Welcome to Downland Art Society

Our aim of encouraging a love of art and providing an opportunity for everyone to recognise and develop their individual talents has been an unbroken theme since we first formed in 1944. Find out more about our history.

Now more than 70 years later, we are still a forward looking and friendly art society open to both amateurs and professionals. Saturday meetings take place at our base in Walberton and feature a varied programme of demonstrations, presentations and critiques from respected local artists. Some members start early by meeting up in the pub at lunchtime before the meeting. Visitors are very welcome to come along and see what we do. Our workshops are excellent value and themes generally follow on from the demo. They are a good opportunity to try new techniques and to get to know people in an informal setting. Many people like to take advantage of the networking opportunities for sharing ideas and information, organising sketching groups and visiting exhibitions. If showing your work is important to you then Downland exhibits twice a year in one of the best locations in the area, the Norfolk Centre by Arundel Castle.

With well-known local artist and teacher, Marcus Finch as our President, Alison Woodward, a Senior Lecturer at Chichester University as Chairman and an enthusiastic Patron in Diana Levantine, Chairman of the Sussex Snowdrop Trust, not to mention an energetic new committee, Downland Art Society is well set up to continue to go forward as it has done since 1944 as a leading resource for art in the area.

See our events programme for details

Latest Galleries

We had a great informative day with Max who took us through his whole process, demonstrating and instructing us to work to a structured format. We all felt we had learned a lot form the day.

Max gave us a great demo in acrylics as a precursor to his workshop on Wednesday. A really good turnout especially considering the weather which caused floods to our axles! Undaunted about 25 people were shown his process for painting a very successful picture on boats on the beach harbour. We look forward to working in water mixable oils with him on Wednesday for the day. 9:30 start!

We had a truly masterful demo from Stewart again. Seeming to capture his subject in the last half hour, he impressed us all. It was well attended and we all enjoyed each others company during the break, having to be called back to allow Stewart to finish the "a la Prima" piece. (Click the pictures to see full size slide show)

There were good attendances at both events and we got the new year off to a really good start with 5 new members with great art work to show us, signing up. Well done Gaye for all your hard work. 

We had a great afternoon of reinstating the committee members, but Gaye Reynolds, our membership secretary, after serving the Society for many years, said she will stand down at the end of this year as she has other commitments. As a result, we are now looking for a new membership secretary for 2025.

We had an interesting afternoon with may entries and much discussion. The winners were as follows:- Tom Groom Award, Joint Winners Jacqueline Black and Chris Shaw with equal points, Highly Commended was Kay Gale. The Dominic Carlton Sketchbook Award, Winner Margaret Cairns, Highly commended Judith Armstrong and Rachel Boxall