Art Class Half Term Review

We are on our half term break from West Kirby Art Group - Drawing and Painting Classes. We are based in the West Kirby Arts Centre where the light, ambience and amenities enable us to develop our work. The three classes are as follows: Painting Challenge 1&2; Portrait and Figure Drawing and Painting; and Still Life Drawing and Painting.

The first painting challenge presented an environment with colour and pattern to generate ideas. We looked at artists such as Sean Scully, and Tomas Abts, The challenges provide, as their starting point, the Velazquez painting Las Meninas, because it is a painting with many layers of meaning. The hall where we work and the light, reference aspects of the architecture within that picture. The second challenge set up referred directly to the paintings of the Spanish artist Juan Sanchez Cotán. Other artists influencing our thinking included, Lisa Milroy, Euan Uglow and Richard Diebenkorn.

The Portrait and Figure Drawing Group have spent the first 4 week’s drawing portraits and the last two weeks drawing from the figure. We have looked at a range of artists including William Bowyer, Tai Shan Shirenberg, and Lucien Freud. We also discussed formal aspects of drawing and what we term the 'edge of the form' or that part of the figure that is nearest to the viewer. We found that it is important to consider this when making a drawing and how pictorial devices can be used to create the illusion of form.

The Still Life Group have been responding to set ups that reflected a domestic/kitchen theme - there is something very special about a group of people drawing together, mutually supporting, and learning from each other, and reflecting about objects that occur readily in our daily lives. We placed our studies in an art historical context, and we are planning to develop from representational depictions of the motif to expressive and gestural interpretations. The artists work used as examples were Caravaggio, Chardin, Cezanne, and Ivon Hitchins.

Other interesting news about West Kirby Art Group includes a Christmas Exhibition of members work at the Art Centre. The open evening is Friday 8th December 6 - 8 pm. We are also developing our website that should go live in the next couple of weeks. We start back on Monday / Tuesday 6th and 7th November.