Annual Cityscape Exhibition

Glen Eira Artists Society

January - February 2026 at Carnegie Plaza

Thank you to Carnegie Central Shopping Centre for its unwavering support over 4 years. This support has enabled Glen Eira Artists' Society to further its Community Art Outreach bringing art to everyone from the Cityscape event when the passing parade could watch artists in creative action to the display of artworks produced at that event.

Courtesy of Pete the Chef

Cityscape 2025 by Gillian Schofield

Our sincere thanks to Glen Eira U3A for enabling a joint GEAS U3A Cityscape, accessing the magnificent Glen Eira U3A premises in Glen Huntly Village to host the Cityscape event on Sunday October 15, 2025.

GEAS preparation involved posting flyers in the shop windows. The Glen Huntly Village traders and the locals were thus informed and happy to receive us. Fourteen artists from GEAS and six from Glen Eira U3A & friends registered to paint east and west of Glen Huntly station.

With the slow arrival of seventeen artists between 9.45 am and 11.30 am, there was no formal meet and greet as a group at 10-10.30 as planned. Painting sites were selected, plotted on a map and Art Facilitator Pam Andrews was able to locate all participating artists within the Glen Huntly shopping strip. There was a general congregation around the new Glen Huntly station, with artists also at the extreme ends: Grange Road and Roseberry Grove. Pam was able to advise the individual artists on aspects of their work in progress. Her contribution was much appreciated, as always. It was her third time as mentor for the day, previously at Carnegie and Caulfield Park.

A predicted 29 degrees with high winds, made for a tricky day, but cloudy with a cool wind removed the heat factor. Challenging conditions for artists.

There was no formal lunch time and artists managed breaks as they needed. The advantage of having the rear access from U3A open to Glen Huntly station was an added, unexpected bonus, allowing easy return to facilities at U3A as needed.

The painting time passed very quickly, as the debrief time unexpectedly had to be brought forward to 2 pm to enable exit from U3A by 3 pm lockup.

Gathering at 2 pm, a mini exhibition was set out, displaying the results of the day’s work. Under Pam Andrews expert guidance, we spent an hour discussing the art work: artists’ motivation for the work, processes, planning, and intentions for proceeding to a finished artwork over the following weeks/months.

The take home message from Pam Andrews for the day was: plan your composition with thumbnail sketches, before you start painting. This will enable you to establish the tonal values of the painting and therefore the colour and atmosphere of Glen Huntly Village. With this early planning, artists can be selective about what they focus on, not governed by what is exactly in front of them. Adding figures can also create a sense of a busy setting. The choice of perspective – narrow or extreme – early in the planning, makes the painting process easier. If this decision is delayed, the task becomes harder. Planning gives you a fighting chance of creating a painting with tonal balance, positive and negative areas and a finished product.

Goals for a painting:

Under Pam’s guidance, the artists were encouraged to discuss what they hoped to achieve in their painting; how they developed it; and how they were planning to finish it for exhibition in January (GEAS artists) or later (U3A artists), now planned for May.

Tips for the artists:

For each artist, Pam Andrews made recommendations to help them solve their current issues. Here are some of her suggestions:

Pam stressed the ability to alter the light or dark, for example on a tree trunk, to show more of the form.
Learn about vanishing points and perspective to facilitate planning your painting.
Plan your work for balance eg placement of trees, or people.
If your first attempt doesn’t work, try doing it again.
Cropping the image can give it a bit more interest.
Take a photo, do a drawing from your photo. Analyse how you could do it better.
Go back to basics if you are not getting it right. [Eg warm colours bring the foreground forward. Cool colours send the distant elements back. Less detail in the distance, more detail in the foreground. The lightest light and the darkest dark when used together can make the focus of your painting. Weight the painting with darks to ground the picture in the foreground. Colour, line and form create pathways through the painting that draw the eye of the viewer]
Your painting is telling a story in the foreground, the middle ground and the background. Sometimes you need a detail in one of these areas to pull the whole picture together. More texture can help. The viewers wind their way through the painting.

Follow -up exhibitions:

Throughout January 2026, some works from Cityscape 2025 were on view for 4 weeks upstairs at Carnegie Central, with good social media advertising from Peter, President of the Carnegie Traders, on Facebook and Instagram. Large numbers of people were able to view this exhibition and three paintings were sold. Other works were exhibited in Glenhuntly Road at the premises that had been painted and also at Coffee and Cream, the premises of Jinnie, President of the Glen Huntly Traders Association.

Glen Eira U3A is planning a Cityscape Exhibition May 14/15 – May 25/26 to view some of the works from 2025. Some U3A and GEAS Cityscape artists will be included.