Christmas Crafting

The class was to make a Christmas candle and required nothing more than a 3-ply table napkin and a pillar candle. Cynthia demonstrated the process by separating the layers of the napkin so that the picture layer remained. She then cut round the picture that would be used on the candle. Using water and a fine paintbrush she dampened the napkin layer close the picture and teased the excess paper away to make the edge uneven so that it wouldn’t produce a hard line when attached to the candle.

She then gently pinned the picture onto the candle making sure it was smooth. Using a hairdryer at maximum setting she began by moving the hairdryer slowly over a small area of the surface of the picture, while being carful not to allow the candle to become too hot. As soon as the picture changed colour (which meant the wax was slowly melting and coming through the napkins), she removed the heat for a moment to stop the wax melting further. This process was carried out over the remaining area until the napkin was completely fixed to the candle.

As can be seen from the photos most candles were completed but some crafters wanted to finish theirs later with further embellishments. I think the crafters enjoyed the class and hopefully will mean a few of the candles will adorn their Christmas lunch table.



Thursday morning Artgroup enjoying the Christmas Activity brought in for us by Jackie Johnstone at our *Faith Christmas Lunch on 19 December.

Everyone brought in homemade festive food and some tasty non-alcoholic wines and other beverages.

Merry Christmas to all DBAC members and a Happy New Year.

*Faith* Christmas Lunch just means that we had faith that members would bring something to the table ha ha ha.







Art Club Quiz with Fish “n” Chip Supper

What a night! Some are saying “the best quiz ever.” It was certainly a very enjoyable evening with 6 Teams competing. “The Numskills”, “The Dinnae Kens”, “The Scrumdowners”, “Friday Night Bletherers”, “Whisky Business” and “AJSJ” teams.

Gordon’s Quiz was a brilliant mix of General Knowledge, Historical, Scientific and Art with a “fun” Spot round of Local facts and figures thrown in for good measure ranging from quite difficult to excruciatingly difficult and all the time taxing our poor old memories to the extreme in some cases!

Elaine was an excellent scorer keeping us all in check, and a wee bit of a “temptress” really wetting our appetites for victory over the other teams by flaunting her tasty prizes of Chocolates, Fizz and trophies.

The Dalgety Bay Chip Shop did us proud again and delivered a hot and tasty supper with a gorgeous pud of icecream, which we all enjoyed.

Congratulations to the winners “The Scrumdowners” who walked away triumphant with their Owl Trophy, Chocolates and bottle of Fizz. And also huge congratulations to “AJSJ” who now hold the famous sought after Wooden Spoon Trophy with delicious Freddoes. Well done to all 6 teams. See you all for a re-match in 2025.

The Winners ….. “The Scrumdowners”




FRIDAY MORNING FUN, 25th October - Learning 'Marbling' effect with Jean Boath
The Friday morning session is always keen to explore new techniques and jumped at the chance of learning 'Marbling' from a fellow session attendee.
It was a fun morning - Jean, dished out small trays to each of us for mixing, and showed us how to mix Foam Shaving Cream with arcylic paint. We then transferred our 'mess' onto paper. 'Marbling' can produce great backgrounds or even a complete picture in it's own right. It was like being back at primary school and we all loved experimenting.
Huge thank you to Jean.



MARCUS KEAVENEY GREENWOOD SPOON CARVING. Saturday workshop on 5th October 2024
A fabulous workshop enjoyed by 6 attendees on Saturday. 4 members & 2 visitors who had all previously attended his demo earlier this year.
Marcus brought in a selection of wooden billets for carving which he had soaked in water overnight as the wood is then easier to carve and we chose which one we wanted to carve. he took us through the safety procedures for carving with the razor sharp knives he'd brought for each of us to use, how to hold the knife to prevent cutting our hands and the direction in which to carve (always carving down the way) along the grain of the wood. Each of us drew the shape of a spoon design on our wooden billet and Marcus drew out on each piece where to carve and the direction in which to carve. He also showed us how to hold the piece of wood on the side of the knee and to keep turning the piece. Once the wood had been carved down to the design line on the handle Marcus then showed each of us how to make the curved back of the spoon, thumbing the knife slowly to shave off the wood down to the tip of the bowl, leaving the bottom of the bowl thicker and stronger. Once the overall shape of the spoon had been carved down to the pencil design we then were each shown how to carve out the bowl of the spoon itself across the grain with a hook knife using a potato peeling motion towards the thumb which was quite difficult to grip and took a bit of getting use to. Once we had carved out the spoon bowl, Marcus trimmed off around each one to tidy them up.
We thoroughly enjoyed the workshop apart from a few finger cuts which Marcus quickly sorted out for us as he didnt want us to bleed on the wood which would cause it to stain and ruin the spoon. Marcus thankfully is a certified first aider. It was hard work but we all managed to carve a spoon we were proud of.



JEM BOWDEN WATERCOLOUR WORKSHOP - 28 September 2024
‘A direct and impressionistic approach to landscape watercolour'
Jem Bowden both impressed and amazed today’s members with his energetic delivery of his style of observational landscape painting using a limited pallet of between 3 & 5 basic colours and working quickly . He provided us with photos and demonstrated each aspect of his rural scene from cool & warm colour mixing, use of light & darks, application of wet in wet for soft edges and wet on dry for hard edges, plus scraping off. Members learned a huge amount from Jem and really appreciated his teaching style. Thank you Jem for an amazing Workshop today and for the gift of your beautiful watercolour sketch for our forthcoming Exhibition in November.



THURSDAY FUN - Thursday 19th September 2024
Thursday Art Group members were invited for an extended Sketching morning at Moira MacPherson’s House & “Parkland Garden” in Kelty last Thursday, 19 September. It was a beautiful warm and sunny morning with so many viewpoints over hills and farmland. And “coffee break” went to a whole new level with home baked scones with cream plus an assortment of jams and shortcake biscuits courtesy of our own Marjorie & Maggie…., delicious. Moira particularly requested Jill Brown (Tuesday Art Group) to join us after Jill had hosted yet another amazing Sketch & Afternoon Tea in her Garden on 5 August.
Thursday Art Group thoroughly enjoyed both of these sessions so much that we found it difficult to leave. Please check our Gallery to see what we got up to on the day.