I spent a great day with some lovely people at Coverack Art Club, on the Lizard Peninsular in Cornwall. The club has a fantastic view over the sea and the weather today was clear and mild. Which after the snow and torrential rain of late was very welcome. They meet every Monday 10 – 4 at Lambeage Hall and hold an exhibition each year.
I started with a demonstration in watercolour first a swan then a boat. I had decided to paint boats today, because I thought that everyone would want to paint boats within the sea/shore guidelines. However when I arrived everyone was prepared to paint birds! I suppose that would be because I paint birds!! So having spent Sunday evening drawing some lovely boats…..I hurriedly drew a Swan and a Heron. The demonstation was sucessful and everyone began to work on thier own pieces. We talked about Art from Picasso to Daimen Hirst and discussed the current economic climate, the state of the Helston High Street and the suppliers we use for our paints and paper.
As always I possibly learned as much from today as I taught, I discovered new media that I had never come across before and where the best positions to view Cornish Choughs might be. I intend to make a series of paintings about Choughs and have not been able to see them in the wild as yet. I did visit Paradise park last week and took lots of photographs of a very helpful female Chough called Oggy.
Anyway my second demo was using liqid iink pens and water for a quick and effective pen and wash drawing, to create a sense of energy and movement, especially when out in the field. Images using this method can be seen on my drawings page at http://www.suzysharpe.net. At the end of the day everyone had tried something that they would not normally do most tried the pen and wash, with great sucess and the work on display was excellent and varied in both media and subject.
If you would like to sign up to my newsletter please email me at suzy.sharpe@yahoo.co.uk and put the words news subscribe in the subject bar, for information on teaching, demonstrations and exhibitions together with my blog, tips and ideas.
I will be running courses on drawing animals from life, especially horses and chickens, building confidence in any media, mixed media painting and drawing, printmaking lino, mono and collagraphs, I may also arrange sketching walks weather permitting, if you are interested in any of the above, please let me know.
I hope your day has been as pleasant as mine.
Suzy Sharpe Artist Illustrator 