Author: Halifax Art Society

The Friday meeting of the Halifax Art Society was certainly different for us. Our syllabus secretary Lynne Thomas had booked for us local artist Simon Mansfield, whose recent commission was that of illustrating a book of Orkney poems by G.M. Brown. There were seven poems in all and these were read out one by one by Simon.

After each, he showed us his illustration in the beautifully crafted book. Simon gave us fascinating background information and shared his thoughts with us on the inspiration for his illustrations; he drew them either in pen and ink or gouache. The most popular poem and illustration appeared to be about a chicken that met an untimely end.

The next public meeting on the 22nd September will be unusual, as we are planning to follow a DVD by Anthony Barrow to paint a ‘Watercolour of a Mediterranean Scene’.

The Halifax Art Society’s meeting on the 11th August was different from the usual form. Annie Lawson, our demonstrator for the morning, certainly gave us something to think about. It was cartoons!

She gave us an insight to her life as an artist, poet and knitter of toys. One day Annie drew people as stick figures with their speech in bubbles and people understood the deeper meaning. Later she refined them to more realistic ones. The second half of the morning was given over to a workshop in which Annie explained how she works: First get your story; then pick out points that you think will carry your message easily.

We spent our working session on the 18th August making little books from scratch.  We thoroughly enjoyed this as it is something most of us had never tried before. Some may be made into story books or zines, as we had seen the previous week. We think we will have to do this again soon.

The Halifax Art Society had a most entertaining Friday morning with their demonstrator David Newbould. David, a talented Yorkshire artist imbued with a blunt Yorkshire wit, made the meeting seem like just thirty minutes. He chose a country scene in Norfolk as his subject and used mixed media. David gave us many tips and advice along with funny jokes and tales of the lives of older Yorkshire folk that he had met. The finished picture was a delight.