Now that some of us who are not key workers or have been furloughed, thought it would be interesting to see if our members had been taking up new creative activities during the Covid-19 lockdown (2020).

Ainslie, has been doing the usual of more gardening and working on the allotment, and finding time to pick up colour pencils again.

Fay has been getting back to drawing and finding how to use pencils in pencil holders.

Another member, Linda, who is a chorister has been keeping her voice by walking around and doing voice warm ups. When not doing that, also rebuilding a rockery, picking up on old unfinished art works and some yoga.

Lola has been working on 3D art and produced these 2 wonderful Rabbit figures from paper mache.

Hilary, our current Vice-Chairman has been keeping busy…  At the moment with the weather being as it is I have not taken up a pencil, pen or paintbrush in anger!! I have however, tried to sit down at the piano for 20 mins or so a day to try and get back into playing.  I have a second hand drum kit in the summer house which I have tried out a couple of times, look forward to getting into learning that as well.

Need some inspiration to draw/paint? Then here is a little challenge for you. Without disclosing your actual address online! Do a sketch/drawing/painting of a view from your home.

Here is mine to get us started.

With the current situation where we have to quarantine, self isolate and social distance, keeping social is obviously something we are finding hard to do.

This is where social media can help. I know quite a few people are suspicious of using social media, but I’m actually a big fan of it. You just need to be aware of what you are doing and posting to stay safe.

My own personal recommendations are, don’t post personal information or family information. Always take with a pinch of salt, posts from unknown sources. If you don’t like a post, block them or scroll on past. Don’t get drawn in to political or reglious “debates”, they are never debates, they just turn nasty! 

Heck, that all sounds very negative, but the positives are, keeping in touch with family from different parts of the country, finding new ideas, finding like minded people from around the world, being able to be inspired by others, show off your art to others, even sell if you want to.

TAS has had a Facebook page for quite some years, and has been mostly run by Karen de la Harpe (thank you Karen). The page is a great way of promoting TAS to the wider Facebook audience, and can be viewed and liked by anyone, which is good for TAS.

But to add to this, and for TAS members benefit, we have now created a TAS Group as part of the Facebook page, many thanks to Ali Cooper for suggesting it, and helping me set it up. The benefit of the group, is that we can control who joins, and that will only be TAS members. 

The idea of the group (and again this is all down to Ali), is that we have a place to share WIPs, completed work, catch up with each other, chat about art, chat about being creative etc, etc. I have put in place a few rules, which mirror my comments above, no politcal or relgious debates please.

I do urge you to consider joining Facebook and joing the group, it will be a great way of keeping in contact over the next few weeks/months.

Link to our Facebook page is:  https://www.facebook.com/TivertonArtSociety/

Other Social Media you may like to use

Twitter: great for for following like minded people, but can get a bit intense with people sharing others comments. (https://twitter.com/?lang=en-gb)

Instagram: Ideal for artists and creators, you can showcase your work and be inspired by others. Again, excellent if you are looking a for niche subject. (https://www.instagram.com/)

Pinterest: Another excellent platform for visual artists and creators. Ok, not so much social interaction with this one, but fantastic for collecting visual ideas, references, and a showcase for your art/creations etc. (https://www.pinterest.co.uk/)

YouTube: Fantastic for learning new skills and picking up ideas, and much much more, many an hour can be lost watching great inspiring content! (https://www.youtube.com/)

For interest, I have 1 Twitter account (not art related, but aviation niche), 3 Instagram accounts (one for art/illustration, one for photography and one for a fun cute toy photos, don’t ask!) , 2 Pinterest accounts (one for collecting references and one to help promote my art/illustration/creative works) and 2 YouTube accounts (just starting to get in to video creation, as I have to do that as part of my full time job, so one is used for practice videos, and the other for creativity videos).

If you are selling your art/crafts, all of the above, including Facebook can be used to help market your work.

I hope this has been of some help.
Stay safe and keep well.

The Annual Lympstone Art Exhibition will be held as usual during the May half term week. We will have a wide range of paintings,  as well as sculpture, ceramics and other 3D art on show .  Open from 11pm to 5pm in Lympstone Village Hall,  School Hill , Lympstone EX8 5BE. On the final day,  Sunday 2nd June , the Exhibition it will close at 2pm.

We have a secret auction for a wonderful watercolour of the  Estuary by the well know  artist James Tatum SWAc, who was nominated as Best Landscape Artist of the year by Devon Life .  Our raffle prize is a pen and ink drawing of Lympstone from the estuary by Neville Tarbath an accomplished  local artist and  draughtsman. 

During the Exhibition there will be a competition for children, (age 12 and under)  to produce a drawing on a postcard which can be collected  and produced at the Exhibition or taken home to complete.  The childrens’  work will be displayed on Saturday 1st June and the winner announced at 3pm. Prizes of vouchers for art materials will be given to the winner and the 2 next best.

Put the dates in your diary and  enjoy a visit – an opportunity to buy original art work at very reasonable prices. Entry £1, free for children under 12. Tea coffee and home made cakes available every day.

The Tiverton Art Society Spring Exhibition was held at The Castle Primary School, Tiverton from April 11 to April 18.

Early indications are that is was one of our more successful exhibitions for some years. So maybe only having one exhibition over a shorter period created an environment for buyers to be more urgent in their purchases.

As with previous exhibitions, the quality, styles, media and variety was simply amazing. As a Society we are very blessed to have so many talented artists as members. 

We encourage all members to exhibit no matter where they are in their art journey. Being able to show your work in an exhibition helps to build an artists confidence, not matter what level they are currently at. All the better if you receive an award or sell an art work.

As a Society, we hope to build and learn from each exhibition, so that we make the next one even better.

Below is a the art works that received an award or certificate of merit. (Judging is done by professional artists who are not members of the Society).

It is with great sadness that we report the passing of Pam Pebworth. Pam was a key part of the Society in its early days and is remembered with fondness.

Her funeral will be held on 1st April at 1.20pm at Torquay crematorium.

Our condolences to Pam’s family.

Intro by Stuart

I think we can all agree that Heather is an exceptional pastel artist, so her views on pastels can be considered to be very useful.

SAA Pastel review

I recently bought some SAA soft pastels in their sale, I normally use Unison ones but thought I’d give them a try. They were about a third of the price of Unisons and are harder and longer, I’ve actually found them very pleasant to use and easier to get fine lines. – Heather Strong