ODIHAM ART GROUP
Demonstration Reviews
Jane Perkins
Saturday 3rd February
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 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 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.
Saturday 5 July
Jayne Perkins: Pastels
Professional artist and OAG member, Jayne Perkins, provided another accomplished demonstration in pastels.
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Jayne provided a detailed explanation of how to prepare a pastel support which is an essential element of pastel painting. Jayne uses hardboard or MDF which she paints first in acrylic (black is her preference) and is then covered with a pastel ground such as Goldern Pastel Ground or Art Spectrum.
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Jayne was working from her own sketch made on a trip to the North West Highlands of Scotland. Her pastel box is made up largely of Semelier soft pastels, although she believes that Rembrandt pastels are a comparable alternative.
She began with a loose sketch using a 2b charcoal pencil, which doubles up as her black throughout later stages of the painting. Jayne is a fast worker and it wasn't long before she had blocked out the principle shapes of sky, land, buildings and the loch. Jayne observed the light that came in from the top left of the image, running down the hill and across the water. Jane blends gently with her fingers when trying to achieve the brilliance of light on water and in the sky.
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Returning from a well earned tea break Jayne completed the painting focusing on the details in the foreground.
Saturday 1 March
Marieta Sotirova: Oils
Marieta, a professional artist, undertook a cityscape painting in oils, demonstrating to an enthusiastic group of OAG members.
Her skills shone through as she covered many points about undertaking a painting from the preparation stages through to completion.
She was honest about her own skills and emotions and described what she was doing throughout the demonstration which resonated with members own experiences.
The painting itself went through what she called the “messy” foundation stage for the first half of the demonstration and then onto the details in the second half that brought the painting 'to life.'
This was an excellent demonstration in oil painting skills and the emotional stages most artists go through when undertaking a painting.
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Saturday 1 February
Rodney Kingston: Oils
Rodney painted on oil paper, primed with Gesso and washed with burnt umber. He used a limited palette and worked with a range of brushes, favoring a stiff, hog hair brush.
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Rodney took his time to carefully plot the objects ensuring heights and widths were correct. With a good base drawing he felt he could make any minor nudges as the painting progressed.
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Satisfied with the under drawing Rodney blocked in the shapes playing attention to the tonal values. Working from large to small he swiftly built up his composition and added the detail together with some nice highlights that sharpened up the overall effect.
Stewart Beckett
Saturday 4 January 2025
Stewart demonstrated an oil painted seascape, based on a composition painted 'en plein air' and photographs taken at the time.
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He began by painting in the main aspects of his composition using an old sharpened paintbrush. His style favours a loose, fluid interpretation, avoiding at all costs 'fiddling with details' which he feels 'loses the life of the painting'.
Stewart introduced figures to help break-up the landscape and show definition. He focused on achieving the correct tonal values and built up the scene with the use of stumpy sticks to draw in the thickly applied oil, his fingers and a variety brushes to achieve the marks he wanted.
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Having taken a well earned break for tea, Stewart avoided looking at his painting until he resumed. He feels it is essential to walk away from your work and return with fresh eyes to establish areas that have worked and those areas that require further application.
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With the composition completed Stewart stood well back from the painting to appraise the values and ensure it functioned as a painting. He remarked that paintings aren't designed to be under microscopic inspection but should 'project off the surface and work from a distance'.
Alison Board: Workshop
Saturday 18 January: Mixed Media
Alison had previously entertained the OAG with a lively and knowledgeable watercolour demonstration. Encouraged by her warmth and enthusiasm, the workshop was enjoyed by a full group of members who were eager to experience her mixed media programme.
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Alison set the subject of a natural landscape featuring a Red Kite. Using water colour, collage, Gesso, pens and a variety of tools the group spent an informative day creating their spin on Alison's composition.
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Alison was a delightful tutor - warm, friendly and exceptionally encouraging. I'm sure it wont be long before we are welcoming her back to North Warnborough.
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