face is important to her work.  She  continued by making two small balls the same size to add as eyes, before  starting to add muscles to the face. 

Working in her studio it would take several hours to do one of these heads, but for this demonstration she can work a lot quicker.

She continued by adding  more features and muscles continually visualizing it in 3D. When working she doesn't use tools until the basic shape is formed by hand. 

When working with beginners the mistakes they  often make are to  start adding features too soon or in random areas which can create problems. One way to get around this is to squint and you then see just the basic shapes.

When asked about adding ears she does this to show how it is done, although in many cases a hat or hair mean these can't be seen in her work.

At this stage she started to to smooth out some areas and continued to work on the features before adding hair.

By this time it was starting to get  near  to the final image that  she hoped for and demonstrated how she would achieve hollowing out the final sculpture (Hollowing out is done from horizontal cuts) Even though in reality this would be done at a later stage when it would be dryer and the shape would not collapse. 

She then joined this section, back together to finish working on it for this session, and then revealed that the idea for the face came from a Modigliani portrait.

Jane doesn't use glazes which is very technical skill as she wasn't taught this way. This is just her particular way of working with final colours added using acrylic paint. 

An impressive demonstration and it's not often that someone can work in front of a group and pass on so much useful information about a working process and how their style has developed. 
An enjoyable afternoon spent with  a knowledgeable artist.

Rob introduced himself and then mentioned Liam Spencer, Alice Kettle and Michael Bernard who had all influenced his work, which now was a combination of all their techniques in his own unique style.
For this demonstration he was using Inktense pencils and doing a picture of Prague. He started with a quick drawing on canvas with a brown pencil doing a rough sketch before shading in the dark areas. He used a large canvas and at this stage he captured the essence of the picture. He doesn't use black but mixes his own dark colours before he using red oxide for the roofs. He slowly introduced more colours, before adding a deep blue to the sky and other areas.
At this stage he added a little P.V.A. to some water as he would be adding tissue paper to the canvas. This was when the true colours of the Inktense pencils was revealed. He also mentioned that he normally works with the canvas flat but as this was a demonstration, he used an easel for our easier viewing.
Using tissue from old clothing patterns, he covered most of the canvas, wetting some areas to create different textures. At times he dragged some colour onto the tissue paper with a brush before he allowed it to dry.
 For the final stage on this painting, he illustrated other   techniques he uses on his work, starting with acrylic inks and washes of colour, as well as white acrylic to bring back contrasts in the silhouettes of the buildings, for which he used a business card to scrape on the white paint. Finally, he used a brush to push the white around a little then a Prussian Blue and Raw Umber mixed to make a nice dark colour applied with the corner of card, quite thick in areas.

​After reaching this stage he left this painting and brought out another one to show us the next stages. He enjoys using magazines to add to the work and ripped out a pink colour for adding to the umbrella, as a background, which he could work on afterwards. Once satisfied he then proceeded to work across the painting, concentrating on separate areas.
Next, he added washes of thin watercolour to unify areas and brings out textures. Then he used a dry brush with a little white paint on it, rubbing some areas to bring out the light.
Finally, he said he would take the canvas off frame so that he could sew on it with an industrial sewing machine allows him to add up to 8 to10 different coloured cottons.
The finished painting would then be varnished to unity the surface colours before being framed behind U.V. Glass.

#salfordartclub #dannymorrell #salfordmuseumandartgallery 

Recently the club has been looking at ways to adapt our still life sessions. 
Danny started with getting us to look at Vincent Van Gogh's paintings of shoes and the ways other artists had conveyed this subject matter. With Vincent's shoes he explained how by the way they were portrayed could be used to tell a story with every scuff, scratch or hole adding to their character.
After producing his own well worn trainers we were given a shoe to draw using just black and white materials. 

Danny always gives entertaining workshops and all three of these motivated members to try new ways of working, which when we return after the Summer break can be used in club sessions.

#peterdavis #peterdavisartist #edwardhopper #lowry #JamesPatchellChettle

In his introduction, Peter described himself as a social realist artist who captures the modern day. He also introduced the term 'zeitgeist'  which was an unfamiliar term to some of our members.

He explained that it meant capturing the spirit of a time or in his case painting the characteristics of a period in time.


In his first talk he introduced us to Edward Hopper, one of his heroes and greatest influences. 
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Hopper was born at a time of shift from rural life to towns, where people were working in factories and steel production was cheaper and more effective. This was the start of a building boom in the cities.

He moved to New York and  as the city changed, cars became affordable to middle classes and railways  connected towns and roads were being built.
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These changes had an impact on several of his paintings  such as 'House By Railroad' which incidentally was thought to inspire the film Psycho.  Paintings such as 'Route 6 Eastham' with its stark shadows and 'Gas' where the pumps have been made bigger emphasizing the robotic feel to the scene,  capture the changing times.

It was interesting to hear about Hopper's detailed research  and sketches as he worked out the composition, including adding the tea urns seen in a nearby café.

Moving on, Peter talked about his own work and how it relates to modern life in the city and technology.
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He likes to include posters and graffiti capturing the dereliction of old buildings that are often being replaced with soulless blocks. The theme of isolation, as seen in Hoppers work, is also present. Capturing todays' figures, his paintings often include phones or other aspects of technology that influence our everyday lives. 

After the coffee break, he moved on to introducing aspects of MAFA; The Manchester Academy of Fine Arts, a group of which he is the archivist. Here he  talked about how it originated and the strong influence of James Chettle in ensuring the growth of the society.
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In 1935, it was due to Chettle's involvement that L S Lowry was invited to join the society and started to exhibit with them.

Although Chettle and Lowry were contemporaries, often painting similar scenes, the unique quality of Lowry's  style has made him famous.  Chettle has largely been forgotten, although his influence on the early art scene, especially in the north west, was very important.
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An interesting talk by Peter and we all had a deeper understanding of the meaning of Zeitgeist and  links from other artists that had encompassed this theme.

Carl likes to paint on a dark background on MDF that he has primed first and then paints plein air. He says that he prefers working outside as painting is easier as you can see what is there
First, he draws in chalk on to the prepared board covered in Vandyke brown, to work out the composition before starting to apply paint. He says he is creating a journey through painting using oil paints and believes the better the materials are, better the painting. Zest-it is used as a brush cleaner, and he also uses walnut oil to mix with the paint.
He paints some of the key areas in thin paint and then overlays a coat of fat paint around the figures. He is just getting colour on in different areas seeing how they react with each other. Because of his experience he knows what colour he wants and has a small book of colour mixes to refer to if he needs a specific colour. He then adds more light colours and starts to get some perspective on it.

​After the break, he starts to paint the tree and adds the sky between, before random yellow is applied to represent traffic lights etc. He then darkens up some areas making sure he is not too neat and adds pure titanium white to make parts stand out. He continues working on various parts of the painting using smaller brushes to add details and works in layers before adding leaves to the tree using a palette knife. He uses white beeswax to thicken the paint. More sky is added between tree branches, eventually adapting it to a twilight effect.
As the composition progresses, a rag is used to blend the sky, before branches are added and then more leaves using a range of similar colours. He washes out some of the chalk lines than aren't needed using thinner and a cloth is used to rub some areas, to blend them in. Towards the end he needs to colour balance the composition by using a continuity of colours, once the framework is in place.

He uses dabs of white and sometimes knocks these back as he says, “You don't often get pure white.” As the painting started to look Christmassy, he decides to add Christmas lights adding light areas where needed. Finishing touches are now added, and some areas are blended again before a few final brushstrokes are added and the painting is complete.
A super demonstration by a gifted artist. I'm sure everyone learnt something that will be of use. We look forward to further demonstrations from him.