Tag Archives: art tutors

Helen’s Painting Day in the Garden Village

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Picture a perfect summer’s day - patio doors opening onto a lovely lush lawn with fruit-laden apple-tree in Rhiwbina Garden Village and you have the scene set for my friend Helen and I to spend the day watercolouring.

An Impressionist's dream garden...in Rhiwbina, Cardiff

An Impressionist’s dream garden…in Rhiwbina, Cardiff

Helen is a Homeopath and Reflexologist and has longed to try out watercolour.

Helen - getting in amongst it!

Helen - getting in amongst it!

Enter me! After finally fixing a window of opportunity (always so difficult with people’s busy lives) we ensured that we would not be interrupted and could focus on a day of watercolour discovery and creativity.

This is a spare palette I took as I picked one of the ladies as my shadow painter for each demo - they painted along with me as the others watched us both

A good basic palette of artist’s quality paints

In Helen’s gorgeously rustic kitchen we laid everything out on the farmhouse table and soon she was discovering the joys of experimenting with watercolour. Handling paint and familiarising herself with the effects on different types and wetnesses of paper then progressed to painting an actual seahorse in poetic washes of green an yellow.

Part of the seahorse step by step handout I had prepared for each member of the group

Part of the seahorse step by step handout I had prepared

 

I was at pains to explain that you only get these lovely effects with Artist’s as opposed to student grade paints and paper and was over the moon with how Hel fell in love with this exuberant medium.

She soon picked up the importance of light and shade to suggest the forms of objects such as a cherry and a teazle and loved the way the paint granulated and settled on different paper types.

What could be better than painting in your cosy kitchen with open patio doors letting summer in!

What could be better than painting in your cosy kitchen with open patio doors letting summer in!

There are so many ways to use watercolour but I was pleased to at least share the fundamental techniques and my love of painting this way.

We enjoyed a gorgeous lunch too and talked art as we worked.

Thanks for a lovely day Hel - you are on your way now!

What you can do with some watercolour and paper!

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This week I held another Art Blossoms Painting Day (I refuse to use the word “workshop” as it conjures up images of people doing difficult and unpleasant activities and anyway art isn’t work!)

Mary showing the poppies who's boss!

Mary showing the poppies who’s boss!

Two sisters - Mary and Pam came over from Tonyrefail and Efail Isaf respectively to build on their watercolour skills.

This is a spare palette I took as I picked one of the ladies as my shadow painter for each demo - they painted along with me as the others watched us both

They had requested activities on flowers and animals and some general watercolour techniques on how to create a good composition from a complicated floral landscape scene.

Using the wet into wet technique Pam was soon creating poetic poppies

Using the wet into wet technique Pam was soon creating poetic poppies

For our flowers we did a magical blue himalayan poppy. Using wet into wet for the background we simply lifted out any colour that went over the flowers and then painted those in when the background was dry!

This is what you might get if you follow along with the demo in this post - good luck!

This is what you might get if you follow along with the demo in this post - good luck!

Here is the demo if you want a go and please - send me in pics of how you do?

Blue Poppy 1Blue Poppy 2The animal we painted was a simple greeny-yellow seahorse which allowed for loose and atmospheric painting of underwashes before tightening with accents and shadows as the painting dried.

Seahorses are delightful to paint in watercolour

Seahorses are delightful to paint in watercolour

Again - have a little dabble and maybe use different colours.

I like my students to paint an eye as this is considered a tricky subject and I want to show how to tackle it with ease. What do you think of their very first attempts below? Not bad at all if you ask me

After a brief eye demo by me Pam and Mary knocked out these two fab eyes:)

After a brief eye demo by me Pam and Mary knocked out these two fab eyes:)

We had a lovely day batting cat back and forth as we worked about watercolour, art, drawing, places we had visited in the world and despite the heatwave outside my north lit painting room kept us bearably cool.

eye dog alsatian

Thanks for coming Pam and Mary and I hope you continue to build on what you did during your day.

Art Blosoms final

If you fancy watercolour tuition and live in the South Wales Valleys area give me a call on 01443 791532 or email me at eastwitching@hotmail.com - we can sort out a day or half day tailored to your needs!