SPEAKER and demonstrator for the April meeting was Peter Woolley.

He had prepared a sketch which he planned to work on in watercolour as he discussed his painting technique.

Before starting to paint, he explained his approach to preparatory sketching.

He favoured on-site pencil sketches that concentrated on recording tonal values rather than colour notes.

He liked the sketches to be loose and for this reason discouraged the use of an eraser as he thought that repeated rubbing out and re-drawing resulted in a tight sketch.

Peter sometimes uses photographs for reference and considered them particularly useful for commissioned paintings where accuracy is important.

The working sketch which had been prepared was a Peak District landscape with stone walls and ruined farm buildings. The scene could be treated in a number of different ways and Peter decided to paint it as a winter landscape with snow.

As the painting progressed, Peter explained his methods and choice of materials and responded to questions from the audience.

He favoured the use of a limited palette of about eight colours and painted mainly with large brushes, only using the smaller sizes for the finishing details.

His choice of paper was a 300lb Arches paper with a rough surface although he sometimes uses a lighter Saunders Waterford paper.

Peter explained how each stage contributed to the overall composition and cautioned against making the scene too organised or regular since most landscape scenes are naturally random

He stressed the need to step well back from the painting from time to time to observe and check the composition.

The painting was well on the way to completion at the end of the session and Peter undertook to display the painting on his website when finished.

His demonstration and commentary had been informative and entertaining.

The next meeting will be at St Luke's Memorial Hall, Evesham Road, Headless Cross, on Wednesday, May 4, at 7.30pm when Colin Bradley will demonstrate the use of pastel pencils.

The spring exhibition takes place on Saturday, May 14, at the Kingfisher Centre's Kingfisher Square when members of the public will be invited to vote for the best picture overall and best flower study.