Painting
Grantown Rocks with Angus (the Adder)
If you go down to Anagach Woods these days, you’re probably been delighted with a dozen wee surprises.
For many children and parents have been hard at work during lockdown, painting rocks to leave hidden among the trees and bushes for youngsters to find. It’s a great distraction for wee ones – they love trying to spot the colourful rocks as they go on their daily walks.
You may also have seen some beautiful fairy doors at the bottom of trees along the most popular paths. One giant tree at the bottom of General Wade’s road has been extravagantly decorated with many doors and painted stones. There’s even a wee haven for dinosaurs!
One of the newest additions is an adder called Angus, who is lurking close to the entrance to the woods along General Wade’s road. His body is made up of lots of wee coloured stones and the organisers hope that soon he might stretch all the way to the fairy tree.
It’s quite a challenge and perhaps some Spey Art Group members would like to help? As you can see from these pictures, bright colourful patterns and pictures are the name of the game. All you need to do is paint some stones and add them to Angus when you go for a walk.
With a name like Angus, how could you resist helping this snake get a little bigger?
Exploring Watercolour workshop
Anyone looking to improve their watercolour skills or just learn a bit more about the medium might be interested in this workshop next month.
Jana Emburey will help participants to experiment with watercolour, which we all know can be tricky to control. See the poster below for more details.
Spaces are limited so be sure to book your place quickly.
People and Places 2019
An exhibition of Art and Craft by the Spey Art Group.
People and Places is the theme for our 2019 annual exhibition. Through another interesting year members have been hard at work producing original work for the summer show at The Pagoda in Grantown.
The exhibition runs from Saturday 24 August – Sunday 1 September and is open 10am-4pm each day. There will be a special open preview night on Friday 23 August 6pm-8pm. All are welcome and refreshments will be available.
This popular group meets weekly at Grantown Grammar school between 7pm and 9pm on Wednesday evenings during term time. Tutoring is provided by art teacher Angus Grant and lessons cover a range of media.
Chairwoman Angela Wood said “We are all looking forward to the new exhibition, showcasing the wealth of talent within the group, this is our first year of exhibiting at the Pagoda and we are looking forward to it”.
Everyone attending the preview will be invited to vote for their favourite artwork, the winning piece will be awarded the Gordon Crisell Shield. This prize was introduced in 2016 and is named after a long standing member of the Spey Art Group who died in 2015
Painting with nature
Anyone looking for an arty activity for a May weekend should look no further than The Cairngorms Nature Big Weekend.
Dava School House will host “Painting with Nature”, a morning workshop with award-winning artist Morvan MacEwan on Sunday May 12.
The day will involve exploring the local woodland and moors, collecting items to be used in a new piece of art. Materials and refreshments will be provided.
The workshop runs from 9.30am-12.30pm and costs £15 per person.
You can book your place and get more information by visiting the event website here.
Or click here for a look at the poster: Painting with Nature Event Poster 2
Fizzing with flower power
This week saw the return of our group painting night, which is always full of colour, fun and laughter. It was also great to see some of our associate members joining in.
Members split into two groups and played a few rounds of ‘Pictionary’ to begin, using chalk, charcoal and then paint. This quickly got very competitive.
Everyone also got the chance to use implements to make marks on the paper. This included a choice of items from the art department, including leaves, string, toy cars and a Dr Marten. Member Viv also brought some cardboard tubes that got cut up to make flower shapes. These were really effective as you can see from the pictures in the slideshow.
Finally, as is now tradition, the paintings got names: Flower Power and Fields of Fizz. You can see the fantastic results in the slideshow. Thanks to everyone who took part.
Workshop with Rona
Places are still available for a two day workshop with our member, Rona Smith.
Activities include:
* Using printing and stencilling techniques on gelli-plates;
* Painting on silk;
* Making different types of books using folding and binding techniques
The workshop will be held at Nethy Bridge Village Hall on March 16-17, running from 10am-2.30pm each day. Refreshments will be provided.
The price is £80 for two days, £45 for one day.
Contact Rona for more information by emailing ronas4@btinternet.com
Wednesday’s work
Here’s some of the wonderful work produced in the workshops over the past two weeks. The main challenge was for everyone to work from a still life, while those opting out had a go at a tricky landscape.
See you this Wednesday for a new task – weather permitting of course!
Blooming Lovely!
Feast your eyes on some of the lovely colourful spring like artwork from the Eleanor White workshop on Saturday 21st April. Great work from everyone, feel free to share!
Watercolour -it’s easy!
According to Stewart Potter, watercolour is easy. To be honest he did make it look easy until we tried to follow by his example and realised its maybe not quite as easy as we were led to believe!
Thanks to Stewart we had a fab day at Nethybridge community centre on Saturday 27th January. Puddles was the word of the day as Stewart demonstrated puddles of colour (always mix enough) and the rain poured down all day creating puddles outside too.
We learned about the best paint, paper, brushes (Rona!), skies, clouds, hills, trees, bothies and sheep and the importance of Payne’s grey…and all in a day. Thanks to both Stewart and Rona for organising the event and giving us so much fun on a dreich winters day.
An invite to Kingussie
Our lovely tutor Angus is exhibiting his work next month in Kingussie and we’re all invited to opening night.
He’s teamed up with Campbell Bryson (ex-GGS head of art) for the show, Lochs and Landscapes, at the Iona Gallery.
They’re promising a glass of wine (or a softie for the drivers) and some colourful paintings inspired by the Highlands.
It’s a great wee gallery, run by the Society of Badenoch and Strathspey Artists. If you’ve never been,, this is the perfect opportunity!
Launch night is on Friday July 7, from 7pm-9pm and the show runs until July 14.
Spey Art Group 