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A few thank yous

Zoom and Plein Air Drop-in Groups – click on the links below

Tuesday and Friday morning Pleinairists
Tuesday Afternoon Short Pose Drop-in Life Drawing
Wednesday Morning – Drop-in Life Drawing and Painting
Wednesday Afternoon – Drop-in Portraiture
Saturday Morning – Drop-in Life Drawing and Painting

A few thank yous

It’s tough at the moment in the arts community, particularly for those of us who woke up on the 23rd March with no business and no income. Models and tutors who rely upon working in studios with artists had to do some pretty quick thinking and for some of them that meant streaming on Zoom. Ironically, some have done exceedingly well and models particularly have benefited from sharing the spoils of Zoomed events filled with locked down artists. Many of them stream from their homes, I’m sure you’ve done a few yourself so you’ll know the sort of thing I’m talking about.

For our part, we’ve reconfigured our studio so that we can stream a model with good quality lighting and video. It works rather well and despite the occasional hiccup (computers die, fuseboards blow and sonic feedback provides space echo effects from time to time!) it provides strong source material for artists to work from and a sense of community which sustains us. In the photo above you can see how it works: at the camera is Valeria, who some of you will have painted, wearing her other hat as film maker, as she frames Floria at a recent short pose session. Valeria is looking at the big studio monitor which also helps the models to understand what the artists are seeing.

Whilst this is all great fun, it is our fervent hope that come the Autumn we will be able to welcome people back into the studio, at least on a limited basis. We are doing our darnedest to stay in business and the modest income we gain from these events helps us to do that and to support those models daring enough to be on camera.

So we’d like to say thank you for sticking by us. Thank you for putting up with our production bumps as we work this all out. Thank you for supporting us and our community by attending digital drop-ins and classes. Thank you for not demanding immediate repayment of course fees and for accepting Zoom classes as a substitute for missed classes.

Goodness knows what will remain at the end of this cultural apocalypse but independent voices, well embedded in the digital world should do OK: here’s a fab rant on the disappearance of culture by Jonathan Pie.  (If you’re in a hurry skip to the sixth minute).

On the Wednesday 1st July the redoubtable George Butler is giving a free talk about his forthcoming trip to Iraqi Kurdistan, you are invited to join him for the talk or the trip. It’s clearly not for everyone (there may be a bit of bounding from rock to rock) but promises to be spectacular and intense. You can find out more here

An Introduction to Life Drawing on Zoom

This course got off to a good start last Tuesday, other than the tutor being either inaudible or invisible for the first few minutes! We’ve ironed that one out now and students understood the concepts well and did some good work.

We still have room for a couple more students so we thought we’d make you an offer. The first two weeks of the course look at schematic drawing, so much of the ground we covered last week we’ll be going over again this week albeit from a different angle. If you were to sign up for this course and start tomorrow, you won’t have missed much and we’ll give you a 10% discount making it £85.50 for nine, two hour tutored life drawing classes. How about it? You can sign up here and use the discount code PESTE3 to get the better price.

Summer Term now 9 weeks, 2nd June – 27th August 2020, 6.30 – 8.30pm

Sign up here


Pleinairists


David Sawyer Painting at Shoreham last week

David says: 
Weather looks unsettled next week, Friday looking like the best day, so planning to return to Ruskin park Friday morning.
Tuesday morning I’d like to return to Shoreham village unless the weather is really dire.
Wednesday I’m in the Croydon area early & hope to get to Beddington Park by mid morning (11am) to paint again depending on the weather.
As always check with the Pleinairists Whatsapp group first.

If you are interested in painting along with David the Cost is £35 per session, which lasts approximately three hours and you can sign up here. We use our Pleinairists Whatsapp Group to coordinate.
These are small groups where social distancing is maintained throughout.

Tuesday Drop-in Short Pose Life Drawing 2.00pm-5.00pm on Zoom

Living écorché Adrian (@modbodadrian) will offer us a series of strenuous poses this Tuesday aftenoon.  Each hour starts with very short poses and moves on to a ten minute pose at the end.

You can choose to join us for one, two or three hours and as we’re still rolling this out the charge will only be £2.50 per hour. To get the special price use the discount code PESTE1 at final check out when purchasing the session.

Click here to book

Wednesday Drop-in Long Pose Life Drawing 10.00am-1.00pm on Zoom

Rebecca; Italian dancer and member of Mass Hysteria, an all female dance collective, will be our Muse for this Wednesday morning and next.

Please book here

The session fee will be reduced to £10 if you use the discount code PESTE2 at final checkout.

Wednesday Drop-in Portraiture 2.00pm-5.00pm on Zoom

Emily is back for her second sitting so we can finish our paintings of her. The work in progress is by Fronc Ng who joins us from Canada, often starting unfeasibly early in the morning.

Please book here

The session fee will be reduced to £10 if you use the discount code PESTE2 at final checkout.

Saturday Drop-in Long Pose Life Drawing 10.00am-1.00pm on Zoom

The second of two weeks with Maggie in the pose above (a rather grubby WIP!) The pose is spot on for her curvy figure being a sort of more erect version of the Rokeby Venus. You can paint her feet too if it works for you.

Please book here

The session fee will be reduced to £10 if you use the discount code PESTE2 at final checkout.

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Plein Air Painting for the socially distant

Zoom Drop-in Groups – click on the links below

Tuesday Afternoon Short Pose Drop-in Life Drawing
Wednesday Morning – Drop-in Life Drawing and Painting
Saturday Morning – Drop-in Life Drawing and Painting

Plein Air painting with David Sawyer this Tuesday


Beddington Park – detail, by David Sawyer

Boris has said that it’s OK for six people to socially distance in a group outdoors. That sounds like a plein air painting trip to us!

Next Tuesday David is going to be in Ruskin Park’s maze garden from 10.00am – 1.00pm and then on Thursday afternoon 2.00pm-5.00pm. David feels that having three hour sessions will work better for everyone and we think he is right, it’ll focus the mind and be better value. He’s inviting five others to be six feet away from him. He will be painting and will also support you in your work, this is one of the best ways of learning, watching an expert do what they do and getting feedback on what you are doing. David has a visor to protect you (and him) whilst he is teaching.

If you’d like to join in next Tuesday 2nd June could you respond to this email, (we don’t have a web page put together for this yet). The cost is £35 for each session. You may park at our studio and wander down. (Ruskin Park is very close to the studio)

In future we will run his sessions in a more ad hoc way so that you will have the option to sign up for each individual session or for a block of three or six as works for you. You can now think of this rather like a drop-in. We also anticipate going further afield and being more responsive so that if, for instance, it’s bucketing down, we’ll take a view and maybe go out the next day.

We will use a Whatsapp group for communications, most of us already use it to chat to our families and it’s ideal for a smallish group to coordinate on the go. When you sign up you’ll get invited to the Whatsapp group and then you’ll be in the loop for subsequent sessions or any other updates.

Clare Haward is having a virtual exhibition


Landscape with village, oil on linen by Clare Haward

A range of Landscape paintings by Clare Haward NEAC will soon be exhibited at 155A. The exhibition will run online from next weekend. If you’ve ever learnt anything from Clare you may like to buy one of her paintings, having your tutor’s work on the wall is a constant reminder of their way.

“Clare Haward is a painter of Landscapes, Still Life and Portrait. Recently elected as a member of New English Art Club, she has exhibited her work widely. She also teaches her particular approach to painting, finding this has become an important part of informing some ideas into her own practice.

Price range: £225-£1500”

Tuesday Drop-in Short Pose Life Drawing 2.00pm-5.00pm on Zoom

Ros is posing for the short poses this Tuesday afternoon. Here is a screen grab from the last time she was here. We will follow the familiar format of starting each hour with terrifying 30 second short poses and move on to longer poses. depending upon who comes and goes we may end the session with a half hour pose. We try to be democratic.

You can choose to join us for one, two or three hours and as we’re still rolling this out the charge will only be £2.50 per hour. To get the special price use the discount code PESTE1 at final check out when purchasing the session.

Click here to book

Wednesday Drop-in Long Pose Life Drawing 10.00am-1.00pm on Zoom

We have Stephanie for two weeks, I think her hair has changed since this photo, so you get the sunshine and smiles but not the curly locks!

Please book here

The session fee will be reduced to £10 if you use the discount code PESTE2 at final checkout.

Saturday Drop-in Long Pose Life Drawing 10.00am-1.00pm on Zoom

Last week poor Sara, our expected model, came down with suspected CV so Alison had the challenge of finding a new model at 9.30 on a Saturday morning. Not all models are morning people (to put it mildly) so we were very happy to discover that Adrian is. He dashed over and saved the session with a seated pose that makes the most of his colouring. We will bring Sara back when she has recovered so that we can finish our paintings but we have Adrian for this week in the second of a two week pose. The WIP painting below is by Vicki Cooke on her first digital session with us, let’s hope she enjoyed the session enough to come back!

Please book here

The session fee will be reduced to £10 if you use the discount code PESTE2 at final checkout.