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Thursday 6 February 2014

Beginners Watercolour Spring 2014


It's been a busy week, yesterday we had a Beginners group for Watercolour.

Claire puts nervous artists at ease with her gentle encouraging manner, and they all produced amazing works of art by the end of the day.

The morning is spent talking about and looking at different papers, brushes and paints, your tools are very important in helping you create the best possible masterpiece.  Claire particularly emphasises the quality of paper.  We use alot of St Cuthberts Mill paper, either Bockingford or Saunders Waterford, it has a lovely thickness, quality and finish to it, it can absorb all the water and paint we throw at it too!  Best of all it's British, made near Somerset. 


Today's class was a pretty landscape which is a good subject to break down into stages for beginners.

After everyone had had a good play with paints, water and flow, Claire started them off with the first wash, which was to create The Sky.

If you get a great first wash, it really helps the rest of the painting develop.
  

The buildings had already been sketched onto the paper and the paints were mixed to help create the mountains in the distance, the paint gently merging into the water to create a really strong mountain (or hill) scape.


A touch of Rose Madder, on the door, creates a focal point. 


In the foreground you can add flowers, a road, pathway or some foliage.


At the end of the class, Claire displays the paintings in lovely mounts and creates a gallery for us to admire everyone's work.


It was a great day with some fantastic paintings!

We look forward to welcoming you back for more watercolour classes.


As mentioned, here is the link to Claire demonstrating painting Poppies on YouTube

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