Our August meeting, on Wednesday 19th, was a wonderfully relaxed and informative ‘workshop’ given by Julia Renault. We began in the members room, where, once we’d run though a couple of Société items, we began our workshop.
Julia had specifically requested Faber-Castell pencils, the reason….. Well, apart from being very comfortable pencils to hold, they also have exceedingly good ‘leads’. Construction wise batches are tested by being dropped off a high tower, collected, cut length wise and examined to check that the lead is unbroken! Who knew!! (Well Julia did).
They also are high quality pencils and are very good for oblique shading. We used 2B & 4B pencils.
Julia showed us some basic techniques in sketching, along with various examples, and how to use an eraser to ‘sketch’ with, by creating negative spaces, eg using the eraser to create the sun in a cloudy sky….or the moon in the night sky, to give just 2 examples.
We were shown various techniques and, when asked if there was a correct way to hold a pencil, Julia replied “No”, it was was whatever worked best for you.
We then departed for the great ‘Outdoors’, we mosied down to Broad St/Conway St. area, complete with clip boards, sketching paper which had a slight texture for the graphite of the pencil to adhere to, our 2 pencils and an eraser. Oh, and one pencil sharpener.
Weather wise, it was a perfect evening, and we all found our own little spot to sketch, Julia circulated, giving advice, answering queries and generally giving lots of encouragement. After about an hour we made our way back to the members room for a ‘debrief’. The most prevalent comment was “I’m a photographer, so not good at drawing”…….in actual fact everyones sketches were all good in different ways, and when one member said “I can’t draw in straight lines”, Julia’s reply was ‘Well, that’s your unique style”. She had something positive to say about everyones work.
We tied up the meeting with everyone saying how much they had enjoyed the experience, and that it would be wonderful to do another sketching workshop sometime.
Thank you Julia Renault for hosting an inspiring workshop.
Jooj
AFP September Meeting (Wed 16th, 18:30h/6.30pm) – Kino Films
For our September meeting we’re going to show a selection of short films produced during the ‘Kino workshops’ held by the 13th Parish International Film Festival.
A Kino film is a short film, written, filmed and edited in a matter of days! We will show a variety of Kinos, all created here in Jersey, all very different and filmed on a variety of cameras, from professional to iPhones.
This will be a great opportunity to see some great short films and experience what can be created under pressure!!
For more information please email – afp@societe.je
