Review – Page 36 – Halifax Art Society

Last Friday we finally experienced a long-anticipated morning. About 30 people arrived to witness our president Paul Talbot-Greaves giving a demonstration of a local landscape in watercolour. As he used the society’s modern equipment, everyone in the room had a good view.

Paul brought along a pencilled sketch and a photo of the scene he had in his mind – he had added trees on his computer, changing the view slightly. He also showed us an edit of it to highlight the balance of his painting like the foundation of a house.

The next step was colour-matching. Paul didn’t use a very heavy paper, just 140lbs. With a big brush he started painting the light areas of sky, building, trees and covered the whole paper. He let the paper dry off naturally, as the use of a hairdryer would freeze it.

Paul dried out his palette for the second stage and used his initial colour match strip. When the paper got too dry he sprayed it with water, but also used the dry-brush technique in parts. He splashed some water into the painting, flicking his brush to give the impression of grass. For the large shapes of brambles in the foreground Paul used big brushes and assured us that the colours underneath would come through. The edges were softened with a wet brush and Paul added shadows on the building and trees.

At break we were able to buy materials and greeting cards from Paul or ask for his advice. The finished painting was stunning even though the paint was still wet.

Review

Drawing with scissors

10 May, 2022 Halifax Art Society

Taking inspiration from Matisse, last week members created work with cut-outs and gouache.

Review

Three of a Kind

5 May, 2022 Halifax Art Society

Last week’s workshop ‘Three of a Kind’ was led by our member Janet Gledhill. We brought along paper, pencils, acrylic or watercolours. Janet provided everything else, from fresh mushrooms, pears and lemons, to a variety of photos. The idea was to paint three in a row, vertically or horizontally.

Review

The Rainbow Method

27 April, 2022 Halifax Art Society

Julia Ogden showed us how to paint an acrylic portrait in a very unusual way. We were asked to bring a canvas or paper ready painted in YELLOW with the image pencilled on. We added lilac for all the shadows and continued with red for any warm tones we could see. Now we added green to our lilac and then used white to make corrections and to set highlights. With a small brush we used blue to paint in the details of the eyes and any lines. A brown watery wash finished the work.

Review

Eyes and spectacles

17 April, 2022 Halifax Art Society

On Friday 8th April our member Lynne Hickins gave a well prepared talk about how to draw portraits of people wearing glasses. As she used our microphone and camera everyone could follow with ease. We were astonished to learn that the history of glasses goes back a lot further than we had assumed.

It was first recorded in 1280 that crystal workers in Venice were creating lenses for focusing eyes. The first portrait we have of someone wearing eyeglasses was painted some 70 years later in 1352. This shows Cardinal Hugo de St Cher, and was painted in a fresco in Treviso, Italy, by Tomasso da Modena. Demand for spectacles grew after the invention of the printing press in 1452, but it was not until the 1700s that spectacles that were held in place by arms that fitted over the ears – that look essentially like modern spectacles – were invented. Before then, they had to be held in place with the hand, or perched on the nose!