Spring Term Watercolour Classes

Claire and I have put together the Spring Term's classes and dates, nice and early, as I know some of you like to plan time off from work, or to treat someone with a gift voucher or to book it just for yourself, knowing it's lovely to have something to look forward to!

Wednesday 16 Jan - Beginners Watercolour

Thursday 17 Jan - Banish the Winter Blues - Poppies

Tuesday 29 Jan - Welsh Waterfalls

Thursday 14 Feb - NEW - INTRODUCTION TO PASTELS

Wednesday 6 March - Cows

Tuesday 19 March - Beginners Watercolour

Wednesday 20 March - Clouds

All of our classes run from 9.30am - approximately 3pm.

Claire provides all of your materials, so you don't need to bring anything with you.

A delicious 2 course home-cooked lunch with a glass of wine is included, as well as home-made biscuits and refreshments throughout the day.

You will complete a finished painting to take home with you.

If you have any questions about any of the above classes, please get in touch.

All classes cost £70, to book please contact me on 01635 44850.

Mixed Media Class - 18 October

Claire ran a Mixed Media painting class today, using acrylic paints and pastels.

We started gently with an acrylic painting in the style of watercolour and then used the vibrant pastel colours to add vibrancy, texture and interest.

Here are some of Claire's beautiful pastels.

A top tip to clean your pastels afterwards is to shake them in a bowl of dry semolina, as shown below!

We will be running an Introduction to Pastels Class on

Thursday 14 February 2013.

Here are the lovely paintings from today:

Saturday's Busy Cupcake Classes

We started yesterday morning with a Vintage Style Cupcake Class; using delicious lemon cupcakes, we concentrated on mastering new tools and techniques.

Using lustre powders, moulds, embossers we created lovely little buttons, brooches, flowers, butterflies and bunting in pale vintage colours.

In the afternoon we had a Stage 1 Cupcake Class, which covers baking, icings and decorations.

Everybody made lovely little decorations to decorate their beautifully baked vanilla cupcakes.

For the full photographs from the two classes please visit: 

Colourful Cupcakes Blog

Reflections after the Rain

A wet and rainy painting for a wet and rainy day!

Today was all about reflections in the rain, and Claire had bought some great images and photographs with her.

The majority of us liked the idea of this Venice arrangement. 

There was a large amount of drawing involved at the start which kept everybody very quiet.

We created a rainy, slightly stormy sky, that had some movement in it.

Alot of people hadn't painted people before, so Claire showed us her peas and carrots technique, and we all agreed that umbrellas were much easier than faces!

We did a watery background of the buildings in the background, and then concentrated on our complicated lamps!

The Gondolas and posts help you realise exactly where you are.

At the end, we looked at the reflections in the water on the flagstones, and carefully "washed" them in.

It was a long session today, most definitely one of our hardest classes this year, but the results were amazing, well done everyone.

(Please come back!)

Our classes are almost sold out for this term, I have:

2 spaces on Mixed Media - Thursday 18 October

2 spaces on Putting Life into Still Life - Wednesday 14 November

1 space on Beginners - Thursday 15 November

We are planning our Spring Classes, dates and subjects will be out soon, if you have any requests, please let me know.

Vintage Style Cupcake Class

We had a really enjoyable time making Vintage Cupcakes last week.

Using pastel shades and various icings, we learnt how to use moulds, embossers and lustre powders.

The cupcakes looked very pretty with their buttons, bows, brooches, flowers, butterflies and bunting!

There is another Vintage Cupcake class this Saturday 13 October, from 11am - 1pm.

Photos from the Class