Society of Graphic Fine Art | Events Programme 2026

Woodlands in Soft Pastel | Caroline Matthews SGFA

Monday 9 March, 2pm - 4pm

Fresh from winning the Frank Herring Award at the Pastel Society’s Annual Exhibition, Caroline will demonstrate how she creates a soft pastel treescape from start to finish. Using three images, she’ll guide you through each stage of
developing a woodland scene - from the initial underpainting to the final finishing touches.

Along the way, she’ll discuss her choice of materials, explain her mark-making techniques, and reveal how she builds light and texture to bring her landscapes to life, with drawing always at the heart of her practice. There will also be an opportunity to ask questions and chat informally about all aspects of her work, and her sketchbooks will be available to browse, offering further insight into her creative process.

Drawings Hands: Structure, gesture, and expressions | Giulia Quaresima SGFA

Tuesday 10 March, 12:30pm - 2pm

Hands are one of the most expressive elements of the human figure, yet one of the most challenging to draw. Join Quaresima for a live drawing demonstration focused on simplifying hand structure, understanding anatomy and proportion, and drawing hands with confidence. This demo is suitable for all skill levels and provides clear, structured techniques for observing and rendering hands with accuracy and expression.

Lindisfarne Monastry in Liquid Graphite | Margaret Eggleton SWA SBA SGFA

Tuesday 10 March, 12:30pm – 2:30pm

While visiting Northumberland last August, Margaret went to Holy Island and saw Lindisfarne Castle from near the town and the Medieval Monastery Ruins from the Lookout Tower.  The painting of Lindisfarne Castle is in this exhibition, and she will be demonstrating how to paint the Monastery ruins. She will be using liquid graphite applied with a bamboo pen, dip pen or brush, using a large photograph for reference and might also work with watercolour.

Alternative Mark Making | Jackie Devereux PPSGFA

Tuesday 10 March, 2pm – 4pm

Jackie will demonstrate alternative mark making using Balsa wood with watercolour enhanced with Indian Ink to create elegant calligraphic studies, manipulating paper to create 3D effects. Jackie is happy to discuss her approach during the demonstration.

'What to put in and what to leave out' | Michele Ashby PS SWA SGFA

Tuesday 10 March, 2pm – 4pm

During Michele’s pastel demo she will be sharing some tips, hints, and personal ways of working. In this particular demo she’ll be focusing on how she interprets the mark making of tattoos and how she finds a simpler way of drawing facial hair in pastel, using Pastelmat, her go-to surface. It’s all about suggestion rather than overworking, building texture, and finding the right balance between mark-making and restraint so keep those details feeling alive, not laboured.

Mixed Media Sketching | Felicity Flutter RI SGFA

Wednesday 11 March, 12:30pm – 2pm

Felicity will be sketching from her own reference and discussing the equipment and materials used in her Art practice. There will be sketchbooks to browse through.

Irreverent Experiment | Arianna Tinula Milesi SGFA

Wednesday 11 March, 12:30pm – 2pm

This workshop will be a free, liberating and adventurous journey through the senses to discover and understand how we perceive and create our version of reality.

Exploring Insects | Louisa Crispin SGFA SBA

Wednesday 11 March, 2pm – 4pm

Exploring insects through mark making with graphite powder and pencil, creating simple artist books from the papers. All welcome; drop in or stay for the whole 2 hours.

Workshop | Dawn Limbert ASGFA

Wednesday 11 March, 2pm – 4pm

Dawn Limbert is a London-based landscape painter working primarily in pastel. A colourist, she is known for her luminous surfaces and distinctive use of layered, atmospheric colour to reinterpret familiar landscapes. In her demo, artist Dawn will show how pastels can be used to create rich colour, texture, and atmosphere, building a landscape step by step. She’ll talk through her process as she works, showing how simple marks grow into a finished piece and how colour and instinct play a big part in responding to the landscape. It’s an informal, engaging session that offers a glimpse into how a pastel painting comes to life.

Sketching Workshop for all | Karen Neale SGFA

Thursday 12 March, 12:30pm – 2pm

Karen’s passion is sketching and painting the world around her in her sketchbook diaries, and sharing that by encouraging and inspiring others to draw too, through leading sketching workshops for all levels and ages. Bring a sketchbook and pen or pencil along, and possibly a simple object you’d like to draw to this demo and just enjoy the simple pleasure and mindfulness of drawing, whether you are a drawing diva, doubting doodler or sketchy scribbler.

Urbanscene | Roger Dellar Hon SGFA ROI RI PS ARSMA

Thursday 12 March, 2pm – 4pm

Roger will be demonstrating  his techniques for painting an everyday Urbanscene, describing the process of composition, lay up of paint, colour selection over a 2-hour period, lost and found edges etc.  All will be carried out in an Alla prima approach.

The Wonder of Leaves | Harriet Brigdale VPSGFA

Friday 13 March, 12:30pm – 2pm

Individually selected out of hundreds of leaves. Observing their amazing structure, form, texture and colour, while capturing them on paper. Using a limited palette, be creative, let imagination take over, overlaying shapes, using negative space, creating depth with contrasting backgrounds and tone.

Creating Figurative Works | Cristina Celestini SGFA

Friday 13 March, 12:30pm – 2pm

Birmingham-based, Italian artist Cristina Celestini works with coloured pencils to
create figurative works, many of them large-scale, on paper. 
Multi-layered, her drawings have a ghostly, transformational quality, whispering stories that evolve across time.

Born in Rome, Celestini draws on her heritage and early memories to retell ancient myths and stories. Taking inspiration from Renaissance frescoes inside churches and The Sistine Chapel, she has taken as her subject matter Ovid’s Metamorphosis, ‘The Annunciation’, and other biblical scenes.

Drypoint Printmaking Process | Sally Loughridge SGFA

Saturday 14 March, 12:30pm – 2pm

The drypoint process of drawing directly onto the plate, enables the artist to adopt a spontaneous approach to printmaking. Drawings can be transferred onto the plate by tracing through carbon or transfer paper. The transferred marks can then be drawn or etched into the metal using a fine pointed needle, diamond or carbon tipped drawing tool, with additional marks added with sandpaper, burnisher, roulette or a Dremel, to create surface texture for the ink to adhere to. The burnishing tool can also be used to flatten the metal ‘burr’ thrown up around the etched marks, to lighten certain areas, or create different types of marks.

Any type of plate can be used for drypoint- even cardboard, but mainly copper, aluminium, zinc or plastic. The plate is inked up in the same way you would ink up an etching plate and wiped with scrim and finished with a tissue wipe and retroussage to bring up the ink to the surface. Drypoint prints are identified by the rich velvety marks and lines created due the ink being trapped in the burr, which flattens through numerous runs through the press, meaning that only a limited number of prints can be made from each plate. 

Drawing with a knife | Mark Curtis Hughes ASGFA

Saturday 14 March, 12:30pm – 2pm

Mark began exploring papercutting as a means of developing his sketches into woodcut prints. Inspired by German expressionists like Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, he wanted to investigate dynamism and immediacy in what was by nature a time-consuming process. Gradually, working into paper directly with a scalpel became the primary focus of his practice, and whilst the imagery has become more intricate and complex the mark making is still improvised and spontaneous giving the works an energy and a transience which reflects elements of human nature and the modern world.

Creating a Charcoal Portrait | Neil Rogers ASGFA

Saturday 14 March, 2pm – 4pm

Neil was a contestant on series 11 of Portrait Artist of the Year. In this demonstration, Neil will be creating a charcoal portrait while talking through his process. His focus will be on observing the subject, building form through light and shadow, finding and using expressive marks to suggest likeness and character. The goal is to show how a portrait develops from simple shapes into a finished image.

Elevating the ordinary to the extraordinary… | Patricia Rozental ASGFA

Saturday 14 March, 2pm – 4pm

Patricia loves to paint common place, often old well-worn objects which bear the marks of a life well used, such as cutlery - in particular spoons, household equipment, vintage tools and oilcans. Using watercolour, she attempts to elevate the ordinary to the extraordinary…

Patricia will bring along examples of her work together with a small selection of inspirational items, materials and tools, and is looking forward to discussing aspects of her practice.