Redditch Art Circle

Our chair, Val Harris, reviewed our recent Kingfisher Centre exhibition before introducing Jackie Ward to give her presentation ' Tree Huggery. the Art of Living in the Slow Lane' Jackie explained that she specialised in mixed media artwork which usually features some inventive and distinctive collage. Although she sometimes uses natural materials, she relies mainly on card, paper, textiles etc which she collects from a variety of sources. When working on commissions she tries to incorporate any memorabilia that the client can provide, like travel or theatre tickets etc, so that the resulting artwork is highly personalised.

To illustrate her technique, Jackie chose to depict a touring cyclist in a rural setting, pausing to study his maps. She made a rapid pastel painting of the scene, reinforcing some features in biro and sketching in a rough outline of her cyclist. Selecting her materials for their texture and pattern, she applied the clothing to the figure and provided him with his map. In this case, the map was a fragment of an old Ordnance Survey map which had an interesting pattern and was also appropriate. Adding to the picture with fragments of card and coloured tissue paper she finished it off with subject's cycle, which she depicted in a mixture of collage and line work. The successful finished artwork and Jackie's lively commentary had given us an interesting insight into the possibilities of collage in mixed media.

The next meeting will be at St. Luke’s Memorial Hall, Evesham Road, Headless Cross on Wednesday, December 6at 7.30pm when Claire Cooper-Walsh will give her presentation,“Abstract/Mixed Media” and we round off the year with a social evening.