Demonstrations and Events Programme

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The society makes best use of the excellent facilities in the Village Hall and projects the demonstrations onto a large screen so that everyone has a clear view of the artist at work.
Lavenham Art Society Programme 2024

January 17th Stephen Martyn - Landscape in watercolour
Stephen is based in the county of Norfolk, the inspiration for his watercolours comes directly from the landscape, wherever he happens to be. He now spends a lot of time giving tuition to others, in the hope that art will be as life changing for them as it has been for him. Stephen's paintings are in private collections around the world, and he has exhibited at numerous East Anglian venues, as well as national exhibitions in Yorkshire and London. Over the years several of his paintings have been selected for exhibition with the Royal Watercolour Society at the Bankside Gallery, London.


February 21st Geoff Thorpe - Oils with palette knife
Multi-talented East Anglian Artist who works in mixed media, oils, pastels, pen and wash and watercolours. His preferred subjects are landscapes and woodland scenes. Geoff is a well-known tutor and President of Dovercourt Art Club.


March 20th Lavenham Art Society 2024 Annual General Meeting, followed by a talk about framing.


April 17th Hashim Akib - Acrylics
Well known talented artist and popular demonstrator returns this evening for another of his fascinating acrylic painting demonstration in which, from seemingly muddled slashes and daubs of colour applied with 3–4-inch brushes emerge a wonderful piece of art, capturing the original image in glowing colours and sparkling light.


May 15th Wayne Tanswell a demonstration of sign writing
Wayne was born in London but has lived in Long Melford since his family moved there in the early 1960’s. Since completing his training as a sign writer Wayne has travelled throughout the UK and his overseas work has taken him to Bahrain, Zambia, and many European countries including Spain, Holland and Belgium. His work includes sign writing hotels, pubs and traditional shop fascias. His private commissions include work on Chris Rea’s video “Go Your Own Way”, Battersea Dogs and Cats Home and the Museum of Royal Worcester.
As a lettering artist, Wayne’s solo exhibitions have been held in Cambridge, London, and his home county of Suffolk. His exhibitions and art have been featured on TV and in national newspapers.


June 19th Brin Edwards - Acrylics
Brin paints wildlife and landscapes in oils and acrylics concentrating on light and atmosphere. He is a member of the Society of Wildlife Artists and shows his work at The Mall Galleries in London. Brin has taken part in several art residencies with the SWLA and also with the Artists for Nature Foundation.


July 17th Jane Fellows - Pastels
Jane has always loved drawing and early on knew she wanted to continue pursuing her art alongside her love of literature which led her to study a degree in Arts and Humanities at De Montfort University in the early 90’s. Over the last 6 years Jane has developed her painting and drawing style bringing new techniques from time spent print making and learning about art history. As well as painting expressive, textural landscapes Jane regularly takes commissions for pet portraits in soft pastels and continues to enjoy painting illustrative watercolours inspired by stained glass. More recently I have enjoyed experimenting with collage and giving online talks with demonstrations of my collage techniques to art societies.


August 10th – 26th Lavenham Art Society Annual Summer Exhibition, Lavenham Church


September 18th Carole Massey - Acrylics/ Mixed Media
Carole has been a professional, self-employed artist all her working life. She studied art at St Albans School of Art and then at Leicester College of Art & Design (now De Montford University) before following a successful career as a commercial artist running her own design business for 25 years.

She returned to her first love of painting, quickly gaining a reputation for her sensitive and timeless portraits. Her subjects have included members of the royal family, celebrities and leading public figures.

She was very honoured to have her painting of Sir Charles Bean, retiring Deputy Governor of the Bank of England, chosen as his official portrait to hang in the Bank of England.

Carole is a popular art tutor and demonstrator whose work is in private collections in Europe, the USA and the Far East. She is an accomplished all-rounder working in watercolour, water soluble pencils, acrylics, pastel, water based oils and mixed media. She was runner up in the Artist and Illustrator magazine in their "Artist of the Year" competition with her painting in acrylics "Reflections 3”, featured in the gallery. She has exhibited at the SWA exhibition at the Mall Galleries, across East Anglia and in France.


October 16th Keith Hornblower – Watercolour or Charcoal – A cityscape
Keith has an affinity for buildings born from an earlier career in architecture and consequently in architectural illustration, with watercolour being the medium of choice for most illustrators for reasons of speed and convenience. He is entirely self-taught, both as an illustrator and artist.
His paintings are quite separate from his illustration work. Although they share the same medium, with the former he is free to explore the medium to its limits without the constraints of a client’s wants and needs.
Keiths approach is dynamic and spontaneous, applying paint at speed, moving and adjusting washes as he progresses. He believes the pursuit of perfection is a fool’s errand; it cannot be achieved by mere mortals and it’s the imperfections that make art interesting and personal, revealing the artist, warts and all.
Keith finds watercolour a medium of endless possibilities and often feels as though he just scratching the surface. He plays with it constantly, trying different brushes and exploring ways of applying paint (as well as removing it), although Keith is not obsessed by technique as such and prefers to shy away from “tricks” such as sprinkling salt, or sponging-in foliage; they can look too mechanical and decorative.


November 20th Graham Webber - Oils
Graham is a professional artist born in North East Essex and is an elected member of The Royal Institute of Oil Painters and the Institute of East Anglian Artists. His love of landscape oil painting stems from the adaptability and responsiveness of the medium as well as his family connections to the landscape. East Anglian painters such as Edward Seago, Harry Becker and John Constable are constant sources of inspiration. Most of Graham's paintings are influenced by changing atmospheres and appreciation of nature and the landscape itself whether at home in East Anglia or further afield.


2025


January 15th – Trevor Osbourn - Pastels
Trevor was born in Essex, but moved to Staffordshire where he stayed until moving to the Isle of Wight in 1983. This led to a new period in Trevor’s work. He was captivated by the movement of sea and light, and his growing daughter was the inspiration for a series of studies. From 1987 he regularly exhibited in the Quay Arts Centre, but his work was also being shown nationally, in Lymington (Hampshire), Bartley Drey Gallery (Chelsea), and London.
Trevor moved to Suffolk In 2003, and became Head of a High School in Lowestoft, and for the next 8 years he chose to work privately and not to exhibit, but since April 2011 he has been working as a professional artist. He has exhibited with Suffolk Open Studios and undertaken a number of charity projects, including ‘Dogs of St Andrews’ for his local church (featured in ‘Suffolk Norfolk Life’ magazine), and work with Racing Welfare in Newmarket. He has worked with the Beccles Society of Artists and Norfolk and Norwich Art Circle, and at the Swann Hotel (Lodden). His work may currently be viewed at the Ferini Art Gallery (Lowestoft) and the Sun Lane Gallery (Newmarket); his most recent exhibition was at the National Horseracing Museum (Newmarket).


February 19th John Glover – Portrait in Oils
John is another artist returning Lavenham by popular demand. He is a renowned prize winning portrait artist who is also a wonderful landscape painter. Joins subject tonight will be a portrait of one of our members to be chosen from the audience.

MARCH 19th Lavenham Art Society 2025 Annual General Meeting