FLEET
ART SOCIETY
Clothed Life-drawing Session September 2025
Three members offered to take turns in sitting for our first session of the 2025-26 season and there was a quiet concentration in the air, as we all attempted to gain a likeness in the poses and features. Some people had more experience than others, but we all enjoyed the opportunity to work alongside fellow artists, and appreciate different techniques and approaches. We also had time to chat and catch up after the summer break, making it a pleasant social afternoon. Those who did not choose to do the life drawing were able to work on their own projects. Thank you to Bill, David and Jenny for being our models.
Open Art Session July 2025
There was an additional session this summer, incorporating a sale of donated art materials. A small number of members turned up but we managed to raise over £100 for Phyllis Tuckwell and as usual, it was a very pleasant, friendly and relaxing afternoon. After browsing through the sale items, people chatted and admired one another's work, while sipping on cups of tea or coffee and munching the hob-nobs.
Summer Workshop with Kevin Scully, May 2025
Kevin was an engaging, encouraging tutor for a day of landscape painting in acrylics. He showed us his technique for sketching out the composition and blocking in the main elements in a thin wash of colour before working on the details in thicker paint. He talked about mixing colours and how to make the painting more expressive and interesting, with varied brush strokes. We all worked from the same source images, and followed Kevin's advice but the results were individual and all very successful, as you can see below. The first picture was a rural scene with fields, trees, a distant hill and even some cows (which only a few wished to include!) The second was a sunset sky, reflected in a river below. One member even combined elements from both source photographs, to produce his more imaginative landscapes. At the end of the day, one member said how much she had enjoyed it and that she had learned so much.
Kevin's painting
Summer Workshop with Matt Waruszynski, June 2025
Matt was an enthusiastic, knowledgeable and supportive tutor for this portrait painting day. Portraits are one of the most difficult subjects in art, and achieving a likeness takes a lot of intense focus. In the morning, we concentrated on drawing, looking at shapes, line and tone. Matt demonstrated his technique, explaining each stage that he worked on. His key tip: 'Draw what you see, not what you think you see'. We each chose a photo to work from and Matt came round to each of us, giving advice and tips and encouragement. In the afternoon, we moved on to oil paint - but in the first instance, just doing a tonal portrait - to warm us up! This was very useful to put into practice the techniques we had learned in the morning session. Finally, we moved into colour. Matt suggested we could use the ZORN palette, which was new to some of us - cadmium red, yellow ochre, ivory black (which, he explained, acts like a blue) plus white. This was very good for painting skin tones. So, we completed (or attempted!) at least 4 portraits in the day. I think most of us were pretty exhausted at the finish, but also feeling we had achieved some success - or improvement at least.
Summer Workshop with Tushar Sabale, July 2025
There was a good turnout for this workshop lead by Tushar, who had given a demo of his cityscape oil painting techniques back in November. This time he had chosen a photograph of a city scene with a flower stall, which most of us decided to use too. He started the session with another short demo, explaining the process of roughly sketching out the composition, then using tonal washes to place the shadows, buildings and other main features. We then set off on our own paintings. Tushar gave us each supervision, suggesting where we could increase or decrease the tones. This helped when we started to use colour, as the tones were already there. Sometimes it is hard to see the nuances of tone, when looking at dark and light colours. Tushar continued to work on his own painting, so we could check what to do next, while going round often to give individual encouragement and advice. We finished the day with a gentle, helpful critique by Tushar of the finished (or part-completed) paintings. Everyone felt it had been a very productive, helpful workshop.
