SAA ‘All About Art’ Event, Islington

Went to London for the for the SAA’s ‘All About Art’ event on Friday, 23rd July. Didn’t really know what to expect and was initially disappointed. It was smaller than I imagined and products were dispersed all over the place. It was confusing because items were divided by paint type but some product had separate manufacturer stands. Wasted a lot of time looking for Atelier paints; they didn’t have the ones in the SAA catalog so that was a bummer.

After being late and getting distracted by the products, all of the workshops were already running. But a useful demonstration in making mounts was just starting. We got to take our double mount home with us, which was a big plus. The mount cutting machine, however, was way too expensive.

After the mount demo, there was an opening for a Marilyn Allis workshop in acrylics.  Luckily, I was there just in time...you have to be fast or lucky to get a seat.  This was a fantastic workshop and I was hooked; planning on taking a Marilyn Allis class as soon as possible. After that workshop, unfortunately, it was lunch and there were no more workshops till after the break.

With seating on the upper level, I bought a sandwich and sat down to plan my assault on the next three workshops. A lot of people brought their lunch and I found a table with a nice group of people from Gillingham. They had so much food, I don’t think they ate half of it. Anyway, one of the ladies told me the drawing session with Anita Pounder was good so that was on my short list.

Earlier, I spotted a great workshop on Pastels, but it was no longer running. By luck there were seats available for the wild animal pastels on velour with Vic Bearcroft. It was amazingly simple to create this gorilla; Vic gave us a template to trace and walked us through the steps in a slow and humorous manner. The drawing didn’t look like much up close, but from farther away the whole thing came together. Couldn't have done this on my own and would someday like to learn more about velour and pastel.

The Ink & Acrylic class looked different in the afternoon session, but I sat down to it anyway. There was a seat and if I spent too much time looking for another workshop I’d be SOL. The technique was interesting, the image…not so much. The inks were used like watercolour so it was a little familiar to me. The class seemed rushed and I was forever asking the person next to me what steps I missed, he by the way, had no clue. At home, my friend said she liked the painting except for the top.  The mountains, trees and reflection in the water look odd... so maybe some cropping is in order here.

My last workshop was drawing from a live model with instructor Anita Pounder; it was a great opportunity to draw a live subject and the techniques were interesting as well. In the first exercise, we drew with our left hand... it came out better than expected. The second method was drawing light on dark paper; this seemed even harder than working with my left hand. The third exercise was dark shapes on light paper. Might have been getting tired because it was the end of the day and the worst drawing of the three.

All in all the day was fantastic; with a £5 voucher I found myself buying £22 of art things I didn’t really need. If I wasn’t going away for the weekend I would have gone again on Saturday. Did anyone go on the weekend? Please let me know how crowded it was on Sat & Sun so I can plan for next year.