Newsletter 26th June 2025

Handing in day at Shrewsbury Art Gallery, painting roses,

It was handing in day for Shrewsbury Art Trail open exhibition this week so I went along to take my two paintings that have been selected. The gallery is a beautiful building on the main square in Shrewsbury…

It has a quite fascinating mix of collections including this charming painting of a formal garden in Shrewsbury:

Here’s a closer look:

It’s attributed to John Bowen and was painted in the early 18th century. They also have this pair of portraits which I loved, especially the one of the woman…

They are Thomas and Sarah Jones, husband and wife. He was the first Mayor of Shrewsbury and they had a mansion house at the foot of Wyle Cop which if you know Shrewsbury is still one of the most lovely shopping streets. Have a look at this detail of her hands…

Isn’t the painting of the lace beautifully done? I love portraits from this era. She is shown holding a book which is symbolic of her education and that she was an influential woman in her own right.

The artist is not known, they are both painted in oil on board and attributed to ‘English School’, 1615.

In other rooms in the gallery there are displays of roman finds, much from Wroxeter roman city, but also from other places around the county. They also have a room with art and artefacts relating to Charles Darwin and other naturalists. You may know that Charles Darwin was born in Shrewsbury.

So lots to see, but even more after 1st July which is when the Open exhibition starts. It runs until the end of August. On display will be work from lots of regional and local artists both in the gallery and also in The Parade shopping centre. Around the town during the Art Trail there will be a number of other events and displays, probably far too much to see in one day so some return visits over the summer will be happening! Please take a look on the Art Trail website and plan your visit. Here’s a link:

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It’s exciting to hand your work over knowing that it’s going to be seen by thousands of visitors over the summer. I came home feeling inspired to do more so I’ve been painting as much as I can this week. In Art Club we’ve been using flowers as our subject matter and it’s not something that I’ve ever painted before, flowers are much more Linda’s territory. It’s fun though to get out of what you normally do and try something different. It was a challenge at first, but I’m settling into painting roses and enjoying trying to capture their tricky form and colours.

I took some photos as I did one of these latest ones so I can show you step-by-step how I worked on it:

This one is painted on a wooden panel. I gessoed it to prepare it, but then I had also collaged on some bits and pieces including some painted papers and some embroidery scraps. I’d done this ages ago without any grand master plan and just set it aside.

I started the painting by painting out most of the collage. I know that’s a bit weird, but I just wanted glimpses of it to shine through the painting. The embroidery adds a bit of texture. I painted in the suggestion of a frame/box/windowsill which is a device we’ve been considering in Art Club when we talk about compositional ideas.

I’m using acrylic by the way which is drying nice and quick in this warm English summer at the moment making working in layers nice and easy.

Next I blocked in the main overall shape of the flowers by painting the background area with a thin layer of paint. Again I’m letting previous layers show through rather than trying to make the paint opaque. On the left you can see my sketchbook page which has the reference photo I’m working from.

Next I start blocking in the big shapes of the petals trying to place the colours roughly where they should be. I use a large flat brush for this. The temptation with something detailed and pretty like the roses is to go in too soon with the fine details and a teeny brush. I’m not letting myself do that!

More layers of paint added refining the colour and the form of the petals. I've found it quite an interesting challenge to describe the forms without going too dark in the shadows, everything needs a light touch.

And here it is completed with the finishing touches of the stamens in the middle of the flowers. Adding those in is a bit like putting the catchlight in the eye of a portrait, seems to bring the whole thing to life! I think that Linda thinks I should paint out that white half circle at the top, but I’ve decided I like it so it’s staying. That’s the beauty of using a random collage as the base for your painting - you end up with happy accidents like that which you would never do on purpose, but that can bring an interesting quality to a piece of work.

If you are interested in drawing and painting and talking about art and ideas then Art Club might be right up your street. You can find out more and sign up on our website.

I’ve been mooching in the garden for contenders as subjects for my next painting and I thought this white rose might be ideal. It’s a bit beaten up by hot sun, wind and a downpour of rain, but I think it’s beautiful and I like the idea of trying to paint something that we think is white, but probably isn’t when you get to look closely.

I also photographed this poppy,

which is spectacular, but only a lunatic would paint it surely? 😉

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Over on our Pinterest board there’s a growing selection of photos of work from our students. Don’t forget, if you’ve made something inspired by one of our online courses or workshops we’d love to include it. Please send over a photo by email and I’ll add it to the board. Here’s a link to take a look at what’s there already…

We love to receive your emails, comments and questions. This week one of our students Laura wrote to share some of the beautiful work that she’s made. You’ll see it all on the Pinterest board, but here’s one piece that she made following Linda’s Running with Stitch course.

Laura wrote some very kind words which she’s kindly allowed me to share with you today:

When I have a question about how to do a specific art technique on fabric or paper, your list of classes is one of the first places I go…and I almost always find a clear, straightforward, and engaging demonstration of how to do it, step-by-step! But even more often, when I’m in an fallow period in my art life, I look through the list of classes and get inspired to try something new and adventurous. Your Sketchbook Challenge and 31 Days of Art Journaling classes…which you developed during the pandemic lockdowns…were a godsend during that dark time. The lessons in such a wide variety of sketchbook techniques gave me something to look forward to and practice, and “being” with you gave me a sense of community during a time when no one could get together in person.

Both you and Linda are outstanding and adventurous artists, great and generous teachers, and fascinating newsletter writers. I wish I could express the vast amount of pleasure and inspiration I've gotten from working through your classes, seeing your works in progress (as well as finished), and reading your newsletters. I'm so grateful to have discovered you both.

I can’t tell you how uplifting it was to receive that message. It really filled our hearts! We don’t get to see many of your face-to-face and often we’re just here in our studios working away with just a camera and a microphone. To get feedback like that is really wonderful. Thank you Laura!

If you are new here then you might not know that we have an online library of hundreds of short workshops and longer courses. They are all available on demand so you can work through them at your own pace with no pressure. You can always contact us via the message boards available in some of the classes, or through the online community page which is open to anyone who signs up for a class. And of course our email inboxes are always open. You can browse our selection of classes, they’re organised by topics to help you find what you are interested in, or there’s a search box where you can type in a key word and it’ll show you all the classes related to it.

This week for our paid subscribers, I wrote about how to find a colour palette from any reference photo to identify colours for any project:

And Linda wrote about painting her dinner!

You can catch up on both of those articles if you’ve missed them.

Thank you for reading our news this week, as usual it’s a long one, but hopefully there’s been something to interest you. We’ll be back again soon with another update, but in the meantime I hope you have a carefree and creative week.

Love Linda and Laura x