Tag: Northumberland

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Events

Blooming Belsay

A Paint-Ex Event

Earlier this month members of our group had the opportunity to visit the English Heritage site at Belsay Hall and Gardens here in Northumberland.

After an exploratory walk around the extensive grounds, the inclement weather eased and members settled for some enjoyable Plein-Air painting and drawing. 

The location offered us a varied choice of subject from lush green woodland and foliage, warm quarried rock face, architectural buildings and of course people. A wealth of inspiration!

â—¦ Some of our group felt that it helped to teach us the importance of only selecting the necessary information and avoid being distracted by details, when composing a landscape. 

â—¦ It has helped to form an understanding of proportion and scale,  for others.

â—¦ Whilst some enjoyed the mediative feeling of being immersed in the sounds and history of the landscape, which added to the overall experience. 

Everyone  agreed it was a worthy and instructive visit from which we all benefitted and enjoyed. We now look forward to our next venture.

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Events

Springtime at Hauxley

We try to visit each season to capture nature as it changes.

The first few days of sun, a rare sighting this year, and we made our way to Hauxley Wildlife Discovery Centre. Although it looked lovely some members were aware of the biting wind off the sea and chose to work in their well appointed classroom from photographs. Others braved the wind and did some work capturing the views. It really is a lovely place for a visit and offers so much for the artist.

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Events

Exhibition at the Maritime Centre

Michael is one of our members, we wish him well with this exhibition. Always worth checking with the Centre before making a specific trip to an exhibition as the room is sometimes in use for other meetings or events. Tel 01670 811951 https://www.nmcentre.org.uk/

Name: Michael Knox

Born 1977 Ashington 

1996-1997 Foundation degree at

North Tyneside College

1997-2000 BA (Hons) Fine Art (painting) Manchester Metropolitan University

2000-2004 Studies print making under John Faschnact

2004-2006 Studies Museum Heritage at University of Manchester

2011-2014 PGCE/PCET Sunderland University 

2011-2014 Lecturer in Fine Art

2015-2020 Freelance Musician

Exhibitions:

Manchester City Art Gallery

Cornerhouse Art Centre 

Hatton Gallery

About the exhibition:

The work in this exhibition is comprised of drawing, painting and print.

Although the works traverse different styles, they are all essentially psychological self portraits which enable the unconscious to take concrete form.

I draw from art history, film, literature, music and personal experience to create images with deep personal meaning.

The meanings and visual codes embedded in the work are not explicit to the viewer who must create thier own interpretation based on thier own experiences and psychological states.

“There is a strange music in my soul that not even my throat can sing” 

Source unknown C1915

I would like to thank:

Milos Kaliski

Theresa Magnowski

Ted Taylor

This exhibition is dedicated to the memory of my late father

Categories
Projects

6th Northumberland Fusiliers

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 A package of letters sent to Captain Bell of the 6th Northumbrian Fusiliers in 1920, was found at a car boot sale on Tyneside and  given to John Caffery. Captain Bell had written to the Evening Chronicle asking if any Fusilier (or family members) would like to share memories of their experiences in the Great War with the hope that they could be made into a book. The book was never made.

When John Caffery was given them 8 years ago, he set about trying to trace what happened to the men mentioned on Ancestry. He is a member of the Hive Storytellers audio drama group, and they helped decipher many of them (some written in pencil), and produced 3 podcasts reading the authentic thoughts of the Territorial Soldiers and their families. These men were sent to replace the Canadian Troops lost at the Battle of St Julien 3 weeks after they landed in France.You can hear the 3 podcasts, ‘The Lost Letters of the 6th Battalion,  Northumbrian Fusiliers’ by the Hive Storytellers on Spotify and other online platforms.

Another member of the Hive Storytellers also wanted to try and draw attention to these  men by drawing their portraits, with the view of making them and the podcasts into an Exhibition, but there are too many for one person. Ted Taylor’s Art Group came to the rescue and produced these meaningful portraits. 

Anyone wanting to visit the CVA their address is: Northumbetland CVA, 107-109 Station Road, Ashington, Northumberland, NE63 8RS. As they are all in the ‘shop window’ they are visible at any time.

People doing their best for the people who did their best.

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Sessions

Oil painting

Thankfully with an improvement in the weather we  resumed sessions after the Christmas break.

As a new venture to us all Ted has introduced us to oil painting.

To avoid the problems of chemicals and environmental issues we are using Medium W to render the oils water mixable. This introductory course is running for two weeks and half way though it everyone seems very enthusiastic. Once the basics are explained then its off into action to attempt still life studies in monochrome.

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Finds

Soft pastels

Ted introduced these to many of us this season and we found it a very pleasant new medium. We purchased sets of these and they work very well, so posted here for reference or in case people want to get a set of their own. https://amzn.eu/d/320cCjc As always, an Amazon link simply given as its easy, there may be other sellers out there.

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Sessions

Current sessions

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Gallery

Soft pastels

We recently did a lot of work using this medium, many of us found it a very forgiving way of working, though very dusty.

Sidelong glance older male with beard and glasses rendered in soft pastels

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Challenge

Anyone fancy trying this?

Contrasts of the organic forms and the industrial ones, contrast of textures, plenty of reflections.

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Projects

Doomed youth…..

Recently we have been working from photos of WW1 Northumberland Fusiliers. A challenge to recreate the personalities from often the only photograph ever of a person. Hopefully the full range created will be appearing in an exhibition – watch this space.