AFTER making some announcements in connection with our exhibition on October, our president introduced the speaker and demonstrator, Geoff Kersey, whose subject was Watercolour Landscapes.

Geoff is a well-known practising artist who is very active as a tutor and demonstrator and has produced a number of instructional books and videos.

He started his presentation by describing his favoured materials and techniques. He usually paints on stretched 140lb rough paper and finds that synthetic, rather than sable-hair brushes, best suit his painting style.

He uses masking fluid for reserving selected areas of his paintings and uses a limited palette of colours to ensure the colour unity of his compositions.

For his demonstration, he had chosen a Dovedale landscape for which he had a reference photograph. He frequently uses reference photographs but stresses that they should not be slavishly copied but that their details should be simplified to produce a pleasing composition.

Geoff had sketched his subject and applied masking fluid to selected areas. He prepared his various colour mixes and then dampened his paper surface with water and sponge, explaining that this helped the flow of his washes and avoided unplanned hard edges.

As he worked on his painting, Geoff explained the properties of his colours and mixes and demonstrated various techniques such as dry brushing and the representation of different textures.

Each stage as he progressed from the sky area, through the middle distance and foreground detail, was accompanied by a discussion of the reasons for every painting decision until he applied the finishing touches of shadows, highlights and reflections to complete a very successful picture. His appreciative audience was our largest yet, a total of 71 members and visitors.

Our next meeting will be at St Luke's Memorial Hall, Evesham Road, Headless Cross on Wednesday, October 3 at 7.30pm when Paul Weaver will discuss and demonstrate Line and Wash.

The group is supported by Redditch Council through Redditch Arts Council.