Lynda White creates a picture of seaside holiday cottages

Making a welcome return to Seaton and District Art Society at The Gateway, Lynda White’s topic, “Expressionism” was a follow on from her painting demonstration last January, titled “Evoking the Emotions and Memories of a Place”.

Then, she had produced a visually representative painting of a familiar North Devon woodland pathway she had known since childhood.

Lynda’s demonstration this year was to go a stage further, introducing to landscape painting the element of “expressionism”, defined as ‘distorting the image of reality to make it expressive of the artist’s inner feelings or ideas. Edvard Munch’s famous painting, The Scream is a familiar example of the movement.

Lynda’s subject was holiday chalets on Cogden Beach, Abbotsbury.

Her advance into expressionism became gradually apparent as her acrylic painting progressed. She first sketched in the sky and the background in cool colours, just suggesting distant trees and low hills before carefully painting in the four geometrically prominent chalets, then the pathway to create a T-shaped composition.

She next dealt with the large middle ground area of scrubland, not easy to paint, being intricate but with little variation of tone or form. Lynda introduced a technique called “Decalcominie” where paint is squidged between two flexible non-porous surfaces then pressed randomly about the canvas, making abstract tendril patterns. A little further dabbing in of darker tones here and there, rapidly produced a bland scrub background for the prominent teasel heads, painted slightly oversize with almost-white contrasting stems for emphasis. Lynda again used a printing technique for these by employing an oval scrap of sponge for their textured dark brown heads. The final picture, while still representative of the setting, strongly expressed an other-worldly feel - the stark brooding geometry of the chalets and somber colours powerfully evoking the lonely bleakness of the early January day.

Seaton and District Art Society stages demonstrations at The Gateway on the first Monday of the month. These events are open to the public for a small entrance fee. New members wishing to join are also welcome. For details, telephone secretary, Jenny Oldfield, on 01297 442873.