SWAS meet on the 3rd Friday of the month at Katherine Semar School, Ross Close, Saffron Walden CB11 4DU. The hall is open from 7pm. We start promptly at 7.30pm, finishing at 9.30pm. Entrance is £2 for members and guests are warmly welcomed, £5.
We have a refreshment break, with tea or coffee provided. There is an opportunity to see the artist’s work close up and to socialise with members and friends. Members can also borrow books from the Saffron Walden Art Society library, available at Friday meetings.5
Click on the pictures below if you would like to see the artists website, if they have one.
2025

Friday 21st March - Annual General Meeting
Members only.

Friday 11th April - Lively Floral, Watercolour, Nicky Hunter
Nicky Hunters radiant artworks capture ‘realism with a touch of romance’. She uses traditional watercolour methods in a contemporary and expressive way, aiming to be bold yet beautiful with her approach to using the challenging yet magical medium of watercolour. Nicky creates paintings that radiate with colour and light, capturing the essence of the bloom, bird, landscape or other subject matter. She is particularly well known for her flamboyant, lively floral paintings; the foundation of her skill and passion for this subject developed through working as a textile designer for 2 decades in both the fashion and interior sectors where florals were a staple theme in her paintings, illustrations and design work.

Friday 16th May - Wildlife, Graphite & Pastel Pencil, Clive Riggs
Studied Fine Art at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design, Dundee, Scotland. Joined the Society of Graphic Fine Art in 2003. Working from sketches made from life, I concentrate on wildlife and the landscape using sketchbooks as a source and always from direct visual experience.

Friday 20th June - Collage & Watercolour, Ailsa Lyn
Members are invited to bring an artwork for positive and constructive feedback. Sonia won the 2019 Mayor’s Choice Award at the inaugural Invitational Cambridge Art Awards. She has been exhibiting with Cambridge Open Studios for the past 20 years and Cambridge Drawing Society for 14 years, also working as a committee member for both. She was Chair of Cambridge Open Studios in 2021/22. Her work can be viewed in over 25 galleries and shops including Primavera, The Museum of Cambridge, Church Street Gallery, Saffron Walden Tourist Information Centre, Nantais Gallery in Linton and The Old School Gallery, Whittlesford.

Friday 18th July - Painting a Song, Watercolour, Sharon Hurst
Sharon Hurst is a popular professional Artist and tutor who is renowned for her watercolour animal, fantasy, figure, landscape and portrait paintings. She holds regular classes, courses, workshops, demonstrations and painting holidays. Sharon's work is regularly exhibited around the world..

Friday 15th August - Cityscape, Acrylic, Hashim Akib
Working as an illustrator in the UK for over 15 years, Hashim gained valuable experience in developing a backbone of drawing, conceptual ideas and various painting techniques. His illustration client list varied from New Yorker magazine, newspapers such as The Times, Daily Express, Daily Mail, Time magazine, ad campaigns for Smirnoff, Esso and a stamp for The Royal Mail. Throughout his career Hashim has won many awards; including in 2009 the SAA (Society of All Artists) Artist of the Year, having won the Professional title in 2005 and 2007.

Friday 19th September - Seacape, Pastel, Jane Fellows
I’ve always loved drawing and early on I knew I wanted to continue pursuing my art alongside my love of literature which led me to study a degree in Arts and Humanities at De Montfort University. I worked part time in The Stained-Glass Museum in Ely Cathedral for 13 years where I enjoyed learning about the history of stained glass and giving short tours of the museum. This work complimented my daily painting practise and I continue to push my learning by attending residential art courses around the UK. I love to share my knowledge and do so by running workshops in a variety of mediums and carrying out demonstrations to art societies.

Friday 17th October - Capturing travel through sketchbooks, Paul Janssens
The combination of drawing and travelling has played a major part in my artwork. I was born in London where I lived until my mid-twenties and studied at Chelsea School of Art. London proved to be a great city to grow-up and study. Living in such a culturally rich city which is constantly changing fuelled both of my passions for art and travel. Destinations including Morocco, New Zealand, Australia, Malaysia, Iberian Peninsular Italy , France, Turkey, Ireland and Britain have been recorded in my sketch-books. Each new destination has inspired me to work in a different way by experimenting with paint techniques including sgraffito, collage, screen-print and mixed media on wood, paper and canvas. I have been inspired by both the frenetic energy of urban cityscapes and dramatic landscapes. The sketch-books are valuable means for recording and documenting these locations and also a source for producing the larger paintings. The coastlines of Ireland and Britain and wetlands of East Anglia always prove challenging and exciting subjects. I often return to places to see how time has affected them, this could be the result of natural changes, such as the weather and erosion or man-made influences. I aim to create a sense of the journey by producing the paintings in a series. These paintings will often explore different views of a subject over a period of time. For the recent Northumbrian, Scottish and Dorset paintings I spent time cycling, walking and kayaking along the coast, recording the journeys in my sketch-book. On the surface of these paintings are old maps, postcards, correspondence and materials from the area. Washes of dilute paint are applied to the surface and absorb into the layers of collage. The paintings are then refined with greater detail, whilst allowing areas of the collage to remain visible.

Friday 21st November, Chinese Brush painting, Jane Evans
Jane Evans studied Chinese Brush Painting at the Chinese Artists’ Guild and the Philippine Chinese Art Center in the Philippines, studying with Chen Bingsun, Hau Chiok and Sy Chiu Hua. After returning to Britain, Jane continued to develop her painting, exploring the versatility of Chinese techniques and materials by using them in adventurous ways. Drawing on Eastern and Western ideas about light, space and perspective, she has evolved a highly original style, creating colourful abstracted paintings that combine both aesthetic traditions. Jane has held successful one-woman exhibitions and taken part in group shows. She undertakes commissions and runs courses and workshops in Britain and abroad. She is Honorary Co-president of the Chinese Brush Painters Society.