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Royston Arts Society will be having the usual summer break from Demos in the month of August and also in September whilst our Autumn Art Exhibition takes place during Royston Arts Festival. The next Friday evening demo will be held on 11th October in the Royston Museum from 8.00 to 10.00pm when Royston Printmakers will be demonstrating ‘Lino Cutting’.

Royston Printmakers are based in the Royston Museum where they use the ‘Colombia’ press, which was originally purchased to print the Royston Crow ! 

The group have been printing there for almost 10 years, enjoying each other’s work, exchanging ideas and advice and exhibiting locally.  Members have different styles so a wide variety of prints are produced, by the group, some of which will be available to view. 

The demonstration will include a brief look at the history of printing and some of the methods that can be used, then concentrate on relief printing and demonstrate how the press is used and various cutting and inking techniques that can be employed.

There will also be an opportunity for some attendees to use the press using pre-cut Lino blocks to make a card.

Free admission for Royston Arts Society members; £4.00 fee for non-members on the door , no pre-booking required  

The next Friday evening demonstration will be held on 12th July in Market Hill Rooms from 8.00 to 10.00pm when Stephie Butler will be demonstrating ‘Lion in Liquid Charcoal and Watercolour’.

Stephie has a passion for Portraits, Wildlife & Africa and is an award winning artist and elected member of the Society of Women Artists.  Predominantly working in watercolour, she is a tutor who shares her passion internationally.  She regularly exhibits in the prestigious Mall Galleries, London and her work can be found in private collections across the UK, USA, Europe and the UAE.

Elected as a member of the Society of Women Artists in 2018 she is also a past Vice Chairman of the Society of East Anglian Watercolourists.  Her awards include the new “Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolour Award” at the selected Society of East Anglian Watercolourists Exhibition 2017 and the “Derwent Art Materials Award” in 2015, at the SWA exhibition, Mall Galleries, London.

Stephie’s work has been published in a book on watercolour techniques, included in the International Watercolour Society catalogue, and also used as a book cover. Regularly entering and being selected for exhibitions in the UK, she has achieved best in show, runner up and has had solo exhibitions in the UK and USA.

Examples of Stephie’s work can be seen on her website.

Stephie Butler SWA | Artist | London

Free admission for Royston Arts Society members; £4.00 fee for non-members on the door , no pre-booking required  

The next Friday evening demonstration will be held on 10th May in Market Hill Rooms from 8.00 to 10.00pm when Stephen Taylor will be giving a talk entitled ‘Oak Trees and Oil Paint : Outdoor painting and digital Imagery’.

Stephen studied Fine Art at Leeds University, worked on perception and technique at Essex University and as a visiting student at Yale.  After an artist residency then teaching both art and art history part-time Stephen started his own practical painting journey. Throughout this time a wide range of private commissions helped him to develop his work.

In the 90’s he reorganised his career to focus on landscape. Between 1999 and 2007 he worked exclusively in a single field in North Essex, which yielded two exhibitions in Cambridge and London, demonstrating what concerted attention to a single place could offer contemporary art. The story is told in the artist’s book “Oak: one tree, three years, fifty paintings” (2011).

An altarpiece, The Hospitality of Abraham, for The Church of The Most Holy Trinity, Reading, 2004, is an exception to this landscape work, though it sets redemptive figures within the created world.

Stephen is currently painting water in a small valley in Wales, and further developing a method of mapping colour textures from digital HDR images to help parse complex natural scenes.

All of Stephen’s paintings are either finished on the spot over several days, or derived from on the spot colour studies and built up in the studio using colour texture selections from digital images. Stephen will give an illustrated talk on the the reasons behind his approach and methods. Studio samples(studies & computer printouts) and catalogues will be available for people to look through. 

Examples of Stephen’s work can be seen on his website.

Paintings – Stephen Taylor Paintings

Free admission for Royston Arts Society members; £4.00 fee for non-members on the door , no pre-booking required  

The next Friday evening demonstration will be held on 12th April in Market Hill Rooms from 8.00 to 10.00pm when Ernie Butler will be demonstrating ‘Seascape in Oils’.

Ernie Butler was trained by William Calladine, who was apprenticed to the last living Dutch Old Master -Jan Hendrik Everson.  He was taught the techniques they used including the Flemish technique. He has also studied the methods used by other artists including Turner and Constable. These skills are clearly evident in his paintings, which display a feeling of emotion, atmosphere and light.

Ernie is honoured to be a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. He teaches, demonstrates and has also been funded by the Arts Council of England on projects.  He works in oils, charcoal, pencil and ink and his paintings can be found in international collections and exhibitions.

Examples of Ernie’s work can be seen on his website.

Cambridgeshire International artist – Ernie Butler

Free admission for Royston Arts Society members; £4.00 fee for non-members on the door , no pre-booking required.

The next Friday evening demo will be held on 8th March in Market Hill Rooms from 8.00 to 10.00pm when Heather Miller will be demonstrating ‘Floral scene in Acrylics’.

Heather started to paint seriously after moving to Abu Dhabi in 2001. The change of culture and scenery awakened a creative spark and her artistic journey continued back in the U.K.  

Inspired by a love of nature, Heather’s aim as an artist is to engage and intrigue the viewer and draw them into her work.  She explores colour and light in each painting, conscious of how these elements lift the spirit and encourage connection with the subject. Her paintings are an emotional response to what she sees rather than a facsimile. 

Heather demonstrates to art societies around the UK and exhibits at The Mardleybury Gallery, The Corner Gallery, The Park Gallery in Cheltenham, Fisherton Mill, Landmark Arts, The Bath Art Fair and various art shows. 
Examples of Heather’s work can be seen on her website.

https://www.heathermillerpaintings.com/
Free admission for Royston Arts Society members; £3.00 fee for non-members on the door , no pre-booking required  

The next Friday evening demo will be held on 9th February in Market Hill Rooms from 8.00 to 10.00pm when Anne Blankson-Hemans SWA will be demonstrating  “Still Life In Oils”.

Anne studied Fine Art at the College of Art, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) in Ghana. She is a multi-award winning artist and has been exhibiting her work on a regular basis since 2007. Her paintings have been exhibited at the prestigious Mall Galleries in London, in annual exhibitions by the Royal Society of British Artists (RBA), and the Society of Women Artists (SWA) with her works being in collections in the UK, the USA, Japan, China and Australia 

Anne has also been selected to take part in two BBC TV programmes; ‘Show Me the Monet’ (BBC2, 2012) and ‘The Big Painting Challenge (BBC1, 2015). In addition, her works have been featured in a number of publications including ‘The Artist’, (July 2015), and the glossy French publication ‘Pratique des Arts’, (June 2017).
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Anne sketches and paints ‘en plein air’ around the UK and abroad to collect material for her paintings. She then develops her larger finished paintings in her studio.

You can see examples of her watercolour painting on her website

ANNE BLANKSON-HEMANS FINE ART – Anne Blankson-Hemans Fine Art (annebh-art.com)

Free admission for Royston Arts Society members; £3.00 fee for non-members on the door, no pre-booking required.

The next Friday evening demo will be held on 12th January in Market Hill Rooms from 8.00 to 10.00pm when Caroline Furlong will be demonstrating “A Rural Snow-scene in Watercolours”.

Caroline started her artistic journey on a birthday present weekend watercolour course at Flatford Mill. Loving it so much she took more courses in subsequent years which then led her to take the leap of starting her own small art group in her village to teach others the skills she had developed. Caroline now has her own studio where she teaches watercolour techniques and has also returned to Flatford Mill as a tutor. She is also running workshops for art groups, giving demonstrations to art societies, promoting products for companies and showing in galleries. Caroline loves painting, both indoors and out and her favourite topics are landscapes, street scenes and coastal areas.

You can see examples of her watercolour painting on her website Caroline Furlong

Free admission for Royston Arts Society members; £3.00 fee for non-members on the door, no pre-booking required.