Halifax Art Society members had a very interesting working session on Friday 13th July – a lucky day, indeed – as some lovely results were achieved using pastel techniques demonstrated by Sue Smith the previous week.
Last Friday, 23 of our members came in spite of the heat to enjoy Sue Smith’s demonstration ‘Animal Portrait in Pastels’.
We watched in wonder as a dog’s portrait emerged from the black ‘Wet&Dry Sanding Paper’ which Sue prefers. She used hard pastels first for the dark tones, then changed to soft pastels and later to pastel pencils. To give texture she drew tiny strokes in the direction the fur grows. The dog appeared in amazing depth.
Next session we will try working in pastels ourselves.
On the 29th June, the Halifax Art Society put into practice all we had learned previously from William Gall. Not everybody had to buy acrylic paint as the society was providing them and palette knives too. We enjoyed the morning as usual, not only the artistic work, but also the social side of it.
The Friday meeting of the Halifax Art Society welcomed Mr William Gall as their demonstrator on the 22nd June. His remarkable skill is his use of acrylic paint.
He chose as his subject a woodland scene and worked on a larger than portrait style canvas, which was already prepared with white acrylic. After roughly drawing in trees, he used a pallet knife to cover them with white acrylic and made branch like scratches with the knife. As he worked he gave us lots of advice and his use of a very limited pallet produced some amazing colours.
His finished painting was inspirational and we all admired it greatly. We shall put into practice all that he has taught us at our next meeting.
On the 6th of July Sue Smith will demonstrate ‘Animal Portrait in Pastels’.
Halifax Art Society’s exhibition is being held at the Dean Clough Gallery for the first time. Together with the exhibition of Leeds Fine Artists and amazing work by Midgley Primary School students it is certainly worth a visit.
Halifax Art Society 