September 2024 – Helen Tarr

Another good turn out from society members to witness Helen Tarr demonstrate her method for still life painting in oils, using a fairly light impressionist style of flowers in a jar.. About Helen Tarr: https://www.helentarr.art/ Helen Tarr is a professional artist, originally from Gloucestershire, currently living in the National Forest area of East Staffordshire. She specialises in alla prima oil paintings…

2024 Exhibition

The 2024 Art Exhibition.  Fantastic couple of days with so many paintings on exhibition/sale – around 150 in total and around £750 raised.  Visitors voted for best picture, it was never in doubt and a landslide victory for Shirley Simonetti for her pastel painting entitled “Sterling Mouse”. Shirley was presented with the “Joe & May Neate Memorial Award for Best…

August 2024 – Jay Dubya

John Smith aka Jay Dubya from Ashby De La Zouch came to the society in August 2024 and entertained us with his Big Brush Acrylics demonstrations.  John showed us some impressionist methods of painting at speed, entertaining us with many “Artists Stories” while producing two paintings during the evening, both of which remained in the hands of the society for…

July 2024 – Julia Timmins

Another good turn out from the society members for a slightly different demonstration type, but remaining true to the Arts & Crafts objective of the society, Julia Timmins visited the society in July 2024 to demonstrate the art of wood carving and subsequent printing.  Julia worked for many years in the Birmingham jewellery trade before transferring those skills to the…

June 2024 – Peter Woolley

Peter Woolley demonstrated a landscape scene from the Lake District in watercolour for the society in June 2024.  Peter used photos and pencil sketches as reference for his painting while not letting the minute detail get in the way of the process to produce a great piece of art. Starting with a very simple wet wash, peter showed how to…

May 2024 Arts & Crafts Fair

2024, May, Arts & Craft Fair! Lots of people attended, we had brilliant support for the HDSA Cafe from a small number of our members, who worked really hard on the day to make the HDSA Cafe very successful – we are so grateful for your support!  Thank you to everyone who made cakes for the Cafe. Our stallholders once…

May 2024 – Paul Berryman

Paul Berryman visited the society in May 2024 to a near full house, around 40 society members in attendance, and undertook a charcoal sketch of our own “PIP”.   A very entertaining evening was had, PIP being relieved it wasn’t a nude portrait and with Paul demonstrating his “3 part Method” in portrait sketching producing a souvenir sketch for PIP to…

April 2024 – Richard Cave

Richard Cave from the Reading Guild of artists visited the society in April 2024.   Richard has drawn and painted from childhood winning prizes for art on television and at County Art Shows whilst still at school. He discovered a love of watercolours at school and later developed a facility in this medium and in perspective drawing to use in his…

Exhibition Stand Painting 2024

The 2024 exhibition got underway on Saturday 23rd March when members of the society gathered to refresh the exhibition boards. We had good team work and a bit of fun, as well as a productive day – all the boards are painted, we will have some follow up work to apply a couple more coats but this should not take…

March 2024 – Max Hale

Max Hale visited the society in March 2024 and saved the day due to a short notice cancellation of our advertised artist. Max gave us a fun and entertaining demonstration, painting a “Cafe” scene using Acrylics and demonstrated techniques in blocking to create the image. Maxwell Hale, (Max) is an artist/painter with a depth of experience spanning almost five decades.…

January 2024 – DJ Art

Dave Johnson (DJ) visited the society in January 2024, our first demonstration of 2024!. DJ’s demonstration centred on a painting of the Aurora Borealis and techniques to help blend oils.  The presentation was well received and by the society and DJ kept us entertained with his engaging style. About DJ: https://www.artbydj.co.uk/  https://www.facebook.com/artbydjdj I have been drawing and painting for as…

November 2023 – Sara Wykes

Sara, our own Secretary, made the November presentation, saving the day, having had a call from the planned artist who had a medical problem and could not make the planned event. One of Sara’s “art” passions is Glass Fusion so in a matter of a couple of hours put together a multi-media presentation explaining the technicalities of glass fusion along…

October 2023 – Steph Coley

Steph visited the society in October 2023 and demonstrated her mixed media portrait art. Using torn book and song sheet pages glued to the canvas, over drawn with a ball point pen or biro! and a little ink and acrylic paint to produce a stunning portrait image. About Steph:  https://stephcoley.com/ A mixed media artist born in Derbyshire, UK, where she still…

September 2023 – Tim O’Brien

Tim made the visit to the society in September 2023 arriving with just seconds to spare due to traffic but was unperturbed by this and continued to make a very interesting 2 part presentation to the society showing how first to draw wheels with perspective and moving on then to produce a painting in under 45minutes of racing cars on…

August 2023 – Heather Griffin

Heather Griffin visited the society in August 2023, this being her second visit to the society having  helped us out at short notice in 2022.  In 2022 Heather painted in oils and created a Pig painting, this year moving on to Sheep! To re-cap on the “Pig” follow the 2022 link Heather in 2022 Otherwise see here the 2023 Sheep…

July 2023 Colin Joyce

Colin had travelled the UK on his way to the Patchings Art Festival and was able to demonstrate to the society on-route in July 2023, demonstrating the painting of a “sea scape” scene using oils as the medium. The scene was based on a view of the Forth Bridge from long distance, although not in the painting, but having a…

June 2023 Graham Laughton

Graham Laughton visited the society in June 2023 to give us an interesting demonstration of making a portrait drawing in pastel, Lynda, one of our members, was the lucky person asked to sit for him as the model. By clicking on the image below you can see the progression of the drawing from initial lines to the final portrait

May 2023 Phil Biggs

A change in the programme due to ill-health of the planned artist saw Phil Biggs visit the society in May 2023, Phil’s second visit to the society, the first in 2014, to show us how to construct a landscape in Watercolour based on a Lake District scene.  Throughout the evening Phil was seen “painting” behind the easel – this turned…

April 2023 Steve Woodham

Steve visited the society in April 2023 and showed us his approach to creating Cubism art using bottles and a glass as subject matter.  Whilst the video camera was upside down for the first half of the presentation this didn’t actually matter as the picture was continually spinning around as Steve created the art – bottles up or down didn’t…

March 2023 Leanne Ellis

Leanne Ellis visited the society in March 2023 and entertained us whilst painting not one but two paintings both donated to the society which will be included in the 2023 Christmas social event later in the year. Leanne demonstrated her dynamic approach to painting and shared some useful tip during the evening. About Leanne https://www.leanneellisart.com/index.html I was born in 1980 and…