ABOUT US

We are a group of amateur artists  who meet on Thursday mornings (9.30 - 12.30) in Codsall Village Hall.  Roland Twynam is our tutor. 

​Modus operandi:   everyone "does their own thing" with Roland offering constructive criticism, help, and advice.  Occasionally we have a life model and sometimes Roland gives a demo on topics such as perspective, composition, and other elements of creating art that we need to understand.     We also learn from each other by discussion, sharing ideas and experiencing different media.  A wide range of work is produced using charcoal, pencil, coloured pencil,  oil, acrylic, watercolour, oil pastel, chalk pastel, collage, pen and ink.  

Our artistic abilities and interests are diverse - an eclectic mix that makes for a stimulating group with Roland at the helm.

The group has been going for a few years now and this website first took shape in September 2015 - it's a matter of "watch this space" to see if and how it evolves.
Site updated:   7th February 2019
Next Meeting: 21st February 2019

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Here's Roland with a collage he completed last year.   He says it's "painted" using tiny scraps of paper torn from the Sunday supplement magazines.  

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THIS MONTH'S FEATURED ARTIST: 
​ANDRE DERAIN (1880 - 1954)

André Derain was considered by leading critics in the 1920s to be the most outstanding French avant-garde painter and at the same time the upholder of the classical spirit of French tradition.   In 1895, aged 15, Derain began to study on his own and occasionally went to the countryside with an old friend, Father Jacomin along with his two sons. In 1898, while studying to be an engineer at the Académie Camillo, he attended painting classes and met Matisse. In 1900.  He met and shared a studio with Maurice de Vlaminck and together they began to paint scenes in the neighbourhood, but this was interrupted by military service.  Following his release from service (1904), Matisse persuaded Derain's parents to allow him to abandon his engineering career and devote himself solely to painting; subsequently Derain attended the  Academie Julian.   Derain was a founder member of the short lived Fauvist art movement. 

​​Fauvism is the name applied to the work produced by a group of artists (which included Henri Matisse and André Derain) from around 1905 to 1910, which is characterised by strong colours and fierce brushwork.   It is a style of painting with vivid expressionistic and non-naturalistic use of colour that flourished in Paris from 1905 and, although short-lived, had an important influence on subsequent artists, especially the German expressionists. Matisse was regarded as the movement's leading figure.

After viewing the boldly coloured canvases of Henri Matisse, André Derain, Albert Marquet, Maurice de Vlaminck, Kees van Dongen, Charles Camoin, and Jean Puy at the Salon d'Automne of 1905, the critic Louis Vauxcelles disparaged the painters as "fauves" (wild beasts), thus giving their movement the name by which it became known. ​​

 

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Charring Cross Bridge (1906)

Portrait of Matisse (1905)

Site editor:  Betty Taylor
You can also find me at:          http://www.codsallwriters.weebly.com   
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