Christmas Aga 2013

We welcomed Sarah back for Christmas Aga yesterday.

Instead of Turkey, this year Sarah showed us how to cook a Beef Wellington and a Festive Baked Ham, various accompaniments and a delicious chocolate muffin trifle!

Sarah talked about preparing for the Big Day, which foods can be made and frozen ahead of time, which was really useful, how to look after the vegetarian in your family, and how to use all of the Aga ovens effectively.

Sarah returns to Treetops in April for A Taste of Spain, a great Aga Demonstration Day, please see the blog post below this for further information.

NEW - April Aga Class!

Sarah will be returning to Treetops on

Friday 25 April 2014 for

"A Taste of Spain"

A new class to Treetops, it will feature some delicious tasty recipes such as paellas, spanish stews, steamed fish, gazpacho to name just a few....

Whilst demonstrating the food Sarah will also be showing you around the Aga, how to make the most of the ovens, how to cook efficiently, as well as plenty of top tips about Aga Cooking which will help you at home.

A tasting lunch of all the food cooked will be served with a glass of wine, and a copy of all the recipes will be available for you to take home.

The cost is £65, gift vouchers are available for this class.

The class runs from 9.45am - 1.30pm.

Winter Scene Watercolour - Wednesday

Hard at work today at our second Winter Scene Workshop.

The artists above are putting the masking fluid on their paper, following their pencil sketch.  When the masking fluid is dry you can then create your first wash.

Whilst working today we had bright sunshine, dark clouds, a hail storm and very heavy rain .....!

Today Claire displayed the Winter Scene in four stages, which was really useful to see and follow.

We used very good quality 200lb paper from Saunders Waterford.

The first shows the pencil (HB) drawing with the blue masking fluid:

The second shows our first wash from lemon yellow, rose madder and cobalt blue.

We made some lovely purples and oranges too.

Next the trees, their branches and remaining leaves take shape.

And finally the finishing details, reflections, shadows, grasses and the removal of the masking fluid.

Some of our group hard at work

And here are their stunning paintings...

At the end Claire puts all of the paintings into a mount and displays them, this gives us a chance to see what everyone else has been up to!

PS: Can I just mention this delicious pud, recipe from Waitrose:

Spiced Plum Trifles

Winter Scene Watercolour - Tuesday

We've had a busy week at Treetops, these are paintings from our Tuesday Class

- A Winter Scene -

Taken from a beautiful original painting by Claire.

We used lovely paper, 200lb Saunders Waterford paper, and started the day with just 3 colours.

We used some masking fluid to create some snowy whites.

Pathways or streams were created, the lovely shaping of tree trunks was fun, and the gorgeous glow of orange and yellow tucked behind the trees came from one of the initial washes, it was very atmospheric. 

See the other blog post for Wednesday's paintings.

Autumn Harvest Watercolour Class

A lovely calm and quiet class today, working with beautiful colours to create an Autumn Harvest scene.

Time was spent working on tractors and haybales, to get them just right.

Next week we whizz into Winter Scene!  Look out for the photos and blog post.