This month’s demonstration held at Sidmouth Conservative Club by the Sidmouth Society of Artists took the form of ‘show and tell’.

Show me yours

Eight brave artists within the Society membership took up the challenge, each bringing along an example of their work and explaining their motivation to paint a particular scene. Additionally, each was able to explain what they believed to be their strengths and weaknesses, elaborating on their technique, composition, degree of satisfaction and so on before submitting to polite questions from the audience. There was no ‘what’s that supposed to be?’ or why don’t you take up cookery?’

And I’ll show you mine

The ‘production’, for the want of a better word, was as professional as we could make it. Each picture was projected onto, a large screen and each demonstrator in turn was invited to use a professional standard microphone, amplified for the benefit of listeners, - fortunately no one broke into song! Indeed there were some artists who were a little phased by this and they opted to raise their voices instead to avoid any self-consciousness.

Sidmouth Herald: A selection of work by Sidmouth Society of Artists

The great and the good

There was a variety of media on display such as watercolour, art resin, acrylic, pencil and felt. Importantly there was every opportunity to learn from one another, this after all, is perhaps the biggest spin-off from joining any art group. With the talents on display at the SSA, ranging from improver to professional there was something to interest each one of the healthy number in the audience. Everybody got something out of it, including the speakers.

Well, I’ll be darned!

Now that winter is upon us, we, together with Exmouth Art Group, were excited to recently launch our winter programme of Zoom demonstrations when we hosted the wonderfully talented textile performance artist Harriet Riddell. A fabulous inspirational artist who has swapped paint brushes for thread and uses her sewing machine to free style draw in stitch. It was truly amazing! If you would like to find out more about the SSA please visit our website www.sidmouthsocietyofartists.com - it would be great to hear from you.