Roger Marks, chairman of the Sidmouth Society of Artists writes for the Herald.

Sidmouth Society of Artists’ January demonstration featured prominent Exmouth artist Angie Seaway who, as well as teaching, runs her own Seaway gallery.

‘Plenty of scope’

Her speciality is the Jurassic Coast which encompasses the 95 miles from Exmouth eastwards to Studland Bay and which also embraces 185 million years of geological history- surely quite enough for anyone to be getting on with!

‘Two for one’

Angie’s bubbly personality, exuding positivity and self-belief, enhanced her delivery as she painted along in tandem with a slide show featuring her completed artworks and photos of various coastal scenes.

‘In the mood’ Her subject matter is invariably centred on where the land meets the sea, that is to say beaches, cliffs, rock formations, sea and skies of every type. Indeed, she stressed that by studying the scene at considerable length, for example 30 minutes whilst on location, she is able to find a mood or atmosphere that provides the motivation to capture its very essence on canvas.

‘Tooling up’ As she began to apply her acrylic paints to her large square canvas, she used a refreshing variety of implements that included washing up sponges, a window scraper, credit card, toothbrush and yes, even some paint brushes. Additionally, she also created texture by applying iron filings, sawdust, artists gesso and glue. She used bits of cloth and even her hands to manipulate the materials already on the canvas.

‘Free and easy’

It was hard to believe that she was working to any kind of preconceived plan because her application of paint onto the canvas appeared to be totally free and easy and totally uninhibited, almost slapdash dare I say- a slosh here, a flip there, dab, dab, swish, swipe! Perhaps not indicative of a future career with the Ordnance Survey.

‘Further into the mire’

Call me a doubting Thomas if you will but I confess that for the first 40 minutes of her demo I felt that the picture was getting nowhere. However, slowly and inexorably, (what a beautiful word), a semblance of order and form emerged from what had appeared to be a chaotic melee of abstract scrubbings, not to put too fine a point on it, and no offence intended.

Rather surprisingly she finished early because once she had turned the corner the picture took shape in leaps and bounds. Quite remarkable really! I guess Angie is one of those gifted artists who is able to be loose in her style where many of us can all to easily become preoccupied with detail, precision, correctness and faithful reproduction. Of course, there is room for every style in art, but I found this presentation instructive and at times enlightening, well done Angie.