Category: Review

Review

Christmas festivities

Halifax Art Society

More than 30 members attended the Society’s Christmas lunch at The Maypole, Warley, which was brilliantly organised by Kate Heatley.

For our last meeting of the year, members were invited to bring a piece of work to show and talk about. It was interesting to hear why a picture meant a lot to the person. After the coffee break and mince pies, there was a picture quiz where, in small teams, we had to guess different household/kitchen items from bygone days. It was really funny how close and way off target some of our guesses were!

Review

Mr Leaper and the Snowdog

Halifax Art Society

Last week Chris Leaper gave an interesting talk about how he created his Snowdog. Chris entered a ‘Wild in Art’ competition that supported The Kirkwood hospice in Kirklees. The Snowdog was inspired by Raymond Briggs’ The Snowman & The Snowdog book sequel. There were in total 31 large and 36 small, differently decorated Snowdog sculptures that created a spectacular art trail during September to early November 2022 around Kirklees. All 31 large sculptures were sold at an auction.

Chris entered a sketch of his idea ‘The Kirklees Rocket’ which was based on the railway stations in Kirklees. The body of the Snowdog was painted to resemble steel plates and rivets of old steam locomotives. It also displayed all the current connections and operating railway stations of Kirklees with Huddersfield at the centre.

We then had a go at creating our own Snowdog design on the template Chris provided. He also brought pictures of other designs. We had a really enjoyable morning.

Review

Pastel Landscape demonstration

Halifax Art Society

We had a great demonstration from Matthew Evans on the 18th November, who painted a landscape in pastels. He brought a photo of a landscape view and had drawn an outline of it in preparation.  He also brought some of his completed work which was impressive.

He gave us so many ideas and tips of how to use pastels and protect the image e.g. when you add water to pastel it becomes a watercolour to which you can then reapply pastel; if using a fixative you should lay the painting on a flat surface and spray it in a sweeping action from about 2ft away and greaseproof paper protects the image when travelling. The demonstration was very enjoyable and we all learnt so much.