Chance to Win a Place on Our Sept 2014 Painting Holiday

We are very excited to bring you news that in collaboration with the new magazine, Discover Art and the art materials specialist Great Art there is an opportunity for you to win a place on our September 2014 painting holiday, along with lots of other fantastic art prizes. To enter you will need to design and create a single postcard using a media and technique of your choice. For full details of the competition pick up a copy of the magazine at your WH Smith's High Street branch or most local newsagents.

Here is a bit more information about the painting holiday prize to whet your appetite!

 

Taking inspiration from 4 stunning locations on the north and south coast, (Port Isaac, Trebarwith Strand, Charlestown and Polruan) Ashley will encourage you to create your own personal vision of the landscape.  You will spend 2 days on location followed by 2 full days in the studio under Ashley’s expert guidance.

 
Ashley will demonstrate and share many of his tips and techniques and artists will explore colour, composition, mark-making and abstraction. Included are 5 night’s accommodation, 4 full day’s tuition, all lunches and a 3 course celebratory evening meal.

Your artist tutor Ashley has a wide experience of teaching including Visiting Lecturer at Canterbury Christchurch University and has shown his work both nationally and internationally. More details can be found on Pages 48/49 about the competition. Ashley is also one of the featured artists on pages 96-98 of the magazine.

Painting holiday dates for 2014 dates are :

12th  -17th  May & 22nd - 27th  September

We are currently working on the full details for our 2014 painting holidays, watch this space for their release date. For more information about Ashley and our painting holidays visit www.ashleyhanson.co.uk

New Painting -'City of Glass 13- (Entrance)'

'City of Glass 13- (Entrance)'    120x150cms     oil on canvas

This painting began in June with three Manhattans side by side (of increasing scale from left to right). In COG 2 & 9 I had two Manhattans in the same piece so why not three? A New York Trilogy? The idea was to explore space by moving the Manhattans around, touching or tucked behind each other or placed apart to see what works best.  The three shapes were connected visually by each having 42ndSt on the same long horizontal. Once again the idea was stronger than the execution - there was no space, the painting was cramped and claustrophobic so I made the decision to keep the strongest, the Manhattan on the right. There are ghostly traces of the other two in the swirling paint on the left side. I'll go back to the idea again with a wider canvas.

 

A friend described the shape of Manhattan as ugly - can't argue with that!- but throughout the series I have made a point of isolating and highlighting the island-shape and seeing in it the curves and proportions of the human figure.

 

In this painting, Grand Central Station is a door, the entrance to the implied tower in the surrounding streets, emphasised by shape and a narrower grid, with fake streets and false avenues.  I toyed with the idea of calling the painting 'False Avenues' - I love the dual meaning of 'false avenues', avenues that don't exist, out there, and the false avenues we find ourselves travelling down, in life, as artists, as detectives.......I'll save the title for another painting. The almost-solid orange Hudson River also suggests architecture, a building 'there but not there', the top cut-off and open and the left-side deliberately straight. The colour, flatness and physicality of the paint all help create space, with the purple tucked in behind, and the large curve leaving the canvas and popping up as a purple stripe in the bottom right corner.



The earliest sighting of City of Glass 13- never make an orange with Light Red!

 

December 'Freedom in Painting' Canterbury Workshop

We are now taking booking for Ashley's much anticipated 'Freedom in Painting' workshop Monday 16 and Tuesday 17 December at Canterbury Christchurch University.

 

As always Ashley will be exploring new possibilities in painting and the focus of this workshop will be the 'circle' and how you might use it in connection with your ideas and art practice. Ashley will endeavour to challenge and inspire you with his expertise of colour, oil paints, technique, mark-making and composition. Suitable for students and artists with some experience in painting.

Some comments from Ashley's last Canterbury workshop in June 2013

Ashley is always so generous with his time and knowledge, he is a refreshing and inspiring tutor.
Shona McGovern

Always good to get me painting, to be encouraged to take risks and to really look at what you are doing.
Jo Dunlop

A lively and fun course. Thank-you Ashley, most enjoyable. Re-kindles enthusiasm every time!
Tanya Remon

The New York Trilogy Exhibition continues....

Ashley's latest series of paintings inspired by Paul Auster's novel 'The New York Trilogy' continues until 25 November at The Castle, Bude, Cornwall. You can visit him as Artist in Residence at The Castle until this Friday 8 November, where he will be working on the next piece in the series.

Open Mon - Fri & Sun, 10am -4pm.
For more information see here

Ashley's Latest Exhibition, Residency & 'The BIG Draw'

 

'City of Glass 7' (The Black Tower)

 

The Castle Bude - The New York Trilogy Exhibition

 

28 October - 25 November 2013

For anyone who didn't get the chance to catch 'The New York Trilogy' Exhibition at Plough Arts in the summer, this is another opportunity to see the series  at the Willoughby Gallery, The Castle, Bude, Cornwall. To coincide with the show Ashley will be Artist in Residence from 28 October to 8th November, Monday to Saturday and will be working on the latest edition to the series. Do come along and visit him in the studio, if you can.

'City of Glass 4' ( Hope Falls, hopefalls....)

In addition Ashley is also hosting 'The Big Draw' at The Castle on Wednesday 30th October. Children and adults are invited to help create a huge panoramic city drawing in the studio and be part of the New York Trilogy Exhibition. Come and create your own skyscraper and stick it on the drawing (the bigger the better!) Who knows Ashley may put one of your buildings in his painting! This is a free event and all materials will be provided.

You can take part in The Big Draw until Saturday 2^nd November and the 'Cityscape'panorama will be on display until the 25th November in the Blanchminster Room.

'The New York Trilogy' exhibition is open , 28 October - 25th November, Monday - Friday & Sunday & also Saturday 2nd November, 10am to 4pm.

For more information about the exhibition, Ashley's residency and 'The Big Draw'  click here 

Freedom in Painting in Porthleven - October Course

Life Boat Studio in the Foreground

Our first course held at Porthleven's Life Boat Art Studio was a great success. Ashley encouraged  a discipline of drawing and sketching around the harbour each day, which became a great source of reference for the paintings made back in the studio. With the weather better than we ever expected, the light and conditions were perfect for painting and the group made the most of the amazing view  from the studio, located directly on the harbours edge.

Our small group of 8 experienced artists were all looking to build on their existing knowledge and further their development as artists. Everyone benefited from the opportunity to focus on their work in a productive environment and over the 4 days  Ashley was able to spend constructive time with each of them, looking at their work and drawing from his experience to help push their painting further.

The artists were spurred on knowing there was an exhibition of their work on the last day and they all rose to the challenge .

Jane McClement's Sketchbook

Jane McClement's Painting

As well as the paintings, the artists sketch books were on display and visitors were intrigued to see how the drawings had developed.

Chris Salmon's Drawing



Chris Salmon's Paintings

Sara Bor's Painting

Jan Bunyan's Paintings









  

Well done to everyone, the exhibition was excellent and very well received.  It was great to see and meet some of the local artists working in Porthleven, including Marie-Claire Hamon and Jan Phethean.

Jane Crane's Painting



Rebecca Child's Painting



Helen Herbert's Paintings

Thank-you to everyone who came along to our Exhibition and to all for coming on 'Freedom in Painting in Porthleven, the work produced in just 4 days was quite remarkable, you should all be very proud !

Open Day Exhibition

Nine Artists in Porthleven - Exhibition Friday 11th October

This week we are very excited to be holding our first ' Freedom in Painting course in Porthleven' at the Lifeboat Art Studio.

Ashley has had a long affiliation with Porthleven which began after seeing Peter Lanyon's 'Porthleven' (1951) painting some 30 years ago. It was also the place that prompted our family move to Cornwall in 2005 and the inspiration for Ashley's first series of paintings about Cornwall with , currently 18 in the series.

We have 8 experienced artists  joining Ashley and they will all be working very hard, looking to push their work even further, taking inspiration from this magical location . The last day will be an opportunity to see and buy the paintings produced - Ashley is also hoping to make 'Porthleven 19' ( working in the evenings of course!) We do hope you can come along and join us!

Our September 2013 Painting Holiday -Photos and Update

 We had yet again a great bunch of people joining us on our September painting holiday and were delighted to have another full house! As well as welcoming many new faces it was especially nice to see some familiar ones and thank you to Rosie and Hunter who had recommended us to friends - hope we lived up to expectations!
 

Rock and the Camel Estuary was our first location on the North coast . A favourite place, where we had taken our first group to, back in April 2011. The weather was glorious and made for an ideal painting morning with the ever changing lines of the golden sandbanks and the transparent blues and greens of the Camel river against the back drop of the green hills speckled with lemon and pink flowers.
 

It was then onto the Longcross hotel, for a delicious lunch before heading off for an afternoon of painting and sketching at the beautiful national heritage spot of Port Quinn. Many of the group were fascinated by the intense colours and formations of the natural rocks and stones while others chose to explore the dramatic wild rugged cliff tops.
 

  

 

On day two, we were in for a few surprises when we visited Charlestown , as they were in the middle of filming a Norwegian children's pirate movie, Captain Sabbertooth. Once Ashley's teaching got under way, even the film crew were interested in Ashley's tutorial and it was the first time we had encountered Charlestown with the odd palm tree thrown in for good measure! It still retained it's charm and character and there was some interesting work emerging. Once again a BIG thank-you to The Pier House Hotel for our hearty lunch, who never fail to look after us.
 

Our next stop was Polruan. It almost wouldn't be the same without a rain shower and although we were tempted to make a detour to the pub, it cleared up enough for everyone to enjoy the walk and viewpoints to the 12th century Blockhouse ruin and the climb to the top of St Saviour's Hill  for a panorama of the coastline.
 

As always, Ashley then stepped it up a gear once in the studio over the next 2 days . Colour was big on the agenda and the group warmed up with a variety of colour exercises. As well as having fun - the canvases used would later be transformed into paintings inspired from the coastal landscape from our 2 days out on location.

 Ashley continued to challenge the group encouraging them to try out new techniques using different objects to make marks. It was great to see people working in a variety of ways. Some on the floor, others splattering, dripping or spreading paint. By the end of the last day there was some really nice pieces of work made and most people had paintings that were quite different to anything they had done before.







Steve Walsh's Painting

Barbara Heseltine's Painting



Rosemary Graham's Painting's



Birgit Ackroyd's Painting

Avenda Burnell Walsh's Painting

 
 
 


  


By Friday evening we were really ready to enjoy our celebratory evening at Asquith's restaurant in Lostwithiel, (After a quick pit stop to the 13th century Globe Inn) . Thank-you Graham and Sally,  the service and food was amazing once again and it was a fantastic end to a wonderful week of painting with lots of hard work, fun and great company. Thank-you all for signing up to 'Freedom in Painting in the Cornish Coastal Landscape'. We do hope you all enjoyed yourselves as much as we did and that we might see you again soon!

Denise & Ashley

  We now have our dates for 2014:  12th - 17th May & 22nd - 27th September 2014.   If you are interested in finding out more or would like to be included on our mailing list for information on courses/holidays or exhibitions, contact denise@ashleyhanson.co.uk or call 01208 77656