WANT TO LEARN POTTERY SKILLS?

in Cawston Village Hall on Tuesday evenings and on Thursday afternoons you can learn pottery. Most work is hand built, but there is a wheel if you want to learn to throw. Work can be glazed and fired, everything you need is available. Term will restart in mid September, Phil Arthur is the tutor and may be contacted on Norwich 279687. He has a website which shows his own work. www.philarturpottery.co.uk

Lino prints...

here are some of the Lino Prints from Pauls course, some more will be finished this week as they have another colour to go on....

Life drawing day at Marsham....

another great and very productive day, many poses and many drawings......
oh yes and everyone exhausted by the end of the day!

WEYBOURNE STATION

Weybourne Station

We enjoyed a ride on the diesel train from Sheringham to Holt and then returned by steam, The Black Prince, to Sheringham and what a delight the whole experience was.

Which reminded me that in September our Summer School will be at Weybourne on September the 10th and 11th. 

Diesel and Steam trains will be passing through, railway memorabilia will surround us, the cafe will be open, and there will even be men in uniforms!

Lots of drawing, painting and photo opportunities, please let me know if you want to join our group.

SUMMER SCHOOLS

we enjoyed a brilliant day Life Drawing last week in Reepham, with our co-operative model Tina,(not me), while Paul fielded a busy two days Lino Printing. Some of the members of that group will come back for extra time as their designs took longer to cut and then print than expected. Today's group are working hard at cutting their first stage, and will print tomorrow.
Tomorrow in Marsham we have Life Drawing with a different model from last week which only leaves the railway experience in September to go!

Chinese Brush Painting

some members of the class slept right through!

Poppy the puppy

so here is the picture you have all been waiting for! She is bigger now, she grows overnight!

Glandford

we had a grand time, good weather (most of the time), and the shared experience of working outside directly from real subject matter, such an exciting and different experience from that of having to rely on photographs, or a dodgy memory! So congratulations to those of you who were brave enough to take part!

Summer School at Glandford.....

here is nearly everyone on the Summer School at Glandford, proving to be a really good choice of venue, with a wide variety of subject matter and excellent coffee and cake! and sunshine today, hope it will be good tomorrow too....

HELPFUL TIPS FOR OUTDOOR WORKING....and useful ideas to help you keep on the straight and narrow

HELPFUL TIPS FOR OUTDOOR WORKING  2015

get comfortable, don’t carry more stuff than you need, but make sure you have the essentials.

Wear a hat if the sun is bright as sunglasses will alter colour and tone. Be aware that the sun shining on your white paper can give you a headache because it can be so bright, so consider your position.

Have a drink of water with you, I use one bottle and drink from it as well as using it for my water colours, (in another container!)

Don’t rush to get started, time spent just looking and imagining potential images is not wasted. 

Look for strong shapes, so that you can build strong composition in to your image, regardless of whether they are trees, telegraph poles, cows, clumps of rushes or parked cars!

Look for the obvious and then LOOK TO THE SIDE OR BEHIND YOU for a less obvious or cliched image.

Seek out shapes and colours which you find interesting.

Thumb nail sketches, just an inch or two square, will help you assess the potential of any image and will therefore save you TIME, thereby helping you get the best out of the ‘plein air’ experience.

Don’t walk for miles!

If you take an easel try putting it up in the garden first!

Think about where the light is coming from, to help you to be consistent with shade and shadows.

If you feel shy and there are people about position yourself in a corner or in front of nettles so that no one can stand behind you!

Have faith in your choices of subject matter.

Remember that something in the foreground will make the distance appear more distant. The Norwich School of watercolorists often used a clump of dock leaves for this.

Look away from your work every now and again to rest your eyes and to help you review your work  objectively. 

Take a digital camera, it can help you assess a view, and if you want to finish something off at home then you can do so.

Quick sketches are just as important and telling about the vision you have as a longer term piece of work, and remember that a series of pieces, drawings or sketches or paintings, can be a useful way of describing your experiences. I find that there is often too much to ‘say’ in just one painting.

remember your hot water bottle and thermal underwear, rain coat, sun cream, insect repellent perhaps an umbrella, spare jumper!

Enjoy your day,     and remember look round when you clear up to check for dropped items……

just a little of the work from last term.....

and the answer

A dirty double crossing hedgehog!

Hedgehogs....

so what do you call a hedgehog which crosses the road, rolls in a muddy puddle and then crosses back over the road?
answer tommorrow......