Artist Demo – 14 February 2025
Bobby Open
Royston In Watercolour

This demonstration will be held on 14 February 2025 in Market Hill Rooms, Royston (map) but please note that this demo and all future RAS demos will start at 7.30pm and finish at 9.30pm.

Based in Cambridge, Bobby has exhibited across England, including exhibitions at Cambridge Contemporary Art, Cambridge Drawing Society, the Society of East Anglian Watercolourists, the Babylon Gallery in Ely and at Broadway Arts Festival.  He started plein air painting in 2012 and has taken part in events including A Brush with The Broads and the Windsor and Eton Plein Air event marking the Queen’s 90th birthday.  In 2023, Bobby won the Great Broadway Paint Off with his painting of Broadway High Street.  Other awards have included the Rosemary and Co Brushes Prize at A Brush with the Broads, and the People’s Choice Award at the Norfolk Gardens series of Paint Out.

Bobby mainly works in pencil and watercolour, enjoying the challenges and opportunities that come with watercolour: exploring what is possible with paper, brush, pigment and water; careful drawing combined with happy accidents.  As an architect, his subjects often include buildings, parts of buildings or other manmade elements, often contrasted with natural elements, or how people interact with these spaces.  Just as important as the actual subject, he looks for interesting combinations of abstract, positive and negative shapes.  Bobby also attends regular life drawing sessions and also enjoys portraiture and still life painting.  He recently started teaching workshops at Windrush Art Courses near Burford and will hopefully be running a workshop at Broadway Arts Festival in 2025.

Examples of Bobby’s watercolours can be found at instagram.com/bobbyopen