

Exhibitions
CURRENT EXHIBITIONS of Janice Lyall paintings
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'What is Art?'
Gloucester Guildhall Concourse - September 2018
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My personal definition:
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Art is not the finished painting on the wall - its my journey of discovery resting there
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For me, the journey is about discovering a subject that inspires me, delving deeper to define and capture a simplified 'essence' and then developing it in ways to describe and convey something about what I feel.
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Sometimes, I may endeavour to make the final image as photo realistic as I possibly can. More often, I don't. I seek only to depict the essence, to portray the beauty, emotion and story within.
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What is 'Art' for you?
'Throughout the Seasons'
Gloucester Guildhall Gallery - June 2017
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There are so many, many things that change from season to season:
Spring — new life bursts forth from bare ground and very quickly, plant-life is clamouring for the light, especially amongst the weeds. Lawn mowers are dusted off.
Summer — months of warmth, filled with the promise of activity. During the summer months communities venture out and even neighbours manage to speak to each other from their gardens, whilst mowing the weeds.
Autumn – the leaves are beginning to fall as the daylight reduces. Leaves smother the weeds providing great mulch for next year
Winter —Lawnmowers have shudderingly been put away, behind the ominous bags of grit
PREVIOUS EXHIBITIONS of Janice Lyall paintings
'Rich Diversity in Gloucestershire?'
Gloucester Guildhall concourse - March 2017
Gloucestershire’s landscapes enable wide diversity of both resident and migratory bird populations.
In winter we amaze at the perseverance of Bewick Swans to escape frozen Siberia and in spring we feel uplifted by the spiralling swifts, swallows and house martins that evade sweltering Africa.
Our rewards?
Plumage and flight patterns provide rich beauty and inspire our designs. We awake to the enchanting dawn chorus, enjoy tuneful daytime chatter and tweets and wonder at shrill calls carried through the night air.
We are exceptionally fortunate to have WWT Slimbridge, the Barn Owl Centre, the local RSPB, numerous wildlife trusts and sanctuaries, considerate farmers and landowners to help sustain the vital habitats our birds depend upon.
Our own gardens play a crucial part too. Thank-you for feeding the birds!
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'Autumn/Winter Season 2016/2017'
King's Theatre - October to March 2017
During the intervals of the exciting performances currently billed for the Autumn Season, enjoy a small exhibition of Janice Lyall paintings in the foyer. I am told the 'Flint Street Nativity' starring adults, is not to be missed!
'Cathedral At Christmas' 2016
Exeter Cathedral Chapter House
An exhibition of paintings to support the choristers of Exeter Cathedral. Full details of the entire exhibition can be seen on the Exeter Cathedral website
'Gloucester from Afar'
Gloucester Guildhall - September 2016
What is your favourite view of Gloucester from afar?
Perhaps Gloucester is your home and you regard it as the 'Centre of the Universe'? Well, it might have been once, however we are now more fortunate in that our Sun has moved away from the intense heat of our Milky Way's centre!
Perhaps you are an occasional visitor to Gloucester and are accustomed to viewing the City on your approach into it? What do you see first?
Surrounded by hills and vale, there are numerous opportunities to admire it. I hope you like these impressions. More paintings will be added throughout the month.
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'Routes to Gloucester's Heritage'
Gloucester Guildhall - July 2016
One of the significant reasons for Gloucester's existence is its geography and the type of trade routes made possible throughout its history. This colourful, yet informative exhibition of contemporary art by Janice Lyall explores some of the less well known evidence of those historic routes.
Each piece of artwork has an amazing story to tell.
'Within 10 minutes walk of Gloucester Cross'
Gloucester Guildhall - March 2016
What hidden gems can be seen within a 10 minute walk from Gloucester Cross?
This exhibition explores the wide variety of Gloucester's heritage, all within a 10 minutes walk.
Cows can be seen grazing in the fields, under the towers of St Nicholas Church and Gloucester Cathedral. A wander past Baker’s Quay and Llanthony Secunda Priory awaits its restoration amidst the greenery of its gardens. A short step across the road and the beautiful footbridge to Llanthony Lock House crosses the river. So much colour and vibrancy!
Of course, if you only have 10 seconds to spare, I would recommend looking up at the buildings above ground floor level in the four gate streets, where magnificent stone work can be seen, including that dated from the Roman period.
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Gloucester Cathedral Shop
A small selection of Gloucester Cathedral prints and greeting cards
Gloucestershire Arts and Craft Centre
5 College Court, Gloucester
A selection of Gloucester Cathedral & Gloucestershire Heritage inspired paintings, in addition to greeting cards.
Herefordshire & Gloucestershire Canal Trust
Emerging selection of Inland Waterway paintings adorning the walls of Wharf House and Malswick House
St Bartholomews
Small selection of paintings on the walls of the Import Furniture Depot
'Inland Waterways around Gloucestershire'
Gloucester Guildhall - October 2015
What can you expect to see around our canals and rivers today?
This exhibition presents just a small taster for the wildlife corridors along our canals and rivers. The existing waterways are buzzing with wildlife, fishermen, pleasure boat cruisers and walkers, in addition to any commercial user. Even the Herefordshire and Gloucestershire Canal, although in the midst of restoration, already provides rich opportunity for exploration and outdoor activity. Try speaking to any canal trust volunteer to see the range of activity they get up to. The work they do is tremendous!
Of course the scenery is so spectacular, it just has to be painted again and again!
King's Theatre
Kingsbarton Street, Gloucester GL1 1 QX
A small exhibition of paintings to welcome the audience throughout the current season into the delightful theatre, which is run by a group of very talented volunteers.
'One Sketch, Many Possibilities'
May 2015, Gloucester Guildhall Concourse
When I have the pleasure of painting in public, a question I am often asked is:
‘Do you make detailed sketches before you paint ?’
It depends………
Whenever I paint a Cathedral from a new viewpoint, I need to look hard to understand its basic outline structure. Producing a detailed sketch is invaluable to me, as it forces me to study. A detailed sketch takes a very long time though with much checking, double checking and correcting going on. At times, it can look quite messy and I may have added many extra notes too, such as information on textures and stone colouring. Sometimes I make a further clean sketch back in the studio.
Once I have an overall appreciation, I usually make rapid tonal sketches to correlate to certain times of day. (It helps to know that most cathedrals point East).
Then its time to delight the senses, soak up atmosphere and begin exploring with paint.
There are just so many ways to paint from a single sketch—the combinations are endless. Sometimes, I imagine choirs practising, sometimes I imagine tourists sitting in the Lady Chapel looking up at the stained glass windows. At other times I might think about various activities that may have happened within, during a particular period in history.
What would you imagine whilst painting from the original sketch?
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Gloucester City Museum and Art Gallery
A small selection from the portfolio of Gloucester Cathedral paintings by Janice Lyall.
Gloucester Cathedral Paintings available here.
'December in Gloucestershire'
December 2014, Gloucester Guildhall Gallery
The inspiration.......
'House martins have long since migrated, hedgehogs sleep beneath deep blankets of leaves, robins peck at crumbs dropping from garden bird tables and redwings rummage for berries in Severn Vale hedgerows. Bewick swans arrive at Slimbridge delighting spellbound watchers during evening feeds.
Tunes from ‘The Nutcracker’ are hummed by aspiring ballerinas, local choirs practise together at village halls and bells ring out from cosy, novelty socks and windy belfries.
Stars appear brighter to avid astronomers, before eyes begin to glisten and water in the cold night air.
Feasts planned months in advance are lovingly served to smiling faces brought together to share in the winter festivities'.
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'Take One Onion...and abstract it'
November 2014, Gloucester Guildhall Gallery
The inspiration.......
'From where does inspiration for Abstract Art originate?
For this exhibition, you are invited to follow hidden clues on a transformational journey from a humble, albeit rather tasty, local brown vegetable, passing through its own country fayre, to arrive at its origins, just 'Before the Big Bang'.
(Err...shouldn't that be the other way around?)
Of course, the artist might just be 'Out to Lunch'!'
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'Gloucester Blackfriars'
September 2014
The inspiration.......
'Like so many other buildings in the City, Blackfriars stands quietly in the background, having witnessed so much of Gloucester’s tumultuous history through its windows and doorways.
The building itself has been continually re-fabricated from a patchwork of remnants from previous eras. The stones echo the heritage of the citizens, seemingly soft on the surface, yet accustomed to withstanding hardship and solid endeavour. The old wooden beams are a testament to the richness and strength of the native trees from the Forest of Dean.
Look deep into its history and glimpse at the soul of Gloucester.'
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'Newent Onion Fayre'
September 2014, Newent
A small exhibition of specially created paintings to celebrate Newent's historic onion festival.
'Without Portfolio'
August 2014, Gloucester Guildhall
An exhibition of contemporary watercolour and acrylic paintings of historic scenes around Gloucester, including Gloucester Dock warehouses, Gloucester Cathedral and a few inspired by Cheltenham festivals.
'How to choose which subjects to paint?
How to select the style and medium?
The possibilities are endless, as in this selection ranging from the desolate Baker’s Quay captured in watercolour, to the friendly horse painted in acrylic.
Sometimes, it feels like the picture just paints itself. Often, it can be a long struggle and wrangle with paper and paint.
Here are a few that have escaped the recycling bin. Can you guess which ones took more time?
Hint—what is the difference between an anteater and a horse? '
'The Kings' Theatre'
June 2014, Gloucester
A specially produced, small exhibition of Janice Lyall paintings celebrating the current season, including a Gloucester Cathedral epitaph to King Edward II and 'Knavery at Play'.
'Gloucester Cathedral paintings'
3rd Exhibition of Contemporary Watercolour Paintings by artist Janice Lyall at Gloucester Guildhall May 2014
Following the terrific success of the first and second exhibitions, Janice was invited to stage a third Gloucester Cathedral portfolio of paintings in the Concourse. The colourful paintings tended more towards the modernist abstract and contained some distant moonlit settings of Gloucester Cathedral.
'What colour is Gloucester Cathedral?
I have gazed up at the tower over many, many years, at different times of the day and night, throughout all the seasons and I am still looking for the answer.
Should I depict the tower bathed in bright sunshine, pouring rain, shrouded in the early morning, soft spring mists or perhaps capture it rising up through thick fog? Then again, I adore seeing the spires in the distance when looking across nearby fields lit up by moonlight. That’s the special time, when all other buildings seem to vanish into the ethereal night.'
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'Gloucester Cathedral paintings'
2nd Exhibition of Contemporary Watercolour Gloucester Cathedral Paintings by artist Janice Lyall at Gloucester Guildhall March 2014
Janice was invited again to exhibit further Gloucester Cathedral paintings.
'Who cannot be inspired by Gloucester Cathedral with its ingenious engineered, weight bearing architecture, its beautiful, exquisite stained glass or by its intricate stonework? I am awestruck by the spatial Lady Chapel with its window tributes to past organists and I adore wandering through the cloisters gazing at the fan vaulted ceilings, visualising monks scribing at desks in the carrels.
When returning from trips away, I know I am close to home when I can see
‘.......................... a tall
Fair fashioned shape of stone arise,
That changes with the changing skies ‘
Ivor Gurney, 1890—1937
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'Gloucester Cathedral paintings'
1st Exhibition of contemporary watercolour Gloucester Cathedral paintings by artist Janice Lyall, at Gloucester Guildhall February 2014
An exhibition of vibrant watercolour paintings of Gloucester Cathedral.
Conservation Artist, Janice Lyall is inspired by the exquisite architecture of Gloucester Cathedral, with its beautiful stained glass and intricate stonework. She is in awe of the spatial Lady Chapel with its window tributes to past organists and enjoys wandering through the cloisters gazing at the fan vaulted ceilings.
Gloucester Cathedral was originally a Benedictine Abbey built in 1089 in the Romanesque style, it was consecrated in 1100 and re-founded as a Cathedral in 1541.
It costs £43,000 per week to maintain access to the public.
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