Claire Botterill demonstrates

This month, March, saw members being instructed in the art of drawing seed-heads with inks and washes. Claire Botterill brought several of her paintings to show the wide variety of her skills and she passed them round the audience to allow us to examine her techniques as the demonstration progressed.

Claire had set up a still life and had drawn out the basic sketch of a bunch of seed-heads in a vase, with a cardoom lying in front thus giving a variety of textures, which would show spikes through to feathery effects in the picture. The outline was drawn in ink which, when partially wetted , gave a blurred effect alongside sharp lines. Sometimes the ink 'split' into its component parts giving various colour ranges and effects.

She also used basic children's wax crayons to enhance and mask the colours before putting a water colour wash over the top. This high lighted some of the colour and foliage adding to the pleasure of the picture.

Members were then encouraged to have a go themselves and some were brave enough to do so, while others admired their work.

Diane Bell




Spring Exhibition Poster winner

Here is the Spring Exhibition poster that was done by Thomas Allsopp. He is our youngest member and obviously very talented! He was in competition with all our members. Well done Thomas.

Tania Reed