What’s On

Gloucestershire Society of Artists

One of a  series focusing on our desire to highlight and encourage active creative groups celebrating the natural world.

The 102nd annual exhibition of GSA celebrating local and regional artists and craftsmen working in a variety of styles and media.

Course details:

Immerse yourself in the vibrant shades of autumn with this two-day watercolour sketching course, perfect for all abilities. You will learn how to capture the rich hues and textures of the season through step-by-step demonstrations and practical exercises, working from both reference materials and nature itself. Explore essential watercolour techniques including washes, layering, and colour mixing to bring autumn landscapes, foliage, and textures to life. Guidance will be tailored to suit each participant, ensuring a relaxed and supportive environment. By the end of the course, you will have created your own collection of expressive autumnal sketches.

Materials and additional costs: 

Supplied by tutor, £32 cash

Or email tutor for materials list 

Suitability:

Beginners – advanced 

Spaces: 

12

Price: £124 / £158

Book here 

Looking Deep into Nature

Peter Partington SWLA (1941-2025)
Painter – Printer – Sculptor Teacher – Lover Of Mother Nature

This unique exhibition is a celebration of the remarkable life and work of Peter Partington SWLA.

Peter spent his life observing and sharing our living world, bringing birds and animals to life in their habitats and seasons. He sketched in the field and created pictures, sculptures and prints with an incredible touch of the eye and hand.

Peter showed work in Nature in Art’s Inaugural 1985 exhibition, the year he was elected to the Society of Wildlife Artists (SWLA) on whose council he served some years later. In 1989 he was Nature in Art’s very first artist in residence and one of the first to donate work to the collection. He was a valued friend and encourager of Nature in Art until his death early in 2025. He leaves a prolific output with thousands of painting’s across UK homes and many inspired people who experienced his live teaching and conversations.

This show will feature Peter’s studio, diverse works and some not previously displayed in public from private and public collections. All tell the story of a man who lived life to the full and from the heart, and inspired others to do the same. Peter’s legacy will live on, not just through his own work, but through the work of countless others who were encouraged and enabled through him.

A printmaker, painter and sculptor, it is hard to know which he enjoyed the most, and, site unseen, a parallel body of abstract art, many 3D as well as experiments in colour and form. This show includes some of these so one can see these creative steams feeding his capability across all the works. As one commentator said ‘His art was in every inch, his personality. His personality was in every inch, his art.’

Peter expressed himself through his art, which was widely published in books, print runs, ‘How to Draw’ guides, online videos and magazines, numerous local and professional exhibitions, poetry too and his ‘natural illustrator’ to bring life to other writers. His compulsion to venture into the great outdoors to watch birds (sometimes worryingly from his moving car too!) meant he could draw from memory and describe their behaviours in his art.

Small wonder that his studio groaned under the weight of thousands of works, most finished and many in states of re-work. This exhibition will sing out his enthusiasm and represent this unique English master artist, generous to a tee with his support and engagement with the public.

The show is accompanied by a new book ‘Peter Partington ‘The Artists Anthology’ by his son Jerome Partington, which includes many of the exhibition, to raise funds for a SWLA nature art school programme, Nature in Art and his conservation charities.

There also is a special launch event on September 29th.

Course details:

Explore the colour pencil techniques required to draw this little kitten using assorted colour pencils on Mount Board including indenting and colour layering for stripes in fur.

Line Drawing supplied to trace or copy.

Materials 

Supplied by tutor, £3 charge (cash) 

Suitability:

Suitable for all

Spaces: 

12

Price: £62 / £79

Book here 

Course details:

Explore the techniques required to draw this portrait using Derwent Coloursoft  Pencils and Water-soluble Graphite pencils to create muted tones.

Materials 

Supplied by tutor, £3 charge (cash) 

Suitability:

Suitable for all

Spaces: 

12

Price: £62 / £79

Book here 

Course details:

Explore the techniques required to draw this portrait using Derwent Coloursoft  Pencils and Water-soluble Graphite pencils to create muted tones.

Materials 

Supplied by tutor, £3 charge (cash) 

Suitability:

Suitable for all

Spaces: 

12

Price: £62 / £79

Book here

Wild

A selection of new work by The Guild of Cotswold Craftsmen, a group of professional designer makers who live in and around the Cotswolds. A selling exhibition of work in wood, glass, ceramics, textiles, metal and more.

More details coming soon.

Course details:

Make a magical Christmas wreath. Start a family tradition that you can enjoy year after year. I will bring a wide selection of glass, ceramic, mirror and vintage china, so you can create a wreath to your own colour scheme – richly traditional, silver and frosty, jazzy or shabby chic! 

Materials and additional costs: 

£22 (cash) to be paid to tutor for materials 

Please bring a shoebox size cardboard box to cut tiles into. 

Suitability:

Suitable for all 

Spaces: 

10

Price: £124 / £158

Book here 

Aurora

Paintings by Nick Jones

Painter Nick Jones captures the elusive beauty of the aurora borealis and other magical Arctic light phenomena in luminous paintings that invite quiet wonder and evoke glimpses of radiance that appear and vanish like dreams.

More details coming soon.