This is the website belonging to The Stanway Art Club. We gather together at The Victory Hall, Villa Road, Stanway, Colchester every Wednesday afternoon in two classes, the first starting at 1pm until 3pm, the second from 3pm until 5pm.

Started in September 1994 by Jenny Alderton & Doris Duffett, The Stanway Art Club was created originally for beginners to learn to draw & paint primarily in watercolour but also in other media. Over the years it has evolved to include intermediate & advanced painters as well. We have painted all manner of subject matter, tried our hand at gold leaf, and learnt about the lives of various famous artists.

On occasions we would have a model to pose for us, stationary, in action, and also for portrait, the most famous being Sir Bob Russell, the Liberal Democrat politician & an ex Mayor of Colchester.

For several years we visited the annual Artists & Illustrators Exhibition at the Business Design Centre in Islington, where we could watch professional artists demonstrating, try out new products & pick up tips, coming home with goodie bags.

In the Winter, we would take coach trips to Art Galleries & Museums, eg, Greenwich, the V & A, the National Gallery in London, the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge & the Sainsbury Centre in Norwich to visit Exhibitions. Summertime would mean Painting Days, when we would visit various locations to paint, socialise & have lunch breaks in the local pub or tea room. Venues included historical buildings, eg, Layer Marney Towers, Cressing Temple, various churches, eg, Copford, coastal sites at Mersea & Frinton, gardens & garden centres, eg, Beth Chatto Gardens, Marks Hall, East Bergholt Place, BarnPlants, and Chappel & Wakes Colne Railway Museum, to name a few. Every June we enjoyed our Strawberry Tea, held in someone's lovely garden (almost always a fine, sunny day!) and we all looked forward to our annual Christmas Lunch, held over the years in various pubs & restaurants.