Blog Posts - Arts North Elizabeth

Mike Barr Demonstration - Arts North - Saturday 5 Oct

10/10/2019

Rain on Wakefield St.

In the demonstration organised by Colleen Tooth and partially funded by support from the Playford Council, Mike Barr demonstrated his process of painting in acrylics.
Mike is a local Elizabeth artist and a regular contributor to Australian Artist magazine. He has won almost every service club art competition in South Australia at least once in recent years. He is a member of the Realist Guild of Australia.

Mike is a no nonsense painter, working in acrylics, oils and watercolour he is well recognised by his favourite subjects of impressionist rainy street scenes and enticing calm beach vistas that seem to go on for ever.

In the one-and-a-half-hour demonstration on a warm Saturday morning Mike used Atelier acrylics, A2 oil paper and two brushes – a 20mm flat and an 8mm round, both acrylic, to produce two Adelaide street scenes.

Mike did not disappoint and if you want to see more of the process he used check out upcoming articles in Australian Artist magazine (he took progress shots as he went along).

Thanks, Mike, for the dual demo.

Haley O'Shea Watercolour Demonstration

8/9/2019

Haley’s demonstration provided an eye catching and thought provoking option for background effects in watercolour.

She leans towards painting old, rusty, interesting farm vehicles and the like. Rather than beginning with the subject matter, she drops, pours and spatters a few puddles of colour onto raw best quality (600gm cold pressed) paper. Once near dry or dry she then begins to paint the previously roughly and lightly drawn outline of the subject, knowing when to wet in wet or wet on dry, creating rusty old car, tractor, tap, horse float. The results are rustic, creative and realistic. A convincing old vehicle emerged in this live demo.

Haley showed some of her many examples of art, demonstrating her versatility with minimalism for backgrounds too, where sometimes less is best.

Following a creamy, calorie enhancing morning tea, Haley stunned the enthusiastic group with a youthful portrait, begun by splattering, spraying and running together, a combination of burnt sienna, permanent rose and Australian red gold for skin tones, drying and adding painted and watercolour pencil detail, showing us how not to be precious and still create a convincing likeness.

With sincere thanks to Haley for an enlightening and very entertaining demonstration and Colleen for setting up and the yummy cakes!

Playford International College Exhib - Judd House

5/9/2019

Over the SALA month, as Arts North members have had exhibitions mounted at Playford Council's Civic Centre and at the Stretton Centre, it has been a pleasure to avail Playford International College of the opprtunity to use the walls at Judd house for their students' exhibition. (Thank you, Lachlan - a pleasure, indeed.)

Clever

5/9/2019

Roger Kalleske Drawing Workshop

16/8/2019

A big 'Thank You' to Roger Kalleske who staged a very engaging drawing workshop for Arts North on Wed 14 August, .. and a big 'Thank You' to Playford Council for the grant for Workshops and Demos which helped enable this workshop by Roger Kalleske.

No mucking around with Roger. 'Perspective' was the second word after 'Hello'! We were invited to grab our charcoals and some butchers paper for a couple of quick getting-to-know-you imaginary landscapes (single and two point perspectives), then out came the polystyrene cube for a limbering-up; hotly followed by the stack of dissimilar oblongs; followed by the sphere and ball composition; then .. a brief catching-of the-breath while drawing up a ten division grey scale; then right on to the complex vase and teapot composition.

Moving right along, we did the generic face (in charcoal), followed by an exercise in largely obliterating said face with a mid tone and then recreating the features with the eraser. All good fun .. and all before lunch. (Lovely lunch, Colleen; a mix of Woolworths deli wraps .. particularly tasty, especially the sun-dried tomato - and very well priced, I believe)

After lunch, the tasks kept coming .. firstly draw the (seated) figure – but, draw it with a challenge incorporated in the choice of medium or method (I chose to draw with my 'wrong' hand). Finally, Roger (a sensitive man) invited us to spend a few quiet minutes just looking around .. so that we could select another subject or medium with which we were a bit uncomfortable and so finish off the day with another unfamiliar gallop.

A great day had by all! (Take a bow, Roger!)

Playford's (Arts North) SALA Exhibition

5/8/2019

Mayor Glen Docherty kindly opening Playford City Council's SALA Exhibition at the Stretton Centre, Munno Para - featuring artists from Arts North: Alex Toyne; Colin Trenaman; Don Meyer; Linda Pyne; Marissa Dunn; Meredith Parker.

See below for Playford's professional photos of attendees:

Arts North Collective Exhibition Playford Civic Centre

29/7/2019

Digital Workshop

25/7/2019

Playford Council grant

31/5/2019

Erin and Colleen pictured following presentation of Grant Confirmation at the Playford City Council Mayoral Chambers. The grant enables an Arts North Community Demo/Workshops project.

Particular thanks to the Playford Council.

Check the button below for (some) workshop/demo detail.

Workshops/Demos

New Member Feedback

23/2/2019

It is always lovely to hear from (new) members:

"1st oil painting
1st ever Street / building scene
Not an accredited or professional artist
Can't wait to learn more
Only ever really painted ‘crafty’ stuff in acrylics
Enjoying the challenge and love everyone at Judd house! All very helpful and they give lots of confidence boosters"
- Anita.

Great to see, Anita. And great to hear. 'Thank you' - and keep up the good work.