Author: Halifax Art Society

The Halifax Art Society had as their Friday demonstrator artist Anthony Barrow from Wigan. He has a unique style preparing lining paper with Gesso. Anthony’s painting preference is portraits, but we had asked him to do an industrial scene to give us ideas for our month of exploring the Industrial Heritage of Halifax. He was very helpful with his advice and tips and we all agreed that his finished picture of an industrial scene of Old Halifax was something to emulate.

The Halifax Art Society’s demonstrator last Friday was Terry Chip. All the members were eagerly awaiting Terry’s arrival… However, unfortunately he was delayed for one and a half hours due to horses loose on the motorway. This delay meant that Terry had only one hour left to demonstrate gesso in portrait painting.

He is highly skilled in the use of this medium and gave us many tips and advice on how to use it. Terry managed to finish a dramatic portrait in the short time available.

Our next demonstration open to the public will be the 7th of April at 10:30 am, when Anthony Barrow will demonstrate painting an ‘Industrial Theme’ using charcoal and acrylic glazes.

At their meeting on 24th March, the Halifax Art Society followed up the advice given by Edward Foster and tried drawing birds and other animals.

It was a good week for the members of the Halifax Art Society to hone their drawing skills. At Friday’s meeting at the All Saints Parish Hall, Edward Foster held a drawing workshop. His chosen subjects were ‘Birds and Animals’. We were taken back to basics as Edward had us filling pages of lines and circles. We then progressed to putting the circles into our drawing of a Woodpecker, then progressing to drawing animals. Edward gave us many tips and advice, which we noted down and hope to put into practice at our next meeting.

In addition a workshop was kindly given by members Philip and Lynne Hickin on Saturday at their lovely home. It was a more sophisticated event than Friday’s with dancing figures as the chosen subject. Lynne and Philip, both talented artists, had arranged different ways for us to pursue our objective. With videos, easels, photos and books we were not short of inspiration. Lynne’s drawing demonstration of stick-like figures, showing what position the skeleton would take when a certain pose was adopted, was much appreciated. We all felt that in the space of three hours, our understanding of movement in a figure and getting it down on paper had vastly improved. Our thanks go to Lynne and Philip for hosting and leading the workshop. We sincerely hope that they will invite us again.