Hinckley and District Society of Art

April 2026 – Christine Varley

Dave Wykes — Thu, 16 Apr 2026 21:03:32 +0000

Originally from the Cotswolds, Christine Varley has been working since 1987 as a Pet and Animal Portrait Artist, She is now recognised as one of the leading Artists in her field exhibiting at Crufts and major Horse Trial events.

Christine visited the society in April 2026 to talk about her art-life and demonstrate her watercolour portrait techniques applied to animals – in this instance a dog, and was very well attended by around 45 society members.

More information about Christine can be found by following the link below

https://www.pet-portraits.co.uk/

March 2026 – Cordell Garfield

Dave Wykes — Wed, 01 Apr 2026 15:07:00 +0000

March 2026 already! and Cordell Garfield visited the society to talk us through his methodology for portrait painting in oils witnessed by another great turn out from the society members.

January 2026 – Nick Logan

Dave Wykes — Wed, 14 Jan 2026 16:05:47 +0000

2026 got of to great start with the majority of the society members, 40+, coming out to hear Nick Logan talk us through portrait painting and colour diversity.

Although Nick didn’t get to finish a painting on the evening his insights into how skin tones and shadows can be constructed, introducing the “skin tone sphere” and demonstration using his arm was very well received! In addition Nick also demonstrated the art of sizing faces and positioning of facial components among many other insights into portrait art.

The optical illusion of the tone wheel was also cool!! (See Image Below)

More about Nick and his art can be found by following the link here https://www.nicklogan.co.uk/

November 2025 Art & Crafts Fair

Dave Wykes — Wed, 07 Jan 2026 10:53:25 +0000

Hi Everyone

Just taking a short breather after yesterday’s Art & Craft Fair!!

It was a lovely day. Thank you to our wonderful stallholders, who put on such a great display of talent and our small band of fantastic volunteers who worked hard selling raffle tickets, selling cakes and serving drinks – we couldn’t have run the Fair without you – it is an opportunity for us to put something on for the Burbage community and the surrounding area and also to raise funds to keep HDSA going. Our HDSA Cafe & Raffle raised over £450 yesterday which is a great result and will help us with our programme for 2026.

November 2025 – Alix Almond

Dave Wykes — Wed, 07 Jan 2026 10:39:26 +0000

Alix Almond came to demonstrate her linocut print making techniques to the society in November 2025. A former teacher, Alix is now a full time linocut artist focussing on animals and birds and gave an interesting demonstration about the process of cutting and printing.

More information about Alix can be found by following the link https://www.alixalmond.com/

October 2025 – DJ Workshop

Dave Wykes — Fri, 31 Oct 2025 13:12:23 +0000

17 Members enjoyed a day with DJ from www.artbydj.co.uk, who took us through a Woodlight Light tutorial in acrylics. It was a busy day and we learned several new techniques in terms of colour mixing and paint application and ate lots of cake, what’s not to like!

The resulting paintings were really impressive as you can hopefully see in all the photos.

You can also see a nice video that DJ has put together here DJ Art Movie

We have another DJ Workshop in the 2026 Programme on 19 Oct where DJ will take us through a seascape in oils or acrylics.

October 2025 – Darren Awang

Dave Wykes — Tue, 14 Oct 2025 08:12:36 +0000

October 2025 demonstration with Darren Awang, Destruction Arts or Dazzler.18 depending on the art I guess was witnessed by another full turnout from the society.

Darren told us about his life, growing up in Liverpool, and how he got into art and how he developed his unique social history art talking through the process.

More about Darren can be found by following the link https://www.instagram.com/dazzler.18/

September 2025 – Sue Chatterton

Dave Wykes — Tue, 16 Sep 2025 13:28:13 +0000

September 2025! The year nearly over and Sue Chatterton finally made it to the society after an issue on her previously planned date. non the less Sue demonstrated her watercolour techniques in lion painting to much affect in front of another near capacity society

About Sue

https://www.suechatterton.co.uk/

Painting is fun and Sue firmly believes it should be viewed as such. Sue attempts to infuse joy into her paintings, often making them slightly “quirky”. In so doing, she says, “I put my inner self into every painting”. Sue paints mainly in watercolour but has been known to introduce pastel and coloured pencil to a specific piece. Watercolour is her chosen medium because of its transparency. Using a limited palette and keeping to transparent colours, Sue enjoys the process of experimentation.

Sue has a busy teaching schedule, tutoring several local art groups as well as her own workshops and running a series of classes for the Staffs Wildlife Trust at their headquarters outside Stafford. Sue also organises and runs her own painting holidays.

Sue won the Barrack Trust Award at the Three Counties Open Exhibition at Keele University in 2013 and has also had work exhibited with the Watercolour Masters and the Birmingham Watercolour Society. Sue is a member and the President of Stafford Art Group and a PA of the Society for all Artists (SAA). (Art Profile.co.uk

2025 Exhibition

Dave Wykes — Mon, 25 Aug 2025 14:44:04 +0000

The 2025 exhibition was another great success with over 160 paintings displayed. Once again the painting standard demonstrated by our artists has set the bar high for next time. 36 of the paintings were sold over the weekend so very well done to those artists!.

Friday evening the exhibition was opened with a cheese and wine party held for members to get a preview of their work on display, with over 50 people attending. The fragmented picture painted by various members of Freda Kahlo – “With Exotic Birds” was unveiled during the evening. Freda nearly didn’t make the exhibition as she ended up being too large to fit in our cars so and we had to call in a favour to get her to the exhibition – but it was worth it – here she is being unveiled…

This year Steve Daly from Burbage Charity Bikes came on the Sunday to present the “Joe & May Neate Memorial Award for Best Art Work” which went to Dave Freer for his painting “Italian Lake Scene”. Burbage Charity Bikes raises money for Breast Cancer and has raised over £50k so far. You can find out more about Burbage Bikes by following the link Link to Burbage Charity Bike Facebook Page

Dave Freer also came 3rd in the show with his “Up The Yard” painting with Shirley Simonetti coming 2nd with her “Mmmh Thank You” painting, both can be seen below.

New display boards with a revised layout were used this time to lighten up the exhibition and spread the paintings around the available space. Based on the success of the new display boards there may be some additions next year!

Enjoy some of the general images and paintings from the exhibition below.

The Individual Painting!

August 2025 – Sarah Miles Workshop

Dave Wykes — Sat, 16 Aug 2025 13:42:21 +0000

Sarah Miles Workshop 8th August 2025.

Sarah Miles Workshop

Sarah Miles came to see us earlier in the year with her Textures in Watercolour Puffin/Sea Scape and we had great feedback on how you all enjoyed seeing the texture techniques. As a result Sarah came back to undertake a workshop day! This time slightly different – working with charcoal to outline your design, then fixing the charcoal and then going back into the work with watercolours to add colour and texture.

Sarah took us through all of the process to complete a picture by the end of the workshop.

The Workshop will ran from 10am to 4pm at Burbage Congregational Church Hall with tea/coffee & cake included.

Here are some images from the day