LOCAL professional artist John Haysom gave an excellent demonstration to Newton St Cyres Art Group using the technique of applying soft pastel over dry watercolour.

John paints on Saunders Waterford 140lb hot pressed paper, using 2” and 1” flat watercolour brushes together with a no.10 round for detail.

Before starting, he emphasised the importance of designing the still life to fit the paper, ie. rectangular or square.

The initial watercolour was loosely painted over a faint pencil drawing, using the large brushes, making textural marks along the way.

He made good use of cast shadows to delineate the shapes of the still life.On a perfectly dry painting, prepared the previous day, John used Unison soft pastels to add the drama.

Strong darks against lights. Complimentary colours next to each other. Bringing the background colours into the still life pots, etc.

The finished painting was stunning and the demonstration was very well received by the group. John will return later in the year with a workshop so that members can try their hand at the technique.

Gill Fitzpatrick

NEWTON St Cyres Art Group held an exhibition of work at the Boniface Centre in Crediton in conjunction with the quilts and patchwork exhibition over the weekend of May 29-31. There was considerable interest and several paintings were sold.

Jenny Hallam