Chairman’s Notes

 

You will know we have a new year of activities to enjoy at the art society with some exciting demonstrations and workshops on the programme. Although the weather in January disrupted activities, we have since had two inspirational demos given by Liz Relfe and Keith Morton. I came away each time really itching to get down to some painting and that is what I have been doing. Painting with colour on these grey, gloomy days is fantastic, even when it goes wrong!

 

I would like to welcome new members and I will try to get to know you. We are a friendly group of people and I hope you will feel welcome and able join in.

 

It has been very encouraging to see such good attendance at demonstrations. Please keep it up through the year and make the most of being a member. The society is thriving and we have a full membership and a waiting list. The committee members will wear badges at meetings to enable you to recognise them. We are there to help you but there are times when we need help and support, too, in order to make things run smoothly.

 

Wednesday afternoons have also been well attended, we have got extra tables but if there are more people than usual we might have to share space but generally, numbers balance out. Can I remind you to help with setting out and clearing up, please, it is not one person’s job.

 

The Spring Exhibition at Sandhurst is not far away and I hope you have it in mind. Even if you will not be exhibiting this time we would welcome your help with duties, spreading the news and your attendance. Please bring friends along to look and have a cup of tea. If you have not exhibited before and you would like some help with presentation please ask the Exhibition Secretary or I will gladly talk to you.

 

There are some good exhibitions on and coming up in London. I went to the London Art Fair at Islington in January. The top art galleries exhibit there and it is interesting to see work from well-known contemporary artists. Andrew Gifford made paintings of a London Bridge in different lights, I did not count them but there must have been 10 or 12. I loved them and when I left they were collecting red dots rapidly. There were also some beautiful drawings by a young David Hockney and many other works I liked and some I did not.  If you want an interesting day out go next year.

 

Happy painting,

 

Chairman

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A Painting Week in Bergerac

 

In these sub-zero days we’ve been having recently, my mind goes back to late October when I spent a week on a painting holiday near Bergerac, the town standing on the Dordogne, famous for its long-nosed son, Cyrano.

 

I flew from Southampton and less than two hours later, I was outside Bergerac airport, met by Ainsely the father of Steven Reed, the professeur for the week, and being driven north for half an hour to Saint Severin d’Estissac, a hamlet close to the river Isle.

 

There were five on the course (six being the limit), all English, as were the hosts, who provided full board on-site at Steven’s studio – newly built single or double rooms with en suite.  The meals were all prepared by Steven’s mother, a domestic science teacher whose culinary experience is complemented by 16 years of living in France.  Being a hamlet there were no distractions from the week’s objective – to get out and paint.  Ainsley did the transfers each day to painting locations.  Steven pushed you along to explore outside your normal ways and limits, and so I found it challenging but rewarding: he made you think critically and offered ideas and techniques of composition, texture, and approach to style, and you discussed any ideas, the pros and the cons, before putting them into practice.

 

Set in rolling countryside there was much to paint - chateaux, churches, bridges, farm buildings, woodland and animals.  Early morning mists shrouded the scenes but were driven away by the strong, late autumn sun as it pushed its way through, revealing a warm colourful palette.  The group comprised people of varying experience, one who had never drawn artistically before (he’d done engineering drawings), two doing watercolour (one quite accomplished), an intermediate oil painter who decided while there to have a go at acrylic, and me doing acrylic.

 

The first day was spent in the studio exploring some new-to-me techniques (texture), while Steven went round and talked to everyone in turn and looked at examples of the work we had brought along.  The next day we were out alongside the river, painting an abbey; the day after in a field opposite a chateau; then out and about in the hamlet, or in the yard; we had an afternoon trip to Bergerac town combined with a drive through the vineyards, and for Ainsely to pickup some more wine.  If the sun had not shone, we would have spent time in Steven’s studio in the barn loft (raised roof) which had ample space above the accommodation, so you could work all night if you wished.  Breakfast and dinner were taken in the large, farmhouse kitchen, and lunch was taken outside in the yard under cover, all drinks included.  Over the week I owed 15 euros for a brush, some canvas I had used, and a calendar I bought.  Overall it was a very convivial and painterly, enjoyable week.  More information:

 www.stevenreedfrance.com.

 

 

Committee Member

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The Real Van Gogh

 

I emerged from the hallowed halls of the Royal Academy of Arts with a completely different view of Van Gogh to when I entered.  In my ignorance, I had arrived at “The Real Van Gogh” exhibition expecting to see pictures by a deranged artist that were full of violent swirls and clashing colours; sunflowers in vases; starry nights of deep blue; fields of corn and haystacks.  Instead I encountered something completely different.

 

The exhibition was arranged in seven galleries, starting with his early works and illustrating his progressing abilities until his untimely demise ten years later.  Throughout these galleries, his correspondence with his brother, Theo, went hand in hand showing the ideas that Vincent was using in his paintings.  These letters, or ‘scratches’ as he called them, included constructive diagrams of  his current work and sometimes listed the colours that he had used.

 

As he had never drawn or painted before, in 1880 Vincent began to learn the technicalities of perspective.  Then, gradually, with encouragement from Theo, he introduced watercolours and his pictures moved from sepia and black to dull coloured tones. His themes were of the Dutch countryside and the peasants at work on the land or at their looms.  He used reed pen and ink or black chalk, then watercolour and gouache, and sometimes all these together.  At this time, Vincent was particularly interested in figures in motion; the harmonic form of the human body and catching the heroic quality of peasant life; all well presented by the drawings.

 

Only when he moved to Paris in 1886, did Vincent discover the wonder of colour, which exploded onto his oil paintings.  He began to experiment with complementary colour contrasts; red and green; blue and orange; yellow and violet, often choosing flowers and still life as his subjects.  Thus, I could see that he went from ‘Grey Harmony’ to intense colour; influenced by the innovative stippled techniques in the works of Georges Seurat and Paul Signac, but with his own modified style.  This style seemed to me to fit in with his previous reed brush approach to shading; short narrow parallel lines of colour over a complementary base colour.  For Vincent, colour no longer had to be realistic, but it had to convey a strong feeling or visual energy.

 

This vivid use of colour remained with him to the end, while he also developed the swirling foliage representations of cypress trees, wind tossed wheat fields and clouds; the rhythmic strokes by which we all recognise his later work.

 

I would certainly recommend a visit to this exhibition.  You will see many different examples of his paintings, not the usual sunflowers and starry nights, but ones demonstrating his artistic excellence and feelings, bound up in the beauty of nature, the countryside and people that he found so exciting.

 

Programme Secretary

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(Source acknowledgement: RAA Education Brochure and Catalogue)