Top gallery showcase for art club painting (From Knutsford Guardian)

Top gallery showcase for art club painting

7:10pm Monday 22nd October 2012 in News By James Wilson

A VILLAGE art club which painted a picture of the Queen as part of the Diamond Jubilee celebrations has been toasting its success after scooping a national award.

Goostrey and Holmes Chapel Art Club beat more than 1,000 entries to clinch the Daily Mail Jubilee art competition which was judged by three of the country’s top artists – Sir Peter Blake, Jonathan Yeo and Emma Sergeant.

The entry was then put on display at the National Portrait Gallery in London on September 21.

Alan Davis, a member of the group, told the Guardian the group was ‘over the moon’ to have won the prize after creating it as part of the Diamond Jubilee celebrations in Goostrey and Holmes Chapel.

“The two villages asked the area’s groups to prepare things for the celebration, and we decided to do a picture of the Queen in front of Buckingham Palace,” he said.

“We generated it on the computer and cut it into small sections and people in the club went away and painted it. We then collected them and it looked tremendous.

“I assembled them in my garage on a piece of MDF and put it on display at the celebrations.”

Club members were given no specific instructions for the individual painting, except to paint in oils or acrylics.

Alan said: “At the art club’s 25th anniversary dinner it was mentioned that there was an article in the Daily Mail for a Jubilee painting competition requesting entries, and members joked about how wonderful it would be to win the competition.

“We were quite surprised and over the moon when we were told we had won.

“We organised a coach and headed down to London, where we were greeted by the deputy editor of the Mail’s Weekend supplement and the director of the National Portrait Gallery.”

The artists involved in the award-winning picture were : Rab Parry, Alan Davis, Margaret Darby, Jean Alcock, Isa McLellan, Gillie Beushaw, Jim Pulling, Annabel Capewell, Annette Spicer, Brenda Williams, Geraldine Widd, Gordon Davies, Hazel Hewitt, Ian Thomlinson, Irene Frame, Jo Smith, Lynda Fyfe, Madeleine Stonehouse, Sheri Bloor and Sian Watts.