Frome SODA Group holds an annual 10 day exhibition as part of the Frome Festival every summer. During recent art meetings they have explored a wide variety of subjects including exotic birds, pigs and dogs and various types of landscapes, using materials such as oil pastels, watercolour and Quink ink, even using hedgerow sticks for a sepia effect! They also recently held an exhibition, as part of the Frome Art Festival, to celebrate SODA's 40th anniversary, which included a special anniversary display and a People's Choice Award for the most popular painting. To see more information and photos of the occasion, visit our 40 Years of SODA page.
See below for reports and photos of Frome Group's recent activity. You can also visit their independent website at www.soda-frome.org.uk.
For further images of their work, visit the online gallery.
See below for reports and photos of Frome Group's recent activity. You can also visit their independent website at www.soda-frome.org.uk.
For further images of their work, visit the online gallery.
Our group meets at Christ Church Hall, Christchurch Street West, Frome, Somerset, BA11 1EH weekly on Fridays from 2.30–4.30pm.
|
recent activity
Frome SODA Group has enjoyed a purposeful term, undertaking a range of activities from a variety of tutors, including painting bottles in watercolour in the style of Patrick Caulfield; drawing corbels featuring intriguing faces from St John’s Parish Church, where we hold our annual exhibition; Cornish seascapes in the style of Paul Heron; and boats, including practice in merging 2 pictures into one (quite a challenge!). Suzanne and Jane also worked jointly on successive sessions to create pictures that might be turned into cards suitable for children, to be sold at next year’s Frome Festival exhibition in July, which shows amazing advance planning. As stimuli, Jane brought in an incredible collection of children’s books – the only problem with this workshop was a tendency for some members to get absorbed in early copies of The Beano and Dandy, rather than getting on with the job in hand! The next week, Suzanne produced some toys, including robots, belonging to her grandson Jake (nearly 6) which she had faithfully promised to return by the end of the day.
On 13 December we held our traditional Christmas tea, at which any discussion of politics had firmly been banned! The committee had taken over many of my roles, including the quiz, which Teresa delivered with considerable aplomb. The first round, entitled, I gather, Dingbats (no, I don’t understand it either!) completely foxed those of us who are not lateral thinkers. A more factual round, mainly concentrating on Christmas carols, produced some tuneful sotto voce singing from Nick, resulting in a tie, eventually won by Mark, our Mayor and Andy. Nick had taken charge of the raffle, which became a sort of Secret Santa, with everyone being issued with one raffle ticket and no money changing hands - an unusual decision for a Treasurer, but in the spirit of Alice in Wonderland: “All have won and all must have prizes”.
On 13 December we held our traditional Christmas tea, at which any discussion of politics had firmly been banned! The committee had taken over many of my roles, including the quiz, which Teresa delivered with considerable aplomb. The first round, entitled, I gather, Dingbats (no, I don’t understand it either!) completely foxed those of us who are not lateral thinkers. A more factual round, mainly concentrating on Christmas carols, produced some tuneful sotto voce singing from Nick, resulting in a tie, eventually won by Mark, our Mayor and Andy. Nick had taken charge of the raffle, which became a sort of Secret Santa, with everyone being issued with one raffle ticket and no money changing hands - an unusual decision for a Treasurer, but in the spirit of Alice in Wonderland: “All have won and all must have prizes”.
The members of Frome SODA are now relaxing after a hectic July, when our exhibition in St John’s Parish Church ran for the full 10 days of the Frome Festival. The results of two special workshops with a local artist, on the theme of Childhood Memories, were skilfully mounted as a special display by Clive, our Chairman. This proved to be of particular interest to a visiting party of school children who were fascinated to realise that older people remembered such events as falling out of their swing or feeding the chickens at home! By the end of the 10 days we were delighted to discover that our exhibition had been particularly successful: we sold 6 framed pictures and 4 mounted ones and over 230 greetings cards based on members’ work. So it was an excellent way to mark our 19th year of participation in the Frome Festival, having been involved in the Festival since its very beginning. Frome SODA group is now enjoying a well-earned time of relaxation until September.
"Following the news of her severe illness in the last edition of the SODA Magazine, we are delighted that Sara, one of our volunteers, has made a really good recovery. She is now home again, having been in no fewer than 3 hospitals. We hope to see her back to full strength in the not-too-distant future.
As usual at this time of year, we are busy preparing for our annual exhibition as part of the Frome Festival from 5–14 July. We have been working hard to get ready in time; indeed, in view of the late Easter and our advanced planning, we closed only for Good Friday and otherwise worked straight through instead of having an Easter break. To celebrate SODA’s 40th anniversary, visitors to our exhibition will be invited to vote for a People’s Choice Award, with the incentive of winning the chosen art work. We intend to back this up with some local press publicity.
In the course of the spring term, we have, as usual, tackled a wide variety of subjects in various mediums, gently encouraged by our tutors. To cheer up the January chill, members depicted snowdrops on dark green paper with white and green crayon. In February we used oil pastels to create pictures of the various white horses that abound on the hillsides of the South West, as well as a dog in a basket in watercolour and pencils to depict faces with different expressions. March found members tackling figures in landscapes, pictures of our beautiful town of Frome (these tend always to result in sales at our exhibition in July!) and using watercolour to show stones and rocks.
Before we broke for our short holiday, Caroline tutored a session inspired by the work of John Brockley, using pastels to create pictures of traditional cottages. The photos below show Caroline busy with the group and some of the resulting, unusual work."
As usual at this time of year, we are busy preparing for our annual exhibition as part of the Frome Festival from 5–14 July. We have been working hard to get ready in time; indeed, in view of the late Easter and our advanced planning, we closed only for Good Friday and otherwise worked straight through instead of having an Easter break. To celebrate SODA’s 40th anniversary, visitors to our exhibition will be invited to vote for a People’s Choice Award, with the incentive of winning the chosen art work. We intend to back this up with some local press publicity.
In the course of the spring term, we have, as usual, tackled a wide variety of subjects in various mediums, gently encouraged by our tutors. To cheer up the January chill, members depicted snowdrops on dark green paper with white and green crayon. In February we used oil pastels to create pictures of the various white horses that abound on the hillsides of the South West, as well as a dog in a basket in watercolour and pencils to depict faces with different expressions. March found members tackling figures in landscapes, pictures of our beautiful town of Frome (these tend always to result in sales at our exhibition in July!) and using watercolour to show stones and rocks.
Before we broke for our short holiday, Caroline tutored a session inspired by the work of John Brockley, using pastels to create pictures of traditional cottages. The photos below show Caroline busy with the group and some of the resulting, unusual work."
"Every year in July we hold a ten day local SODA exhibition as part of the Frome Festival, enjoying the welcoming hospitality of St John’s Parish Church. Despite the intense heat, which made toiling up the hill to St John’s a challenge for visitors, plus the inevitable distractions of the football, we sold a number of small canvases, some ceramics and a large number of cards."
"The Frome Council gave us a useful grant towards learning to paint ceramics, which is particularly expensive due to the cost of glazing and firing. We have enjoyed many sessions with tutor Steven Jenkins, a local potter, with encouraging results."
"We enjoyed a successful outing to the Somerset Earth Science Centre, situated in a local quarry. On a warm sunny day, members had the opportunity to examine and draw a variety of artefacts, including fossils and animal skulls, as well as walking in the extensive grounds, painting the delightful views of the lake and enjoying delicious tea and cakes."
