Election week.

This last week has been a week of elections!

Firstly, I have just been elected President of the Cambridge Drawing Society.

Founded in 1882 by Lady Sandys it is one of the oldest Art Societies in the country and has over 140 members. Former members include Cecil Beaton, Ronald Searle, Gwen Raverat, Peter Graham, Vice President of the Institute of Oil painters and James Horton, President of the Society of British Artists.

Despite its title , it is not restricted to drawing but includes painting in every medium , sculpture, batik and limited edition prints.

Two Annual exhibitions are held, one in the Spring at the Guildhall in Cambridge and one in the Autumn.


This week I was also elected a member of ARTWORKS
Founded in 2000, this is a professional group of 30 East \Anglian based artists working in a range of styles and media. Their Annual Showcase Exhibition takes place in Blackthorpe Barn, in Rougham, near Bury St. Edmunds. ( 8th-30th September) Built in 1550, this magnificent timber framed building, is a wonderful venue to enjoy the work on display as well as see demonstrations by the various exhibitors.
For further information visit www.artworksinfo.org.uk

Pastels are not just for the young!

In my last post I championed pastels as an amazing medium for depicting young children. But it is wonderfully versatile and is equally good at portraying older people as well . Below is a recently completed pastel drawing of one of my oldest clients, Bill Joynson, who is 93.

A child's portrait in pastel

Pastel is a lovely medium in which to depict children. It has a delicacy and softness unrivalled by other mediums.
In this example I worked on a tinted Murano mount board using a combination of pastel pencils, hard and soft pastels. My initial drawing is done in a sanguine conte chalk.




Using Stabilo pastel pencils I begin putting in the details of the eyes.




And the mouth.




Fairly happy that these are in the right place, I can now turn my attention to larger areas of the face. I begin with pastel pencils and conte crayons but quckly turn to soft pastels to get the delicate blending I require. I use fingers, torchons or even cotton buds to do this.




The finished portrait of Annabel