Chair, Val Harris, opened the meeting with some information on the arrangements for our forthcoming Kingfisher Centre exhibition and a reminder about our planned, pencils and mixed media workshop. She went on to introduce Joe Dowden to give his 'Easy Watercolour” presentation.

For his demonstration painting, Joe explained that he would be working from a number of reference photographs of what he called 'a watery scene'. The composite scene would have a fast flowing stream with rocky stretches and calm pools, flowing through a landscape with banks of trees and glimpses of distant hills. He had prepared his sketch on stretched paper and applied masking fluid to all the areas that he needed to reserve. As he worked, he spoke of his colour mixing technique, his choice of colours and how he built up his painting with successive layers of colour, making frequent use of a hair dryer. He built up the colour in the broad areas of his painting before adding interesting textures by spattering paint in carefully selected parts of his subject. Using a sword liner brush, he painted in the trunks of the trees and other fine details before concentrating on the areas of water. With the carefully positioned tree reflections and patches of sky reflections providing highlights, the water areas came to life and the creation of the rocky stretches of stream in the reserved areas, completed a very impressive painting.

The next meeting will be at St. Luke’s Memorial Hall, Evesham Road, Headless Cross on Wednesday, November 1. at 7.30pm when Jackie Ward's topic will “Tree Huggery-The Art of Living in the Slow Lane”.

Supported by Redditch School of Art through Redditch Arts Council