Hi all

Unfortunately we have now come to the end of this terms courses but you certainly finished with a flourish!  The Pattern course used Tunisian ceramics as their source of inspiration this week, creating some fantastic colour combinations.  The Drawing course surpassed all my expectations and each person produced an accurate piece of a jigsaw puzzle which fitted together to make one picture.  It’s a real testament to how far you’ve come in this course and how good your proportion and shading skills are.  In the animal course we finally got to use some brighter colours on a picture of a parrot using oil pastels.  This really tested your colour mixing skills, so well done to everyone for being experimental.  And lastly, the pastel course had a model this week to pose for them.  This was a quicker way of working and allowed you to make several sketches whilst practising your proportion.

Well done to everyone who has taken part in the courses.  I can really see how you’ve improved over the last 7 weeks and I hope you’ve enjoyed it as much as I have.

Hope to see you in the new courses starting in April.  Click on the Courses for 2016 page for further details.

Until then, have a lovely Easter and I’ll see you soon.

Wendy

Hello everyone

What a great week of drawings!  The Pattern course took inspiration from Japanese prints and experimented with colour mixing.  The Drawing course used different types of pen with a cross-hatching technique and worked on a range of backgrounds to create interesting effects.  It was cat week for the Animal Portraiture course who created fantastic pen drawings with subtle colours as a background.  For the Pastel course is was self-portraits – this task is always met with a certain amount of trepidation but they turned out brilliantly.  Well done to everyone!

Sadly, next week will be the last lesson of this terms courses but fear not! – More courses are on the horizon!  Bookings are now being taken for next terms courses which will start in the week commencing Monday 4th April 2016.  For further information go to our “Courses for 2016” page.

See you all next week.

Wendy

Hello folks

This week the Pattern course went back to the roaring 20s with some fab paintings based on Art Deco.  The Drawing course looked at how glass and water can distort objects and how to go about drawing them.  Not an easy task but we broke it down into small steps and you really got your heads around it.  The Animal portraiture course tackled one of the most difficult animals to draw – horses, with some beautiful results.  The Pastel course looked at scale and how to enlarge objects in a picture without losing proportion.  Well done everyone, another week of wonderful pictures!  Every single one of you has made progress since the start of the course and I’m really pleased with how well you’re all doing, so I hope you are too.

See you next week for more fabulous creations!

Wendy

Hi everyone

You did fantastic work this week!  The pattern course produced some amazingly colourful pictures based on African prints which looked great, especially when we arranged them altogether.  The drawing course took on a new challenge in trying to create different tones by using just a black pen and cross-hatching technique.  We worked on our speed in the animal portraiture class by making some very quick sketches of meerkats one after another to create a more spontaneous style of drawing – very handy if your subjects won’t stay still for long.  The pastel class tried out a new technique using only 3 colours and working on a varied background.  It was a completely different style to how you have been working so far, so well done to everyone for having a go.  I am loving seeing all the wonderful pictures you’re producing and seeing such varied styles of working.  I can’t wait to see what you all come up with next week.

See you soon.

Wendy

P.S.  A few people have asked me if there is any break in our courses for half-term.  So just to confirm, there is no break and we have 3 more weeks of lessons until the end of the courses.  The very last lesson for this term will be Thursday 18th February.  The next term will start around the end of March/beginning of April (exact dates to be confirmed) and I will have further information on this in the next couple of weeks.  So watch this space!

Hi folks

I think we can all agree that this week was a toughie but just look what you can achieve when you just step out of your comfort zone and push yourself that bit further.  The pattern course used Art Nouveau as inspiration for creating beautiful decorative letters.  The drawing course took on the great “Pinecone challenge” (not for the faint hearted) and proved that you can tackle even complex objects if you take it one step at a time.  The animal portraiture course tried out yet another medium this time – watercolour, and produced some fantastic paintings using only 5 colours.  The pastel class had a real challenge in drawing white objects on a white background which takes some thinking about but you all did brilliantly and really experimented with your colours.  Well done everyone!  I’m so pleased with how well you’re all doing so please be proud of how far you’ve come in just 3 weeks.

See you all next week.

Wendy

Hi Everyone

This week the Pattern Course looked at Indian Henna Tattoo patterns and created some of their own designs using ink.  The Drawing Course started to build on skills learned in the previous lesson and made some observation studies of plants.  In the Animal Portraiture Course we got messy with charcoal and elephants.  And in the Pastel Course we got messier still using natural forms as our subject and practising colour mixing.  You’ve all done some fantastic work this week and I can see you are already making progress in only week 2!  Keep up the good work.  Next week will offer up yet another challenge for everyone.

Looking forward to it.

Wendy

Happy New Year everyone!

The new term started this week and it was great to see you all with pencils and paints in hand, ready for a creative 2016.  The Beginners Pattern Course began with some Aboriginal style paintings while the Beginners Drawing Course Level 2 looked at how to build up a picture using basic shapes.  We did pencil drawings of dogs in the Beginners Animal Portraiture Course and the Beginners Pastel Drawing Course took inspiration from the Impressionists.  I was a great first week and very exciting for me to see how you are all tackling new subjects and techniques, well done everyone!  Hope you’re all looking forward to next weeks lessons.

See you soon.

Wendy

Thank you to everyone who came to the exhibition at the weekend.  It was great to see over 90 pieces of work displayed together.  Many people commented on the high standard of work on show.  So be proud of what you’ve achieved.    It was a great opportunity for people from different courses to meet and see what the rest of Leeds Art Group have been up to this term.  Congratulations to Claire Wright for winning the “Visitors Favourite Picture” for her painting “Home”.

Thanks to everyone who helped out either with serving refreshments or packing everything away at the end.  Thanks to Jenn Smith from thetreasuremap.co.uk and Graeme from Dinsdales Art Supplies for providing stalls.  Thanks also to anyone who provided the mountain of lovely homemade cakes that continued to appear throughout the weekend – yummy!  I’m very grateful for all the hard work you put in.  I hope you enjoyed the show and hope you’ll want to do it again next year.

Time for a well earned break for all of us now but keep practising all the new skills you’ve learned this term and I’ll look forward to seeing you in January.

Have a lovely Christmas.

Wendy

Hi folks

Sadly this week was the last week of classes but what a finale!  Oil pastel parrots, Tunisian ceramic patterns, Escher print jigsaws and a life model thrown in for good measure!   I’m so proud of the progress you’ve all made this term.  You’ve tackled every challenge I’ve thrown at you head on with lots of enthusiasm and look what you’ve achieved in just 8 weeks.  It’s been a great term and you’ve all been such fantastic students.  I hope I’ll see lots of you back in class when the new courses start in January.  For further course information go to the courses page by clicking here:  Courses For 2016.

Thanks for a brilliant term and hope to see you again soon.

Wendy

You’re submissions for the Winter Exhibition have been flooding in and it’s going to look great!  But there are still some spaces left for a few more pictures.  So for anyone who hasn’t yet submitted a piece of work and is feeling a little under-confident, now is the time to give yourself that extra little shove and show off a bit!  Thank you to everyone who has already submitted something and thank you also for all the support you’ve offered.  It’s shaping up to be a great weekend!

But before we get to that, let’s have a look at what you’ve been doing this week.  The Animal Portraiture Course tackled yet another new animal and a new technique.  The Pattern Course took inspiration from Japanese prints.  The Drawing Course 2 tried out different backgrounds for their drawings.  The Drawing Course 1 practised proportion when drawing the human figure.  As you can see below, you did some fantastic drawings.  I hope we’re going to see some of them in the exhibition so everyone else can enjoy them.

Well done everyone.  Next week is sadly the last week of lessons for this term but if you would like to book a place on any of the January courses then please get in touch.  Further details can be found on the courses page: Courses for 2016.

See you next week.

Wendy