Ray Hedger
Demonstration - "Watercolour"
Tuesday 11th March 2025, 2.00 - 4.00pm in the Pavilion
Ray works in a variety of mediums and he brought examples for us to see, and also a selection of his sketch books.
Ray's demonstration was in watercolour using his own technique. He worked with a limited palette of two reds, two yellows and two blues - a warm and a cool of each. Good quality paint is important - he uses Schmincke.
Having wetted his paper to his satisfaction, Ray laid on washes in horizontal strokes with a mop brush. He worked very quickly but spent a good time building up the picture. He used very little water, almost a dry brush technique, which meant that the paint dried quickly. He managed to put blue against yellow without getting green. When Ray was happy with the scene, he changed to a smaller brush and added details in darker tones. The painting, an evening view of Studland from Bournemouth beach, was completed in exactly one hour.
After the refeshment break, Ray demonstrated sketching a landscape with watercolour pencils and water, at one point drawing with one hand and using a brush in the other. He then showed us some of the paintings that he had brought with him, the most memorable being "Moving to a Safe Place" painted in oils mixed with gesso powder to give it texture. An excellent and entertaining afternoon!
Many thanks to Bob Marchant for writing this short report. Some photographs of the demonstration follow.
More about Ray from the ArtUK website:
"Ray Hedger born 1944 - Painter, printmaker, artist in film and performance, teacher
Ray studied at Gloucestershire College of Art in Cheltenham graduating with honours in fine art and film in 1979, and at the Central School of Art where he gained a National Diploma in 1964. He tries to create an image embracing “that single moment when one sees something that no camera is capable of capturing because it contains so many elements beyond the ‘real’ and the present”.
Ray was a member of SWE, illustrated two poetry anthologies and made a film based on the book ‘Crow’ by Ted Hughes. He was also involved in creating a dance piece with the dancer Alex Howard to music by the Czech composer Pavel Novak. Mixed shows included the Fitzwilliam Museum and Kettle’s Yard in Cambridge, the Oxfam tour ‘Art for a Fairer World’, Birmingham City Museum & Art Gallery, and the Contemporary Art Holdings in Cheltenham."
View Ray's page on the ArtUK website here