Leeds Art Group

It’s good to be back again after our Easter break and great to see how eager you all were to get creative!  In the Watercolour class we used a range of techniques for creating skies and stretched some paper for working on next week.  The Drawing class looked at scale and used charcoal and chalk to create their enlarged drawings.  The Pastel class had the difficult task of drawing white objects on a white background without using any black for the shadows.  Once again, everyone rose to the challenge and produced great results.  Keep practising and keep building your skills and your confidence.  Looking forward to seeing what you can do next week.

Wendy

P.S.  If anyone happens to be in Leeds city centre this Saturday, there is a crafts market at Holy Trinity Church on Boar Lane, 10.30am – 4.30pm, free entry.  Go along if you want to support local designer/makers.  This event will be running every month.  Visit their facebook page for more details:  http://www.facebook.com/thestallsleeds

This week the tasks were a little bit trickier for everyone.  The Drawing class looked at manmade forms, the Pastel class drew natural forms and the Watercolour class used both.  It’s really lovely for me to see how much some of you are enjoying your lessons and how you can get engrossed in your work.  I’m also enjoying seeing everyone’s individual styles gradually emerging.  It shows that you are gaining confidence in your own abilities and not trying to emulate what other people are doing.  I’m so pleased with everything you’ve done so far – keep it up!  Don’t forget that there are no classes next week to give us all time to eat our Easter eggs.  The Monday class will resume on April 13th and the Wednesday classes resume on April 15th.

Have a lovely Easter everyone!

Wendy

What a great start to the new term!  So nice to see everyone so enthusiastic and ready to get creative.  The Watercolour and Pastel classes both looked at colour mixing and learned a few basic techniques to get started.  The Drawing class worked on how to gradually build up a picture from basic shapes to precise detail.  You all did some superb work and I hope you enjoyed your first lesson.

See you all next week.

Sadly this week was the last lesson for all three courses but what a finale!  You all made a great job of drawing our life model.  We mainly concentrated on proportion and made a series of sketches/paintings using various techniques to get the proportion just right.  Well done, you all did brilliantly and I hope you’ll join us for future Leeds Art Group Courses (especially Kate who brought in the Lemon Drizzle Cake – delicious!).  Get in touch if you need any information about further courses or visit the  Courses for 2015  page.  The next courses will be starting on 23rd March, so contact me if you’d like to book a place.  Give yourselves a pat on the back for all the progress you’ve made this term.  It’s been an absolute pleasure teaching you all and I’ll look forward to seeing you soon.

Wendy

The Pastel Class and Drawing class  tackled probably the lesson people dread the most this week – self-portraits, but once you’d started with a few guidelines you did really well in adding all the varied details of the face that give us our individual faces. I think some of you produced your best work so far this week, well done!  The Watercolour class did some paintings of the human figure to prepare them for next week when our life model comes in to pose for us.  It’s life drawing for everyone next week and sadly it’s also the last lesson of the course.  The dates have now been confirmed for next terms courses so have a look on the “Courses For 2015” page for further information and get in touch if you’d like to book a place.

See you all next week.

Wendy

P.S.  I almost forgot to say thank you to John and Simon for bringing in the wonderful cakes again. Yum!

You did some really great work this week folks.  The Pastel class looked at scale by taking small everyday objects and enlarging them.  The Watercolour class  painted leaves on a contrasting background to really experiment with their colour mixing and put into practise all the techniques that they have learned so far.  The Drawing class did some timed drawings to work on their speed  but also to help them identify the key elements of a drawing first before adding detail.  Well done, you are all really grasping the key points we’ve covered in the courses so far.  Looking forward to seeing what you produce next week.

See you soon.

Wendy

Over halfway through the course already and look how well you are all doing.  The Pastel class tried a new technique this week, working on a textured surface with only 3 pastels.  The Watercolour class looked at how to work on different parts of a picture and work your way around so that you are never left watching paint dry.  The Drawing class used grids to enlarge a photograph and worked on their proportion and shading skills.  There were some great pictures produced this week.  Whenever I give you a challenge you don’t let me down.  If you get chance this week, take the opportunity to compare the work you did this week with the work from the very first lesson and I think you will see a definite improvement.  Well done everyone!

See you soon.

Wendy

P.S.  Special thanks to Simon’s wife for baking us the delicious carrot cake.  All baked goods will be gratefully received!

Once again the weather did it’s best to keep you away and still you made it to class.  Well done to everyone for making such an effort to get here through the snow this week and what fantastic pictures you produced.  The Pastel class had the difficult task of drawing mostly white objects on a white background and using colour to create shadows.  The Watercolour class tried out some different techniques for paintings skies and the Drawing class worked on some large scale charcoal and chalk drawings.  You all tried something new this week and I’m really pleased with what you produced.  Great work!

Wendy

Well done to everyone who braved the bad weather and made it to class this week.  In the Pastel class we used natural forms for a still life composition and continued to practise our colour mixing.  In the Watercolour class we introduced some manmade forms and looked at how to add shadows on and around objects and to consider light direction.   In the Drawing class we looked at entirely manmade forms which are generally a bit trickier than natural forms but great for practising your proportion skills.  Well done everyone, this is only week 2 and I can see you are really thinking about all the points we have covered in class.

Keep practising and I’ll look forward to seeing you all next week.

Wendy

A great start to the new year and the new term for Leeds Art Group.  It was lovely to see so many of you in class and ready for a creative challenge!  The Pastel class started by looking at impressionist paintings and mark making while the Watercolour class experimented with colour mixing and brush control.  The Drawing class looked at natural forms and how to use shading to create depth in a picture.  I was really impressed how well you all did in the very first lesson and I can’t wait to see what else you can achieve throughout the courses.  Here’s just a few examples of what you produced.

See you all next week.

Wendy