THE visiting speaker for the October meeting was Michael Warr, whose topic was the use of water soluble crayons and pencils and other water-based painting media.

Michael started by demonstrating the marks that can be made by the various Caran D'Ache crayons and pencils and by showing how their water-soluble properties can be used to produce various effects.

He showed how the colour of a dry pencil drawing can be heightened by wetting and then went on to develop the method further by mixing the wet colours on the paper to obtain more subtle effects.

He showed how areas of colour can be applied by stroking a pencil across the dampened surface of the paper and how a palette of colours can be created by applying blocks of selected dry pencil pigment to the margin of the paper and picking up the desired colour with a wetted brush.

Various other products were demonstrated; larger crayons suitable for large scale paintings and, where a monochrome result is required, the use of black, water-soluble graphite pencils.

Finally, Michael demonstrated a range of gouache paints of artist quality.

The next meeting will be at St Luke's Memorial Hall, Evesham Road, Headless Cross, on Wednesday, November 5, at 7.30pm when Ronald Swanwick will discuss and demonstrate the use of acrylic paint.

The autumn exhibition takes place at the Kingfisher Centre on Saturday, October 18.

The Seasonal Studies exhibition takes place at Forge Mill Museum between October 26-November 30.