ODIHAM ART GROUP
Saturday 17 January 2026
Soraya French: Workshop
A small group of OAG members had the pleasure of attending a workshop led by Soraya French. The subject was seascapes in mixed media and started with an inspiring demonstration.
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We were invited to work from personal reference materials with whatever mixed media products we hand. Soraya provided encouragement and support, moving us gently out of our normal, comfort zones.
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It was a joyful day of painting, inspired by Soraya's passion for vibrant colour and texture - the results were fabulous.
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Workshops are open to all members on a first-come-first-served basis. Prices start from £40 a session and can be found listed on our programme.
Saturday 3 January 2026
Soraya French: Mixed Media
Working from a photograph and sketches of a wildflower meadow Soraya started by adapting the photograph to introduce some deeper shades of purple to balance the composition. Soraya likes to work with a mixture of acrylic inks, water soluble crayons, gouache and acrylics in professional quality. This mixture ensures that she can achieve the layers of vibrant colour she requires. Although she does use watercolour, where appropriate, it is not stable enough during the early stages and will either lift of merge into a muddy mix.
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Soraya’s working approach for demonstrations is at odds with studio style which is by nature a much slower process. In a studio, Soraya is happy to return to a painting - weeks, months or even years later where she will pick up an unfinished piece and ‘play with it’ looking for an improvement or simply an experiment … ‘I’m a risk taker and what have I got to lose’.
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Soraya used Saunders Waterford, hot pressed paper and started with a light under drawing … ‘even a painting that appears lose and free can still have a bit of order’. Leaving patches of white paper to expose some of the daises, she began with some soft chalk pastels to work in the cornflowers. This was followed with purple ink that she moved about freely with a palette knife. The daisy hearts were created with small puddles of bright yellow inks before she started to introduce streaks of light greens spreading the inks to create a jumble of stems and leaves with a combination of rigger brushes, plastic cards and a 1 inch brush.
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A mix of Paynes grey and phthalo blue provided pockets of darker background shapes which she balanced across her composition … ‘Tone will bring the painting to life, so you have to be brave’. In this case, the dark tones allowed the flowers to settle and not hang suspended in the air.
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As the painting developed and dried Soraya introduced oil pastels and passages of paint to soften hard edges and create a cohesive impression. This was a constant process and Soraya was able to add lights, introduce titanium white acrylic paint, unearthing buds and grasses as the painting demanded. She did point out that if this was a studio piece she would wait until it was totally dry before creating a final wash of watercolour to show shadows and add the depth she would be happy with.
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Early stages in the painting
Final painting as concluded in the demonstration.
Saturday 6 December 2025 Chris Forsey: Mixed Media
Chris Forsey, a popular professional artist, delighted a large OAG audience with a painting of a small cluster of cottages around a river near Salcombe.
He worked from an original sketch and a series of photographs, using a mixture of oil pastels, watercolour and acrylic ink.
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He prepared his surface with a pencil sketch using a basic grid to ensure accuracy. Working on a sheet of Blockingford Watercolour Paper, Chris began with very lose strokes of an oil pastel adding some colour to the stark white surface and creating a resist for the watercolour.
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Chris worked with a limited palette of five or six colours designed to reflect the warmth of the autumnal composition; colbolt blue, cadmium orange and red, lemon yellow and paynes grey. Later in the painting Chris couldn't resist adding splashes of dark violet which are a particular trademark of his work.
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To avoid excessive detail, Chris works with large flat brushes and likes to use the edge of a palette knife to create straight lines and highlight windows and doors in the buildings. This he did with the use of a white acrylic paint. Adding acrylic ink in sepia to the foreground and trees behind the buildings.
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Chivied on by an enthusiastic audience, Chris added a boat and a duck to the final composition for no other reason than he could.
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Chris was happy to recommend Chrysler paints and Sea Whites acrylic paper.
Saturday 1 November 2025 Paul Oakley: Oil landscape
Professional artist Paul Oakley gave a stimulating and informative demonstration to around 50 members. He demonstrated his painting skills with an impressionistic landscape in the style of the famous French Impressionist painter, Monet.
Paul led a receptive audience through the materials he uses for oil painting and recommended the use of a photographic reference as the basis for the painting. He stressed the importance of producing a sketch of the overall scene with changes, where necessary, to produce a balanced painting.
Demonstrating a variety of brush strokes that help create a successful oil painting, members were led through the stages of creating the sky, mountains, shadows on the hills, village houses, mid-range trees and the featured olive trees. The finishing stages included details to the fields, improving the village houses and selected shadow areas. He finished with the focus on the olive trees which were the key to the painting, drawing the viewers’ eyes into the painting.
Throughout the demonstration Paul kept up an explanation, in a light-hearted and knowledgeable manner, ensuring a pleasant and informative atmosphere in which to watch and learn.
Saturday 4 October
Nick Stewart: Pen Ink
Nick Stewart, a professional designer, conducted a fascinating presentation on his research into fountain pen ink - sharing its qualities as a medium and its potential when mixed with bleach and water.
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The presentation was a lively exchange between our very interested members and Nick himself, who admitted that this was the first time he'd shared his findings with an audience.
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Prior to the break Nick switched from presenting to demonstrating, creating 'art out of destruction' which is how he describes his work. He flooded a sheet of heavy watercolour paper with a single dark colour of ink which he allowed to dry. During the drying process new colours slowly emerged - pinks, blues and greys.
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Using a dip pen Nick worked into the surface dark tones of neat ink (outlines of the sheep and grass). To create a mid tone he simply added water to the ink and finally switched to domestic bleech (diluted) to lift patches of the ink to create the lightest tones.
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Nick used:
Dip pens - Zebra G Nib,
cheap synthetic brushes
half rigger
domestic bleech - dilutes 30/70
Fountain pen ink - Quink
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Saturday 6 September
Melissa Wishart: Oils
Bermuda born artist Melissa Wishart worked from a colour ground, on board. Using a photograph as inspiration and her iPad image to work from, Melissa created a seascape of Salcombe. The image had a sense of space and energy that she wanted to capture.
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Melissa had made her large palette from on old picture frame and kept her colours simple, mixing three tones for sky, sea and beach.
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A lot of the early paint work was applied with a silicone wedge, to deliver a smooth and quick base and enhanced with a combination of palette knives and brushes.
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Working from the sky to the foreground Melissa finished the image with the addition of figures which gave the finished painting a sense of scale.
