The winter programme of member's activities takes place on Tuesdays at Beare Green Village Hall, 3 Merebank, Beare Green, Dorking RH5 4RD.

 Winter Program September - December 2025

All day workshops will cost £10.00: PAY ON THE DAY

NOTES

Pauline Allbeury: Glass, Reflections and shadows 16^th September

We will be concentrating on how to paint glass objects and make shadows and reflections contribute more to your paintings.

Materials list. Your preferred painting materials. A fairly smooth surface works well for painting smooth glass or shiny surfaces.

A reflective surface of some kind: e.g. glass, Perspex, mirror, polished wood. One or more shiny objects to paint, e.g. glass vessels, shiny metal objects or pots, any flowers or fruits etc. you might want to add to your composition, or a reference photo of the above.

 If you have a cordless lamp or torch that might be useful to light your setup.

 If you do not have any of the above don’t worry, Pauline will bring some reference images and objects which you can borrow.

Colin Twinn: Creative composition 23^rd September ALL DAY

In this workshop we will be looking for ways to improve the composition of our paintings to make them more engaging and successful. We will also look at how artists past and present have tackled the challenges of composition and some of the other devices they have employed to give their paintings more impact.

Bring your favoured medium and surface together with some references for a landscape or a seascape or objects for a still life. The idea is to create an interesting painting by adapting your reference with imaginative cropping, use of light and colour and introducing elements from other references. For example, a seascape could include boats, people, headlands, rock formations and dramatic skies from multiple references. 

If you are going to do a still life bring enough items to create an interesting composition. You could even do ……. an abstract painting. Scary.

Jacky Cowdrey: Life drawing 4^th November

Bring what you have from e.g. pencils, charcoal, watercolour pencils, watercolours or pastels, and plenty of paper with a board or a large sketch book. 

Sam Cowley:  Botanical painting: a mixed media approach 11^th November ALL DAY

Introduction

Welcome to the world of exploring a wide range of botanical subjects using a variety of different media. Each subject we tackle together will consist of a short demonstration and afterwards you will have the opportunity to have a go yourself. You can choose to dip in and out of the various demonstrations especially if you fall upon a particular subject or media you wish to concentrate on.

We will explore graphite, pen and watercolour, colour pencils and marker pens to create wonderfully rich colours using some live specimens where we can and reference photos. The taster workshops are designed to introduce you to an array of media and subjects to give you ideas for more lengthy and complex compositions at home.

Schedule

1.       10:00 - Welcome & Introductions

2.      10:15 - Demonstration 1: Graphite (Pepper study)

3.      11:15 - Demonstration 2: Pen & Wash (Ivy with Stippling)

4.      12:15 - Demonstration 3: Colour Pencils (Primula – creating texture)

5.      1:15 - Nibbles & Networking (30 mins)

6.      1:45 - Demonstration 4: Mixed Media Combo: Shiny red berries & Leaves

7.      2:45 - Demonstration 5: Mixed Media Combo: (Contemporary Study of Scotch Bonnet Peppers)

8.      3:45 – 4pm – Q&A & Top Tips

Materials List

·         Artist’s quality Colour Pencils (Faber Castell Polychromos/Derwent Lightfast, Caran d ’Ache, Lyra Rembrandt, Holbein, for example)

·         Colour pencil solvent (Zest It)*

·         Pencil Sharpener

·         Hot Pressed Watercolour paper (300gsm weighting)

·         Sketch book

·         Water based or alcohol-based markers

·         Graphite pencils & ruler

·         Putty & hard eraser

·         Mechanical/slim pencil eraser

·         Watercolour paints

·         Fine liner pen

·         White gel pen or white acrylic marker pen

·         Tracing Paper

·         Washi Tape/masking tape

·         Live specimens – shiny pepper, Ivy leaves, red berries*

·         An iPhone/Android Phone/iPad/Tablet (optional but very handy if you have one!)

*Tutor will bring

Hester Berry: Oil landscapes 2^nd December ALL DAY

Materials list

·         Zest it/turpentine/preferred brush cleaner/dilutant

·         linseed oil/ poppy seed oil and other mediums you like to use. Some pots/jars to put them in

·         A flat palette (this could be a sheet of glass or Perspex) 

·         One or two canvases/boards/pieces of oil paper, primed and then prepared with a ground. This ground should be applied at least a couple of days before the course so that it is dry. It consists of a thin coat of brown oil paint (I suggest a mixture of yellow ochre, burnt sienna and french ultramarine, or aim for a warm soily/sandy colour), thinned with Zest-it or turpentine. It doesn’t need to be neat, just to cover the naked white of the primer. Boards should be a size you are comfortable working on, the tutor suggests (roughly) 18x24” 9 x 12”, but this depends on how fast you work. You could also bring a pad of oil paper, so you have extra. 

·         A few photos of landscapes to work from (printouts are fine, but an ipad or phone is often better. 

·         Oil paints – Titanium White, French Ultramarine, Burnt Sienna, Yellow Ochre, yellow (I suggest a lemon yellow and a warmer yellow such as cadmium yellow deep hue), a magenta, Pthalo/Prussian Blue/winsor blue green shade (a greener blue than ultramarine), Sap Green/Terra Verte, Viridian – also any extras you have or would like to try. 

·         Paint brushes, a selection on widths – a ¾" flat/chisel brush, plus one smaller and one bigger to hand

·         Palette knife

·       Rags for cleaning