Well, in deference to Val, I think we should go with en plein air! Today we began a personal piece in our own chosen medium.

The subject of the piece is "Café Prego".

The brief is to c create a piece of art in our individual styles, in our chosen medium, which represents Café Prego from the exterior.

This will be a long piece with a deadline of Monday 22nd September. At that time, Amanda will view all the pieces and choose one to go on the wall of the upstairs room - an honour indeed!

So today we spent almost an hour outside making preliminary sketches, recording shapes, relationships and angles, details, all of which will inform a final piece of work. The next job is to select the materials and the paper or canvas size.

The group members are on their honour not to take a photograph yet, if at all. They will use their preliminary drawings so that the work allows for their personal interpretations, rather than slavishly adhering to a photograph.

WATCH THIS SPACE!