The Tenby and District Arts Club moved from the musical to the visual arts last Friday with a painting demonstration by Graham Hadlow. Graham is a well-known and loved local watercolourist, having spent many years teaching art at Greenhill, and it is always a delight to watch him produce a painting almost from start to finish within the hour of an arts club presentation.

He uses only three main colours, cobalt blue, raw sienna and burnt sienna, and creates all his tones from mixtures of these three. He uses Cotman colours and French Arches paper which he stretches to make a nice flat surface. He makes his own palettes, but said an old white dinner plate does the job well. He uses brushes from Rosemary and Co. of Yorkshire, and the Windsor and Newton university series of brushes for lifting out.

Last Friday he painted Tenby’s North Beach looking south-east. He started with a warm wash for the sky, and a slightly greyer wash around the horizon. As he left whiter patches for the clouds, he explained that the clouds seem thinner and flatter towards the horizon. After re-straightening the horizon with a wet brush, he got out his hairdryer to hurry along the drying process - when at home he would generally stop for tea at this point!

Graham then concentrated on the sea and the rocks along Castle Hill - he left out the new lifeboat station as he felt it cluttered up the landscape - and because that’s what you can do when you are painting rather than photographing!

After demonstrating how to put in a ship’s mast using a ruler and a rigger brush, he wet the lower half of the painting to put in the reflections on the sea and sand. More hairdrying, then some detail on the rocks - repetition tempered by variation.

He added some rocks and seaweed scattered on the beach, and then a couple walking along the sands - and made up a backstory for them as he painted - always starting with the anorak so the head doesn’t get out of scale. He recommended Frank Clark’s method of painting people from a distance - make them look like carrots!

Graham added a couple of red boats - red being the only other colour he usually uses in his paintings as it was his mother’s favourite colour, and the red of the lifeboat house roof. On pulling off the masking tape, a completed painting was revealed. Amazing.

This (Friday) evening, after much confusion about whether St Johns hall was being used for a quiz or not, Tenby and District Arts Club is inviting all members to join in a friendly fundraising quiz which is actually at Deer Park Church not at St. Johns.

The quiz is at 6 pm and is £2.50 per person. Don’t worry about teams; groups will be made up as people arrive. Hope to see you there.

The following week (January 29) we are at Church House for a performance by Alison Neil of ‘The Fossil Lady of Lyme’.