Welcome to the Stainbeck Arts Club website.
We are a friendly local arts club to which everyone is welcome. We meet on the second and fourth Tuesday of each month, usually from 2pm-4pm.
Meetings are held in the Meeting Room, Methodist Community Centre, Town Street, Chapel Allerton, Leeds, LS7 4NB.
For General Enquiries, please email stainbeckarts@gmail.com or phone Mike on 07532325845.
You can see examples of our artwork in our Members' Gallery and on our Facebook page.
Our Summer 2026 syllabus is now available. Click here for our July 2026 newsletter.
Environmentally friendly printmaking
A fantastic afternoon with local artist, Adrian Sestini, learning how to transfer and print our designs using tetrapaks, scratching lovely textures on the plates and then printing with soy based ink on a printing press. Adrian Sestini inspired us with his printing and gave us lots of individual attention. You can see some examples of our designs on the terapak beside the print on paper. thank you, Adrian!
Masterclass with Julia Borodina
Julia made a return visit for a masterclass on Saturday 21st March.This time we painted a city market square in watercolour. Julia had so many tips on colour, perspective, composition, and how to loosen up when painting buildings and people. As ever, Julia was an entertaining and helpful tutor, so we all enjoyed the day. Thank you, Julia!
The Chinese Brush Painting session with Anne Allan on 24th February was great. Anne explained a little more about the Chinese art of Gongbi painting, also known as the meticulous style. The method starts with outlining the image on the paper and then filling in with ink. She explained that this is not colouring in as the technique involves the use of 2 brushes, one to put down the ink and the other dampened with clear water to blend the colour. Anne demonstrated how this was done by holding both brushes in one hand and alternating them and it was fascinating to watch her do this. We all managed to paint a small blue tit on a branch with plum blossoms and Anne had brought along some Chinese seals to complete our paintings. Normally this style would involve building up the image with multiple layers but due to time constraints we were only able to do one layer.
It was an enjoyable session and a good introduction to Gongbi painting.
What a creative workshop we had with Vicky Thaxter on Tuesday 25th November!
She shared lots of techniques to encourage the paint to flow freely, interesting mark making,…. and we had lots of fun!
Thank you, Vicky!
We had an inspiring and creative workshop with Cathy Warburton on October 14th, loosening up and trying out different mark making tools.
What a fantastic day we had with Julia Borodina on Saturday 4th October! She is a talented artist and amazing tutor! We painted dramatic waterfalls in acrylics and learnt so much from Julia about composition and colour, and she shared many other tips and techniques to encourage us in our art.
Valerie Clapham demonstrated amazing patterns created by pouring acrylic paints on the canvas and gave us full instructions, so we can try it at home!
A very creative collage and mixed media workshop with Tony Driver on 9th September 2025. Tony provided lots of inspiration and we had plenty of fun!
What a fantastic day we had with Ione Harrison, for our second Saturday Masterclass!
We started with some warm up exercises to get to know the colours, brushwork and loosen up. Ione then demonstrated her techniques for an impressionistic seascape of Whitby from Sandsend using vibrant colours and we all had a go.
Letting the sky paint itself upside down created particularly exciting results!
The second picture was a loose seascape, experimenting with wet in wet painting and using salt and cling film to introduce texture in the foreground.
We had a wonderful watercolour workshop with Jeremy Taylor on Tuesday 11th March. He guided us through an atmospheric painting of Heptonstall, sharing lots of great techniques.
We had a wonderful lino-printing workshop with Annie Cunniffe on Tuesday 25th February. She shared lots of inspiration and techniques and we created some beautiful images.
Our first Saturday Masterclass! We had a great workshop with Anthony Barrow on Saturday 23rd March 2024, learning two different methods of figure painting using charcoal and acrylics. Anthony and his wife, Lynn, led a relaxed session with lots of individual attention and practical tips.
On Tuesday, 27th February, Roundhay Artist, Tony Driver, treated us to an insight into his work, sharing how his interest has evolved over the years to abstract paintings of the industrial landscapes of the North East. He created a stunning landscape from scratch using collage.
We enjoyed an inspiring and fun workshop, The Art of Paper Collage, with Lauri Bower
March 2023: It was a delight to watch Claire Dean paint two meadow scenes In beautiful vibrant colours. We had some fun trying to create our own meadows at the next meeting!
On 24th February we enjoyed a mixed media workshop with Ian Smith from East Keswick Art Group.
Ian showed us some exciting techniques with watercolour, ink and granulation fluid to create tree and bark textures.
On 11th October 2022 Doreen Greenshields gave an entertaining demonstration of a seascape in oils, with lots of tips for working in oils, composition and colour.
On 22nd February 2022 we enjoyed a stimulating workshop with Miriam Laville.
Miriam guided us through observational drawing of natural forms, composition and using various mixed media while leaving plenty of scope for creativity.
At our meeting on 12 October 2021, Tracey Krupianka created a vibrant scene in acrylics, and then shared her techniques for leaves, flowers and underwater plants on black paper.
Our meetings include demonstrations by talented artists. Recent examples include Charles Kelly, demonstrating the use of watercolours to paint a standing curlew and a sleeping fox, and Terry Chipp who used textured acrylics to create images of wooden panels.
