Open Monday -Friday 9 -5.30, Saturday 9-5, Closed Sundays

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Here is some of the events at Newcastle Arts Centre. We hope that you will come along and see for yourself.

 Caroline Coode

IMPRESSIONS AND RECOLLECTIONS

A retrospective exhibition of prints and watercolours

Newcastle Arts Centre April 25 - May 31 2008

OPEN 9-5 MONDAY TO SATURDAY

This solo exhibition by Caroline Coode is a way of marking her 70th year.

The work reflects her constant themes of landscapes, natural forms, water and light.

There are limited edition prints made in a variety of techniques, collages and watercolours.

Turning 70 is proving an important marker for her: "I am finding it fascinating looking back at the work I have made over the past 25 years reflecting, as it does, the progress of my artistic life. I see it with fresh eyes and feel quite affectionate towards it, remembering the circumstances in which it was conceived and the ensuing toils of its making"

To book a space Email onthespot@live.co.uk

3 ships or a Sage? the Tyne at night : photo Mike Tilley

25th anniversary of our art materials shop 'details'

In 1982 we opened our first trading venture 50 yards away from the Arts Centre
site of 67-75 Westgate Road, because this group of of buildings was still a derelict
shambles undergoing a major restoration. Our 'New Shop' at 57 had been trading as
Woolfes, a picture framer and art materials dealer since 1924 and in 1982 we took it over to
acquire a presence on the street and a much needed revenue stream.
Back then we began as the smallest of seven art shops in Newcastle, and many long
standing names - Mawson Swan & Morgan, North of England School Furnishing Co,
Waughs, Wards and Thorns are no longer on Newcastle's high streets.
'Details' has grown steadily over the years and its revenue has made possible the galley
and performance studio. Best of all was the consolidation of all departments of the
Arts Centre in 2000 which was made possible by the trading cash flow.
The Arts Centre's independence and credibility in the arts community is down to 'details'
and our commitment to making things possible.

'details'February Offers

NEW GALLERY CAFE NOW OPEN

Fresh and new in a room with a view, a new exhibition each month!

A year ago we launched www.details.co.uk as our online arts materials store to extend our business across the UK.
This has been a very interesting exercise, getting a large sample of our stock visible online and building a secure site
at a time when an ever widening range of 'art materials' is on offer from little known sources. However you can be assured
that materials sold through our shop are tried and tested from established sources.
In response we now have the first of our own brand products, new high quality 50 sheet cartridge pads
made in the North of England.
The cover features a detail from a William Carmichael illustration of Newcastle, just to keep things local.

Websites - ...........www.newcastle-arts-centre.co.uk will remain as our 'home' site.

.............................. www.details.co.uk - our secure online shop.

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look familiar?

A major new book 'Newcastle & Gateshead Architecture and Heritage'

This is the first fully illustrated survey of the most 'notable' buildings of Newcastle and Gateshead containing over 300 photographs most of which were specially made by Tom Yellowley . The text by Thomas Faulkner, Peter Beacock and Paul Jones details over 250 buildings placing them in historic and architectural context . It's a large book of 383 pages which does well the important job of recording the City's architecture at the beginning of this new century and will prove to be an eye opener not only to strangers, but to anyone who believes they know Tyneside.

A bargain at £25 ( just 10p per building! ) and a gift idea, Now in stock in our Craft Shop

Telecoms - a new phone and broadband system -
this will put our conference rooms and performance space 'online' and there are changes to some phone numbers.

The 2 main numbers remain unchanged 0191 2615618 for events and administration
and 0191 2615999 for retail - Craftshop, Details art materials and Frameshop.

The existing Craftshop, Frameshop and Black Swan numbers will be discontinued but new Direct Dial numbers are active.
Craftshop 0191 2229880 Frameshop 0191 2229881 .......new fax 0191 2322410

Newcastle's oldest arts building wins support from English Heritage.

55-57 Westgate Road a building that was used as an Assembly House in the early 18th Century has been awarded a grant
towards the cost of essential repairs. This will ensure the future of the building and is the first step towards restoration
and new life for this important building.

Recent research has confirmed that what appears to be a grand mid 18th century town house is a much earlier building
that has undergone a number of makeovers as several owners set out to impress. The staircase (shown above) and many
of the rooms have extravagant plasterwork similar to that by Francini at Wallington Hall. we are lucky that this rare work
has survived despite its varied usage and escaped the major redevelopment of Newcastle during the 19th and 20th centuries.
Newcastle Arts Centre acquired the building back in 1986 as a home for its trading departments and since 2000 it has stood idle
awaiting restoration. With the continuing growth of the Arts Centre further up the street at 67-75 we plan to bring this important
building alive again as fine home for new developments.

Newcastle Arts Centre has commissioned Northern Counties Archeological Services to survey
55/57 Westgate Road prior to its renovation. This work will uncover evidence and record stages
in the making of the building from its Medieval basement through its 17th Century life as a Mayor's House
and 'Assembly House' to its mid 18th Century make over into an important Town house.

Last year we took the decision to develop an on-line shop which now has customers across the UK .
For years we have been asked to offer a mail order service with a catalogue but have been committed to other projects.
The 'details' site is a very different construction to this one because as a catalogue each page is assembled on demand
from a database. This Newcastle Arts Centre site uses static pages where the layout and text appears instantly and is
therefore much faster to use. In addition search engines can easily log static pages while being blind to the contents
of a database. For this reason we have not scrapped the shop pages on this site but are in the process of updating the
contents and adding links to our on-line shop.

Stock list on this site is therefore the browsing section of our online catalogue.
These Newcastle Arts Centre pages are designed for quick and easy information to compliment
our new www.details.co.uk site which is a fully functioning on-line shop.
You can click through to 'details' from most pages to make a purchase at any time.
To return to this site click on the 'Arts Centre' tab.

If you have any questions - please phone 0191 2615999 - shop hours 9am - 5pm Mon-Sat .

Over the next few months we will continue to improve the 'details' site to make it easier to use and more informative.
Currently the on-line credit card transactions are carried on a separate secure server. However we know that the transition
from a 'secure' to an 'insecure' site does worry some customers even though 99% of access to the web is classed as insecure.
Please be assured that we only carry financial data online in an encrypted format. To improve this further
we have transfered the entire www.details.co.uk site to a secure server, a move which will also simplify the whole
registration and checkout process. This makes www.details.co.uk one of only a few verified secure online Art Stores in the UK.
Look out for https://www as confirmation of a secure site instead of the usual http://www .

At Newcastle Arts Centre we are very keen to learn from our customers use of this service and welcome feedback.
Meanwhile new customers are asked to read through the FAQ's for more information and please read the checkout instructions
when making a purchase for the first time.

Special Offers online now at www.details.co.uk

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'Exhibitions on Tyne' page now with pictures!

Over the last few years we have suggested that there ought to be a current exhibitions list on the Web
and now we are pleased to launch this for the first time on the Web.
O.K. you can find the some of the same info by sifting through other sites but we believe that this is the only one stop
exhibitions page for Tyneside. To be fair we could not leave out Sunderland so it has become ' Exhibitions on Tyne and Wear'.

Any Exhibition within 10 miles of Newcastle with an show that is open Free to the public can be listed free
Email the Listing in the information format we use -

Title - Date -Description - Venue Address - WWW -Times of opening. picture ( JPEG no more than 350 x 250 pixels)

 Details art store
Stratford & York Brushes at bargain prices!

New Makers on show in our Craftshop : -

Lionel Crawford, Nicola & Andrew Cheers, Rob Whelpton, Alison & Steve Ogden, Gwen Bainbridge,
Markus Klausmann, Julie Sellars

Winsor & Newton upgrade their Artists watercolours.
Eight years have passed since this range was last renewed and the changes offer improved permanence
and cleaner colours with the introduction of more single pigment colours and the discontinuation of ten
problematic colours. A new and very detailed leaflet is available free of charge from our shop

Painting Tips

Oil Painting is a slow process but you can speed it up by underpainting with Acrylic
and finishing with oil, but make sure that the surface has been primed with acrylic gesso.
Remember the 'fat over lean' rule which means that you cannot apply acrylic over oil.

Acrylic Varnish? - Although acrylic varnishes are available we don't recommend them because they
are not removable, remember that the easiest way to clean a painting should be to remove the varnish
with white spirit, however the varnish must be soluble.
Modern varnishes made with Keytone resin are recommended.

Water soluble oils. - Water mixable oil colours such as Winsor & Newton's 'Artisan' are now
popular because they don't use smelly solvents; but are you aware that 'Turpenoid natural' is not only
a non toxic brush restorer, but can be used as a solvent for any oil or Alkyd paint rendering the colour water soluble.

Brushes for acrylics - The most common mistake is to chose natural hair brushes
such as Hog or Sable for Acrylic painting. Acrylic paints use a plastic in a solution of water
as the medium for the colour but once this is dry it is waterproof. Brushes made from natural fibres
absorb the acrylic and quickly become useless. Always choose brushes of man made fibres for Acrylic.

Colour Mixing - Keep it simple!
In theory you should be able to mix most colours from Cyan, Magenta and Yellow as most print and photographic
processes achieve 'full colour' from these primaries. Its well worth practicing with such a set to get to know the basics of colour mixing and only buy additional single pigment colours colours that you find hard to mix.

more

Monday - Friday ..... 9.00 am - 5.30pm.........

Saturday 9am - 5pm........... Sunday closed.

New same day local delivery service only £5 for up to 25 kilos for orders placed Monday to Thursday
before 11 am. To these postal addresses, Ashington, Blyth, Cramlington, Whitley Bay, North & South Shields,
Newcastle, Wallsend, Gateshead, Hexham, Gateshead, Felling, Consett, Washington, Sunderland, Houghton, Durham City.

New online shop ..... www.details.co.uk has been re launched as a secure site and mail order service
in response to requests from across the UK.

Updated local venue list ... Music Theatre Exhibition and Movie addresses and numbers ....to add your favourite local venue email

New Brush Sets specially selected by Newcastle Arts Centre. this summer we asked the leading UK maker Pro -Arte to make special packs of brushes of the sizes most used by artists, and we offer these at a bargain price. Our Watercolour includes a number 12 round and a half inch flat, compare this with other sets on offer!

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