Lancaster’s portrait painters are inviting the public to see familiar faces, and a few famous ones, in a new exhibition at the Storey Café in Lancaster which they hope can attract new members.
Behind the walls of portraits is a small but committed group who meet every Thursday to paint, learn and laugh together as part of the Lancaster and District Art Society.
For Kathy, who joined about 15 years ago, the portrait group is as simple, and as rich, as a handful of people in a room, all looking closely at the same face.
She explains: “The portrait group meets once a week, specifically to do portraits.
"Sometimes there are portraits of just local people or people that we know.
"Sometimes we work from a screen and do portraits of famous people, just for the interest, so it’s a mixture.”
On a typical Thursday, they’ll sit in a semicircle around a live model, or turn their chairs towards a big screen, studying expressions, angles and shadows as the morning goes on.
Kathy loves the variety: “We’ve been exhibiting at the City Museum for a few years now, but that’s general art – landscapes, seascapes, that kind of thing.
"This is the first time we’ve had a go with the portraits here at the Storey, just for fun, just to see what happened and what reaction we got.”
Across the room, everyone will work in their own way.
Some reach for oils, others for acrylics, pencil or watercolour, and each has developed a recognisable style.
Kathy says she can tell at a glance who has painted what because she’s “so used to what everybody does”, from the blues and greens they put into shadow areas to the way they handle noses, eyes and wrinkles.
For her, that mix of different approaches, all focused on people, is the beauty of it.
For many, joining has been as much about timing as talent.
Hazel discovered the society nearly a decade ago on a bus journey, when a stranger mentioned she was an artist and invited her along to a watercolour group; she soon switched to portraits and “never went back”.
Kathy, whose father was a watercolourist, always planned to return to art after retiring and first joined the wider society before being persuaded to sit as a live model and then pick up the brushes herself.
Ruth came in after seeing a previous society exhibition at the museum, shortly after her own retirement, looking for a way to work with other people who painted.
What began as a post‑work hobby has become a regular part of life: “I’ve been in the group about five years,” she explains, “and I just wanted to get more involved in art, and working with other people that did art as well, getting to know them.”
Ask the members what keeps them coming and they point to two things: the art – and the chat.
Sessions run from 10.30am to 12.30pm on Thursdays, with a coffee break and plenty of conversation as portraits slowly emerge on easels around the room.
“The social side for me is as important as the creative side,” says Ruth.
“We have such a good laugh. We’re very close, all of us.”
There is also a strong sense of shared learning.
More experienced portraitists, such as Tony, pass on tips about colour, shading and capturing expression, while newer members are encouraged simply to have a go regardless of experience.
The group’s experiments with drawing one another and producing self‑portraits have been especially revealing; members talk about confronting their own features, “accepting the lines and the shadowy bits and the wonky bits” and trying to get the character right rather than a flattering likeness.
The Storey Café exhibition, which ends on Friday, is in part, a calling card.
Members admit the society struggles to attract new people, and see hanging their work in a popular city‑centre venue as a way to show what they do every week rather than leaving stacks of portraits unseen in home folders.
None of the works at the café are for sale, but pieces in the Lancaster City Museum show are, offering an outlet for those who want to sell, and a sense of validation when a painting leaves the wall for a new home.
Crucially, they stress that the door is open to anyone with an interest in art, whether or not they can already draw.
You don’t have to paint; you can simply sit in on a demonstration, watch an artist at work and be part of the conversation.
Read more
For those who do pick up a brush, the promise is simple: a regular time in the week to focus, experiment and be gently pushed by the work, and the personalities, on either side of you.
For now, the group hopes the faces on the walls at the Storey Café will spark curiosity, be it about the sitters, the society or about portraiture itself.
So if you find yourself wondering what someone in a painting is really like, there’s an open invitation to come along on a Thursday and start finding out with a sketchbook of your own.
Share