October 2025
For the first of two tutorials by Graham Lock, Graham provided a demonstration of how to paint an autumn woodland landscape with sun rays in water colours. This was followed up with a practical step by step tutorial during which we painted along in stages using a limited colour pallet to create an autumnal scene of a lake and trees. Graham showed us how to paint trees by dropping colours loosely onto a wet surface, letting the water do the mixing. Our thanks to Graham for another informative and productive session.
September 2025
Our thanks to local professional artist Katharine Jennings for another informative session. For this tutorial, Katharine chose a picture of a spaniel as the subject for a portrait using a mixture of soft pastels and pencils on pastel mat paper.
She started by outlining the portrait with straight lines following the photograph as a reference. She then blocked in the dark areas using soft stick pastels in dark brown then dark blue and a tan colour for the lighter areas. These were blended together with a blending stump using fine sandpaper to clean the point as she went. Next the eye was painted using pastel pencils keeping the reflective areas clear.
Texture of the fur was applied with pastel pencils following the direction of growth in varying degrees of detail. The last stage involved correcting any mistakes and adding final points of detail.
Summer Painting Season 2025
6 June - 22 August 2025
Our season of Summer Painting sessions for 2025 has now finished and we would like to thank Kirsty, Anna and John for providing us with such a pleasant venue at the Crowborough Community Centre. Next year's sessions will be held at the same venue and the dates and costs will be confirmed nearer the time.
Sessions are informal and fun where we work on our own projects in the company of like-minded people. You don't have to be a member of our group to come along - everybody is welcome.
Coffee or tea is available from the self-serve area of the cafe or you can bring your own.
CRAG Art Exhibition - 28 April to 28 May 2025
Our thanks to the staff at the Crowborough Community Centre and everybody who supported our CRAG Art Exhibition throughout the whole of May 2025.
Over 20 members of the art group displayed drawings and paintings, many for sale, and there were cards for sale too.
CRAG is the longest running art group in Crowborough (dating from the 1950s) and is still going strong with over 40 members. It is a friendly and sociable group and when it has membership vacancies it is easy to join. Many of the artists are well known in the area. The group invites professional artists to run demonstrations and workshops for 8 months of the year and meets in Crowborough Community Centre to paint together in the summer months. These Summer Painting sessions are open to non-members.
Highlighting some of the members, Sheila Winter has spent a lifetime riding and she puts all this experience into her marvellous equestrian paintings. She conveys a real sense of the character of horses and their muscular beauty. Mary Bradley is a popular artist for commissions and her paintings of local subjects and places. Mike Thompson is inspired to paint landscapes by the light, colours, textures and sheer beauty of mountains and moorland and especially the Ashdown Forest and the fells of the Lake District, which he visits frequently. Cliff Richardson is a watercolourist of landscape and seascape, who presents his work in a realistic way, aiming to enable the viewer to feel they are really experiencing it. Our exhibitions are intended to have wide appeal across different subjects and media and we have been very pleased with the interest shown this year and the favourable comments we have received. Thank you for your interest in our work.
March 2025
Frank Walters gave us an inspirational demonstration of how to approach painting in watercolour in a loose and energetic way. It is his passion to show that it can be easier and more enjoyable than many people think. On this day he was demonstrating how to paint a landscape of cliffs and sea and alongside that, a lodge building in landscape. He showed the advantage of having two watercolour paintings underway to allow drying time. His advice was to keep materials simple. His basic kit is a 4B pencil, rough surface 140 lb paper and artist quality paints. His brushes are a mop, a no 6 Rosemary sable, a flat and a rigger. The values of the paints, their temperatures between lights and darks, is more important than the colour in making a successful work. Composition is helped by applying the rule of thirds. A mainly cool sky and a warm landscape works well. The painting process is in three stages: first washes with the mop over the whole painting to lay out the larger elements of the subject and let dry. Then what he calls the calligraphy - detailed painting using the sable or the flat, wet over dry, doing most of the drawing with the sable. Finally, when all dry, shadow washes in a mix of French ultramarine and alizarin crimson complete the work. If needed, re-crop to improve the composition. Many people left the session determined to have another go at watercolour. Thank you Frank.
January 2025
Mark Fisher showed us how to combine a big sky with a landscape to make a very arresting subject whose depth pulls the eye in immediately. Aerial perspective was the key to the composition with larger clouds at the top and larger and warmer landscape elements at the bottom and everything else becoming smaller towards the horizon. The off-centre focal point on the low horizon is where the sky meets the landscape in a lighter area of sky. The clouds were angled down leading the eye to the tiny clouds on the horizon. The landscape below was sea and land with a curved edge of a bay and curved landscape lines meeting the sky.
Mark used a limited palette of pthalo and cyan blues, white, yellow ochre and burnt umber. The sky was painted in the blues and white with gently blended parallel brushstrokes, minimum water, with the blue fading to near white at the horizon. While the paint was still wet he used a round hog hair brush with a rotary, scumbling motion to add the clouds, using the principle of the larger clouds at the top of the work, halving in size in each layer until the horizon comprised layers of tiny clouds. A mix of a blue and burnt umber was used to add grey areas to the lower parts of the clouds and higher parts were highlighted with white. Delicate brushwork vital.
The horizon to the sea was masked to keep it straight. The sea was painted in parallel sweeps of the brush with some waves added, growing smaller towards the horizon but marking the beach edge with white in the foreground.
Mark also demonstrated how to produce much looser sky versions using a 1 inch flat brush with more random, all-directions brushstrokes and another version using a thick round ‘shaving brush’ type. For looser work use of fingers, rags, an atomiser, can all be helpful. Great results!
November 2024
Our thanks to Josie Tipler for another enjoyable session. Josie’s subject this time was a strong, vibrant acrylic painting of the Smoky Mountains in the USA. This featured a vast landscape across miles of mountains. Using strong warm colours in the foreground and cool colours to create distance was the guiding principle, using little water. We started with a strong pink ground and then applied paint over it with a half inch brush, layering in the sky with cerulean blue, lemon and white and then adding the mountains with sweeping curving strokes in Prussian blue and white to create recession into the distance. Blending was needed to make the distant mountains soft and hazy. Nearer mountains were deep violet. Dry brushwork was needed for the foreground trees and twigs against some of the initial pink ground. This was an exciting and dramatic painting and very enjoyable to tackle.
November 2024
Graham Lock’s subject this time was creating mood in watercolour. He painted four landscapes, one for each season, on one large sheet of paper at an easel. He used a palette of only five colours and moved between the four paintings to allow them to dry. Some of his tips for success in watercolour were that tonal contrast does most of the work and colour is icing on the cake. He stands to paint so that he works from the shoulder not the wrist and when working from a photo makes a sketch first to guide the drawing for the painting before hiding the photo away. He also reminded us that trees lean, gate horizontals should be incomplete because that is generally how we see them and he always paints his birds in the sky pointing towards a centre of interest. Our thanks to Graham for a mesmerising session.
April 2024
A welcome return visit from Graham Lock took us through a step by step tutorial using the rural landscape shown here. This was a study in water colours using a mix of wet-on-wet and wet-on-dry techniques to produce various effects in light and shade. Our thanks to Graham for another instructive session.
April 2024
Our thanks to Jan Moffitt for giving us an instructive step-by-step tutorial in portraiture. Jan's chosen media included charcoal and pencils with loose watercolour washes. She explained how to proportion the facial features and how to apply shade to get the right effect. A very enjoyable and highly informative class.
March 2024
Our thanks to Elaine Almond for running an interesting demo of her practice of abstraction in landscape. She explained how to collage preparatory sketches into a coherent artwork and then how to develop it further into a finished painting. She also gave us numerous tips on such things as using twigs with ink and how to tear painted paper without exposing a white edge.
February 2024
Mark's theme this time was a semi abstract in acrylic, adding a variety of textural features using a mix of PVA, fillers and elements of collage. Several types of textural mediums are available from art suppliers but Mark suggested all kinds of ways in which we could make our own using PVA mixed with with such things as torn paper, coffee grounds etc. Experimentation is the key. Our thanks to Mark Fisher for running another unusual and fun session.
