Ellon & District Art Group

Thursday sessions are now in full swing. At the beginning of September members enjoyed a very successful watercolour workshop. We are settling down now to our projects and there is a lovely buzz about the room.

After a long, hot summer break, Thursday morning art sessions resumed today. Good to get back together, catch up and settle down to our projects. We are delighted to welcome several new members, bringing our numbers back up to the pre-Covid level. We were also delighted to help our most long standing member celebrate her 90th birthday

Members enjoyed the beauty, wildlife and tranquility of Strichen Lake and Park, followed by a delicious lunch. Good to keep in touch over the holidays whilst getting inspiration for more painting

Who knows what the weather is going to do next, but here in the art group, we will just keep on painting and sketching and chatting. Some members are preparing for the “Birds in watercolour” workshop next week, others are getting lost in the complexities of portraits, others with landscapes. Without a doubt, the very distinctive, local agricultural landscape is at it’s best just now and always inspires some of us to try and capture it.

The winter term has flown by in a flurry of gales, icy blasts and downpours, and the Easter break has arrived along with British Summer Time, though, not yet summer temperatures. The group held its AGM on the last session, along with a Macmillan Coffee Morning where we raised £248.

The first meeting after the break will be on April 16th when some members will be engaged in a Soft Pastels Workshop.

There is nothing more lovely than a walk through bluebell woodlands in Springtime. Sunlight filtering through trees onto masses of hazy purple-blue flowers remains a lasting inspiration for artists. In this watercolour, I have attempted to capture something of the atmosphere of a dappled bluebell woodland.

Torrential rain, gales, snow, frost and ice, total lack of sunshine for days on end; we have had the lot already this year. Notwithstanding that this has, unfortunately kept a few of us away from our Thursday art sessions, it has been an inspiration for some atmospheric landscapes.

This is a winter scene from the rear of the house we lived in for 35 years at the very south west of Ellon. I have painted several scenes around there.

Sessions restarted this Thursday, and it was good to get together again after an extended Christmas break. The bright winter sunshine and snowy landscape of the last few weeks will, hopefully, have inspired us all to new artistic endeavours.

I have painted lots of trees in the past, mainly winter scenes, and wondered what it would be like to try looking up through the trees, especially if you can see birds circling overhead, and this is the result. I am sure more will come, including night scenes with a hazy moon overhead, but probably no birds; I am no good at owls!

This bright and beautiful kingfisher adorned the cover of our 2025 Calendar so missed out being featured in the monthly Calendar posts. He brings a splash of colour to a new year that, so far, has been nothing but extreme winter. When the blizzards subside and conditions allow, we will resume our Thursday morning sessions. The first one, planned for January 8th, has been cancelled; we hope to be able to meet on the 15th. Loads of inspiring winter landscapes out there at the moment if we can brave the temperatures.