“Autumn along the River” (acrylic painting)

For over forty years my interest in painting has continued to flourish and I have continued to experiment with various techniques and mediums. I also studied Art and Photography to advanced levels through college courses and developed skills in various media and subject matter through the wonderful classes taught by Helena Anderson from whom I learned so much, over a period of five years or more, as did many other student artists, many of whom are still painting today.

I now concentrate on oils and acrylics and occasionally use an air brush to produce out of focus backgrounds in my wildlife paintings. My style is realism, but not necessarily photo realism as I may start off using many photos to create the composition and then using photos for reference when painting detailed elements within the painting, not just copying one photo, many times deviating completely from photographs and just using my imagination. But always trying to end up with a realistic looking piece of work, as I have always been inspired by realism whether landscapes, wildlife or still life. I think my love of detail came from my occupation as a Maxillo- Facial Technician at the hospital, constructing splints for fractured jaws and facial and body prostheses for cancer patients, where detailed accuracy was paramount.

“Bright Eyes” (acrylic and oil painting)

The process of a painting starts with cutting hardboard or MDF (medium density fibre board) and coating with five or six thin layers of gesso, painted on with a small foam roller to create a very fine tooth, so that the surface looks smooth to the eye but has a fine texture. This helps with the blending of either acrylics or oils and stops the paint just sliding around.
Next is the block -in, where I am roughly blocking in the colours that I can see, but looking generally for the mid-tones, this is all done in acrylics. The painting at this stage looks dull and lifeless and this is the stage you can easily give up and think it’s not working; this is the advantage of acrylics as you can press on and keep painting. I find if I’ve done the block-in in oils, I must wait for this to dry over many days, by which time I may lose interest in the painting, and I have done many times!!

Next stage is getting the colours and tones as near as I can and adding some detail and getting the painting ready for the final details and highlights to bring it all together and to create light within the picture.

Sometimes for the final stage I may switch to oils, depending on how the painting is looking. The oils allow for better blending and more realistic graduations of colour and also don’t darken on drying as acrylics do. Many times, I will complete the whole painting in acrylics but if I’m struggling to get the look I want I will switch to oils, the painting then becomes an acrylic / oil painting, if the whole painting is gone over in oils I class it as an oil painting.

Finally, I spray the picture with a matt solvent-based varnish that can be used for both acrylics and oils. I use matt as I hate the glare from lights that reflect in a gloss varnish, I think this preference came from my early days working in gouache, with its lovely matt finish.

Brushes I use are anything from large flats to the tiniest miniature painting brushes for the smallest details, I keep all brushes, even when worn out, quite often cutting into them to make my own specialist brushes for grasses etc. I find small flats excellent for foliage on trees by using just the corners to gently dab on different shapes.

The paint I use varies; at present I use acrylic gouache (matt acrylic) as this gives a matt finish and allows oil paint to adhere much more easily than a gloss acrylic; if using a glossier acrylic, I would use a matt medium added to the paint. I use standard oil paints with Zest-it brush cleaner and thinner to let the paint down and speed up drying (I can’t use alkyd paints or mediums such as Liquin as I am highly allergic to them). If painting more than one layer of oil, I then mix in linseed or walnut oil into the paint to create the fat over lean principle.

I have held a lifelong passion for walking in the countryside of England, Wales and Scotland and I endeavour to capture the varied and ever-changing lighting conditions which make the scenery in the countryside so spectacular. Mountains are particularly close to my heart, and I enjoy using the above techniques to capture their majesty, equally I like to paint the beautiful scenery provided by the Norfolk landscape where I have lived for almost 40 years. My wildlife paintings are inspired by my studies of the works of: Carl Brenders, Robert Bateman and Daniel Smith whose work may not be known in the general art world but are top world-class wildlife painters with exceptional talent.

I am a member of the West Norfolk Artists Association, Art 21, and the Wash Group, I exhibit regularly in the Norfolk area. I also enjoy passing on my skills and knowledge to budding artists and have taught in various workshops in the use of oils, acrylic and pastel painting.

I love to paint in a realistic style and classical realism has a special interest to me with its chiaroscuro lighting effect of the old masters still life paintings, I quite often try to emulate this in my own still life works.

I hope this has been of some interest to the WNAA members of how I go about my painting process.

Keith Powell

Artist Angela Banner with one of her works in the new gallery at Hunstanton – Credit: Chris Bishop

A new art gallery has brought a blaze of colour to a seaside town hall.

Jackie Kitch has opened her third gallery in Hunstanton in the carrstone civic building on The Green.
The ground floor, which previously held the resort’s tourist information centre, is now filled with paintings, photographs, art works and crafts. Continue reading →

Helen and I ventured out for the first time for months, having had all our jabs and now feel we can move around again with relative safety.

Grayson Perry: The Pre – Therapy Years exhibition is coming to an end at the Sainsbury Centre so we booked tickets for Sunday afternoon.

Always entertaining, Grayson didn’t disappoint.

I guess he is Marmite to many, and we were able to get a good idea of how he has been able to become an established artist showing us his fantasies inscribed on his ceramic pots and plates as an art student from 1982 and 1994.

If you watch Throw Down on Channel 4 you will get some clue to the pottery skills. 
Philippa Perry is depicted largely on the artwork and from his beautiful sketchbooks you can visualise how these ideas are modelled on the pottery.

I have included some photos of the artwork on display and spared you the rawer elements which have been smoothed out by therapy!

You can’t help admiring his artistic career from crossdresser, Turner prize winner to TV presenter, CBE, RA.   

John Walker

Sometimes we all need a mindless distraction. However, downloading this app onto my phone made me think. In fact it sent me down a rabbit hole of colour definition and what is “hue”.

The app’s premise is very simple. You start off with some coloured squares which are arranged in terms of gradient of colour and hue, you press start, it jumbles them up and you must restore harmony. Continue reading →

What a fantastic exhibition it was! Over 50 members entered their work and we had so much praise from the visitors.

Our exhibitions are an opportunity to show off our creativity, but it is also great to meet other artists and this is a real bonus of belonging to the WNAA.

On Monday 20th September, I should have been going to London for the re-opening of my Mother’s old Dancing School in south east London, which had been bought and restored by some of the Stars from Strictly. Unfortunately, it was cancelled due to covid restrictions, so instead of getting a refund on my train ticket, I decided to go to Kensington Gardens and take a look at the Van Gogh Alive exhibition. Continue reading →

a colour of air by Martin Battye

The Cley Exhibition this year had been delayed due to the Covid Crisis – this enabled some artists to explore their ideas and creativity in a much more extreme imaginative way. Most notable were Martin Battye with his massive abstract paintings and Esther Boehm with ‘Ether’ an installation of great magnitude and sensitivity to the space, i.e. St Margarets at Cley.

The church in itself is stunning and the art must compete with this very beautiful ancient setting. Outside there were small installation pieces and on the outside wall of the church four massive wall-hangings suspended beautifully by Margie Britz all about the coast and beaches and stones and pebbles – very exciting.

At the Visitor Centre there were stunning charcoal framed pieces of moonlight and daytime and much more.

Detail of Ether by Esther Boehm

Stone to Stone by Margie Britz

Lydia Haines

Cley 21 Nowhere

www.martinbattye.com/
www.estherboehm.com
www.instagram.com/margiebritzart

‘Nowhere’. Cley 2021

Esther Boehm’s ‘Ether’ is a stunning work. Immediately visible on entering the church of St Margaret of Antioch at Cley, its repeated forms are both separate and work as a composite whole. White, suspended in the air above the baptismal font and above the tombstone of Francis Neale Gent (1711); in front of the magnificent west window, catching every nuance of light on and through the fluctuating sheen texture of each form. This maximises both visibility and the symbolic purity of white. Sometimes it even reflects the stone structure of the cinquefoil and arch of the window behind. Continue reading →

The Sound of Silence

I love nature. We really are blessed with the abundance of flora and fauna we have around us here in Norfolk. From the deer roaming the parklands at Holkham, to the humble but beautiful house sparrows comically arguing on your bird feeders. I am lucky in that my house faces out towards an open field, and at the time of writing, there are many hares playing and boxing out there – they are so much fun to watch.

There are also so many birds, too many to list, but my favourites will always be the pheasants; I cannot get over how such a beautiful bird can be living here on my doorstep. I love it all and to watch all these wonderful creatures living their lives is a gift that I am very grateful for; and during lockdown, I was even more grateful. There is something about watching a wild animal going about its daily business that brings a huge amount of peace and joy to my soul.

I am currently striving to create more ‘movement’ in my artwork. It’s often difficult when drawing animals in a realistic style, which is what I ultimately get the most joy out of, but I have learnt over the years that it massively helps to choose the right reference photo in the first place.

Rivals

I would love to try a looser style at some point, as I hugely admire many people’s work who work in a more expressionistic fashion and I feel that there is greater opportunity to create something with movement within the marks you make on the paper, but it just does not come easily to me.
Perhaps it does not help that I work from photos, rather than from life? I think I should get outside a bit more now the weather is warming up and try and draw from life more often, even if it is just some small sketches. It’s not always easy when your preferred subjects are wild animals, but where there is a will, there is a way! Note to self – take plenty of hot tea!

Rather than choosing a reference photo of an animal that seems to be posing or sitting still, I am trying occasionally to choose images where the animal is actively engaged in some sort of activity or movement. This has helped me somewhat and makes my art seem a little more ‘alive’, but I feel that I have a way to go yet. Looking at the other members artwork is so inspiring and has been helpful in encouraging me little by little to try different things and bring new ideas to my easel.

Looking forward to the summer and the exciting things I am sure it will bring for us all.

Jacqueline Bright