top of page
OVAS Newsletter June 2019

Dear Members,

We have been having a lovely Spring with plenty of opportunities to get out and find inspiration for our art. I was lucky enough to spend a week in North Cornwall, exploring the glorious coastline and some lovely gardens such as the Lost Gardens of Heligan. Lots of photos of sunlit turquoise seas, and beautiful cliffs adorned with tufts of pink Thrift to bring back to the studio!

You will find with this newsletter your entry forms for our summer exhibition which is not far away , so now is the time to decide what artwork you want to display. Please remember that if you use a framer for your pictures they will need plenty of notice , as this is a busy time of year for them! It is a good thing to consider going with the best frames you can afford as this can make or break your pictures. It also helps the exhibition to look professional and of a high general standard , and makes the job of the hanging committee much easier.

As most of you realise, the setting up of the exhibition is a huge job, so if any of you feel able to volunteer your services for that day the committee would be very grateful. We start at just after 8.0 in the morning but bacon rolls and fruit juice and coffee are provided for helpers!

As one of the stipulations in hanging your work in the exhibition is that you need to agree to steward during the sessions when we are open to the public, please bring your diaries to both the June and July meetings when the rota will be available for you to put yourself down for a couple of sessions. Mike Bird , our treasurer, will be in charge of the rota. You can find all the relevant information regarding entering art work on your forms , but please remember if you are entering cards , to send the forms to Carolyn Barker.

We continue to have a productive programme of events , with Matt Culmer teaching us about colour mixing and tones , which a lot of members really appreciated.

Our June demonstrator is our very own Phil Creek and some of the members are attending his workshop.

In July popular artist Trevor Waugh is coming to show us how to paint roses in watercolour ,an appealing subject.

Penny Lamb

Autumn 2019 Newsletter
Good Evening friends, and welcome to Autumn! The evenings are beginning to draw in now, the weather is getting wetter and wilder, and the landscape colours are changing, but I hope that will not be an excuse not to carry on painting, either at your art classes or OVAS Tuesday group or in your studios.
In August we held our Annual Exhibition , which attracted very enthusiastic comments from public and artists alike. Our new feature, a stall selling cards of works by OVAS members, proved a great success. The judge for this year was Jane Leitch, an artist from the Dartmoor area, who was complimentary about the high standard of the members artwork.
The winners of the awards were as follows :
The Otter Award for Drawing: Chloe Brice “Monkey World”
The Leonard Pargiter Award for Watercolours: Tracey Rapson “Light on the Canal”
The Alwyn Crawshaw Award for Acrylics: Penny Lamb “Dartmoor Stone Circle “
Society Award for Pastels: Nicki Bitschi “It Wasn’t me”
David Young Award for Oils: Gillian Jones “A Wessex Summer”
Janet Langmaid Award for Mixed Media: Pauline Hatfield “Forbidden Treasure”
The Alice Comont Cup for 3D Works: Simon Gray “Female Duck”
The Popular Vote was won by Mike Stevens with “Happy”. Mike’s prize is a free year’s membership of the Society.
Please can I draw your attention to several forthcoming events :
Next month (November) our meeting at the Institute is in the afternoon, at 2pm, with Anthony Slinn talking about Van Gogh.
Nickie Bitschi is again organising our Christmas lunch at the Hare and Hounds pub on Friday 6th December, at 12 noon for 12.30 for the carvery. If you would like to join in with this please either email or phone Nickie on nickiebitschi@googlemail.com or 01404822706 ASAP. Nickie is also running the Hind Street Gallery rota for 2020, so if you would like to display your work you can let her know.
I would also like to remind you that the Society’s membership fees are increasing to £30 from January 2020.
Now for two announcements regarding the AGM in March 2020. As many of you will know, several of our long standing committee members are retiring at that time, and so we need you to seriously consider coming onto the committee to enable the society to function successfully. Since our present committee was formed, we have added to our membership numbers and so it
should be possible for us to fill the vacancies on the committee. If you are interested please think carefully about finding yourself a proposer and seconder in time for the AGM. You can also ask any of the officers about what committee work entails.
Now I am going to throw out to you all my challenge for the competition for the AGM. As Colin Allbrook, our October demonstrator reminded us, it is good for us all to try a different medium now and again to stretch our skills and to avoid getting into a rut. So the challenge is to use a different medium to the one that you usually use to produce a piece of work. The subject or theme or style can be anything of your choice, and if you don’t want to spend too much money on new art materials, I’m sure you can beg, borrow or swap from your friends or family! Happy painting, carving, printing, drawing or whatever, and I look forward to hearing about your experiments.
Best wishes,
Penny Lamb
Jun 2019 newsletter
bottom of page