Club Exercises

It seems a little weird writing a post that has nothing to do with flowers and Gouache and lost edges. But I do want to keep the site active and have not yet started another major floral work. It will happen soon, but until then, I hope you are not too disappointed with me sharing our club activities with you.
We meet once a week for a 2 hour session, and the subject , although often quite loose, is compulsory. It is great in that you do not have to spend hours thinking about what to paint, but you do have to think a bit about how to interpret the subject. When you have been a member as long as I have, the same subjects keep coming around with an alarming regularity. As one of the three members who devise the programme, it if often difficult to think up about 40 different topics that are manageable both from a time point of view and carrying resources to the venue. We tried always having an arrangement in the middle of the room, whenever possible, but as the group grew, the distance away that members had to sit, and an ageing membership with eye problems, this had to be abandoned. Now, everyone brings what they want, except a painting by someone else to copy, which is absolutely taboo, and they can bring objects or photos or use their imagination as they wish. If you are interested in the sorts of things we do, Peter Ward often posts a series of photos of members efforts. http://watercolourfanatic.blogspot.com/.

Two or three weeks ago, the subject was 'Terracotta' and members were quite imaginative about the various pots that they produced. Peter painted the Terracotta Army, which was a very inspired idea, and you can see that on his blog on an earlier post. I chose to paint a small corner of a garden with some large plant pots.

Its ok, but I shall do nothing with it except, maybe, put it in a mount and put it in the browser at the exhibition.
Last week we had to do 'Hats and Bags' and I chose to do a row of school hats hanging on a row of pegs!

Again, it is just ok, but this time I will put it in a frame for the exhibition, because I do like to add a bit of variety to the subjects on show, and it does make a change from flowers!
What is also interesting about this painting is that Peter was kind enough to give me a small dot of 4 Daniel Smith Lunar colours which he had recently acquired. These colours are created to granulate readily when used. The colours are Lunar Black, Lunar Blue, Lunar Violet and Lunar Earth.
I used a mixture of all these colours to paint the wall behind the hats and I was really pleased with the results and surprised at how easily they do granulate to give an interesting texture to the painting. If you enlarge the image, you should be able to see the effect.

This week its 'Barns and Farms' which I am sure will be too poor to share with you, not at all my thing!! Still you never know!