FEBRUARY 2ND - A.G.M. & DISCUSSION ON MEMBERS' PAINTINGS
The A.G.M. was opened by our Acting Chair, Chris Lattimer, who reviewed the activities of the last year and thanked the outgoing officers, Eve Tappenden (Chair) and Colin Hammond (President) and all the committee members for their work throughout the year. Both Eve and Colin have had to stand down for personal reasons and the appointment of their successors was an agenda item to be considered later in the meeting. The minutes of the 2010 A.G.M. were approved and the officers presented their reports. Chris Skirrow reviewed the programme for the year and received some useful feedback on member’s preferences. Sue Westcott updated us on the website facilities and invited more members to show their work on the site. The available data shows the website to have received an encouraging number of hits and we understand that one of our members has received a painting commission as a result.
Following the nomination process, the election of Gil Eastham had been proposed and seconded, Gil accepted the post and went on to give his Address. His first duty as President was to thank his predecessor, Colin, for all tireless work he had done in his tenure of office and to present him with a crystal rose bowl in recognition of his services and to confirm his new status as an Honorary Member of the Art Circle.Business concluded, we went on to the discussion of member’s paintings. John Ford led the session and started with his summary of the elements of tone, colour, structure and style, all of which contribute to the production of a successful painting. He ranked the element of tone as being the most important and used some of his own paintings to illustrate the point. He showed a picture of a dark, overcast seascape with a sailing vessel. The sails appeared to be a brilliant white against the dark background but John told us that the sails had, in fact, been toned down from the whiteness of the paper. This showed how any tone is judged in relation to the surrounding tones and John reinforced this with a number of samples of cards designed to show this relative perception of tone. A similar discussion of the properties of colour followed with an explanation of the use of primary colours and the way in which warm and cool versions of these colours interact. After some observations on structure and composition, John displayed the paintings that members had brought for comment.
Two pastel paintings, one a landscape and the other a wildlife study were shown, and one portrait in charcoal and pastel. They all prompted some constructive comments from John and the members, mainly in connection with the position of the subject and the possibility of improving the picture by judicious cropping.