Royston Arts Society Membership

Reduced Price for RAS Membership

Artists can now join Royston Arts Society at a reduced price. If you join before 31st December 2024 the prices are:

Adult Members – over the age of 18 – £12.00

Junior Members – aged 18 or under – £7.00

Your membership will run through to 31st March 2025. During this period you will be able to attend up to ten painting sessions and five artist demonstrations. You will also be able to exhibit your paintings in Royston Library.

If you wish to continue your membership after 31st March 2025 you will need to renew before that date at the full rate. This is currently £20.00 for adults and £10.00 for junior members.

Join Royston Arts Society

We look forward to welcoming you to Royston Arts Society!

Autumn Exhibition Favourite Painting Award

Jo Brown wins the Favourite Painting Award

Royston Arts Society is celebrating another highly successful Autumn Exhibition. The 2024 show, held in Royston Town Hall as part of the Royston Festival, was attended by the Town Mayor, Cllr John Rees, and attracted more than 800 art lovers. Visitors were invited to vote for their favourite painting in the Exhibition and the clear winner was Jo Brown’s “Red Lanterns”. Jo, an RAS member who lives in Bassingbourn, was presented with a cash prize and a certificate by RAS Chairman Richard Clayton in recognition of her achievement.

This year’s show featured 333 paintings from 62 local artists. The wide variety of styles and subjects ensured that there was plenty of choice for everyone to enjoy. Sales were not far below the record levels set in 2023, with the price of the purchased paintings ranging from £14 up to £450, and 35 of the exhibiting artists sold something. Visitors were uniformly positive with their feedback, especially in their comments about the high quality and wide variety of the artwork on display. There was also praise from exhibitors for the efficient organisation of the event, which depends heavily on the efforts of a hard-working group of volunteers.

Visitors also gave generously to a collection in aid of Home-Start Royston, Buntingford & South Cambridgeshire, which RAS has been pleased to support. The Exhibition was again sponsored by the Royston Town Mayor’s Community Trust Fund and by Johnson Matthey plc.

Autumn Exhibition 2024

Royston Arts Society Autumn Exhibition 2024

Affordable art by local artists

The Royston Arts Society Autumn Exhibition will be held in Royston Town Hall (Map) from Friday 27th to Sunday 29th September 2024. It is a major part of the Royston Arts Festival.

We are very grateful to Johnson Matthey and Royston Town Mayor’s Community Trust Fund; the main sponsors of this exhibition. We are also grateful to our advertisers – click here for a full list.

Opening Hours

Friday 27th September – 7.30 to 9.30 pm

Saturday 28th September – 10 am to 5 pm

Sunday 29th September – 10 am to 5 pm

Free admission to see 333 paintings, all for sale at affordable prices, over 300 greetings cards and the chance to vote for your favourite framed painting.

The paintings cover a very wide range of subject matter, the medium used to create the painting and its style. They are all created by local artists.

There is something for everyone!

The online catalogue includes the names of the exhibiting artists and the prices of the paintings.

Click to download the Exhibition Catalogue

We hope to see you at the exhibition

Peter Morgan

I am essentially a watercolourist. My work embraces a variety of approaches: rather than striving to perfect a single style or conform to the rigours of “pure” watercolour, I love the stimulation and freedom that come from using different techniques, including pen & wash and very occasionally a touch of pastel here and there.

Most of my subjects are landscapes, with a strong preference for urban and marine scenes rather than rural settings – it’s the evidence of human activity that most attracts me. While I enjoy painting en plein air, I do most of my work in the studio

Here are some of my paintings

^{(Click on one to see more details)}

My paintings are usually done on Saunders Waterford or Bockingford paper, with Arches as an occasional luxury. My paints are predominantly Winsor & Newton, supplemented by a few from Daniel Smith, and my brushes come mainly from Escoda and Rosemary & Co.

I also enjoy sketching in both pencil and ink. For the latter I use metal-nibbed dip pens, fibre-tips, bamboo pens, and indeed almost anything (twig, matchstick, etc.) that can be shaped to make interesting marks, especially when the ink is being applied to rougher surfaces.

The history of watercolour art is a source of endless inspiration to me, with Cotman, Turner, and Sargent as my personal heroes, not just because they were uniquely talented as watercolourists but also because they succeeded in spite of the prejudice that has too often dismissed watercolour as being unsuited to serious art.

There’s an obvious paradox in the fact that while watercolour painting is often regarded as being popular mainly with amateurs, it is widely acknowledged as being one of the most challenging and unforgiving media to master.

Like most watercolourists, I routinely struggle to control the process of moving pigment and water around the paper, but when it works the results are deeply satisfying – at least to me as the artist (and hopefully also to the viewer!).

Contact Peter Morgan

Fill in this form if you would more like information.

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Richard Clayton

I am a self taught artist, currently living in Royston, Hertfordshire, UK.
My grandfather was an accomplished water colour painter and he was an inspiration to me when I was a young boy. Over the years, I have visited most of the major art galleries and churches in Europe and USA. My favourite is probably the National Gallery in London. I go there often to see my “old friends” and to gain inspiration for my own work.
I have also studied the history of art.
Like many amateur artists, I did not start painting until after I retired in 1999.
After a few years struggling to paint rather wishy-washy water colours, I transferred to acrylics to achieve more powerful effects.

Here are some of my paintings

For the colourful paintings, I prefer to use the “printer” colours; Process Cyan, Process Magenta and Process Yellow. These colours give a good range of greens, violets and purples as well as the primary colours.
To create a really vivid orange I mix Cadmium Red Hue with Process Yellow; Yellow Ochre and Process Magenta provide the basis for skin tones.
For the really dark areas I use Deep Violet. When I want to achieve an “Old Master” effect, I glaze the entire painting with transparent layers of Burnt Sienna. This also helps to “warm up” the painting.

Some of my more recent work is painted in Black and White. I was inspired to try this by Gerhard Richter’s powerful work from the 60’s. I use Paynes Grey and Titanium White for these paintings. They are both very opaque colours. I use two brushes for this style of painting; one to apply blobs of paint and a second brush (slightly damp) to move the paint around; to blend it and create texture. Without the need to worry about colour, I am able to paint in a looser manner with more expressive brush strokes.

You can see a lot more of my paintings here

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