Happy Christmas Everyone

Wishing you all a lovely Christmas

The Treetops Office will be closed from

Monday 21 December - Monday 4 January

We are looking forward to seeing you in 2016 at one of our great classes.

Winter Anemones Watercolour

Stunning Winter Anemones

Today's Watercolour Class with Claire was all about the beautiful colours of Anemones.

I got a stunning array of colours from:

Willow and Blooms in Newbury

Claire had some stunning paint colours for us to choose from, from the SAA.

(The Society for All Artists)

Quinacridone Magenta

a deep bright pink, try remembering that name!

Manganese Violet

Intense Violet

Neutral Tint green shade

And our usual cobalt blue, ultramarine blue, permanent rose and lemon yellow.

Plus some of Claire's own Poppy Red, from her paint range.

First of all we drew out our flowers and went around the edges with masking fluid, we were using Saunders Waterford 300lb paper, a lovely thick paper that absorbs the water for our wet on wet technique.

We dropped some colours into our first wash, and then created some negative painting to show the stalks and leaves.

You can just see the two stages in the two paintings above. 

The flowers were pretty tricky, getting the technique right of the cup shape and having a darker centre which helps to create shape.

We certainly had some beautiful flowers in our gallery at the end:

 

Today's lunch was a gorgeous Fish Pie from Waitrose

Recipe Here

That's the end of term folks.

See you in the New Year!

Spring Term classes are filling fast ....

Watercolour 2016 Dates

Our 2016 Art Dates are now out and we are taking bookings:

PRIMROSES WATERCOLOUR

Wednesday 13 January 2016

This has been requested by many of you as we’ve not done Primroses for several years, beautiful creamy colours with Claire guiding you step by step.

PEN & WASH

Friday 22 January

Always popular, in this class you will sketch and mark several small pictures with permanent and non permanent pens alongside watercolour paints and/or coloured pens.   

BEGINNERS/REFRESHERS WATERCOLOUR - SNOWDROPS 

Tuesday 2 February

This class is perfect if you want to go back to basics or if you haven’t painted for a while.

A MISTY MORNING WATERCOLOUR

Wednesday 3 February

Learn how to get atmosphere in your paintings.  Create some beautiful washes.

WILD ANIMALS WATERCOLOUR

Tuesday 9 February

A new one for Treetops, if you visit Claire's Facebook

 https://www.facebook.com/ClaireWarnerArtist09456/

you can see one she has recently started painting

A SPRING WOODLAND

Tuesday 23 February

A great landscape watercolour, you can really get stuck into mastering trees in this one!  Do not fear trees!

WATERSOLUBLE OILS - A SEASCAPE

Wednesday 16 March

We had a great introductory class recently with these oils, they were fantastic, so easy to use and everyone really enjoyed the day.  

All of our classes at Treetops run from 9:30am until approximately 3-4pm.  They cost £70 (except for Oils which is £75), this includes all of your materials, a 2 course home cooked lunch, a glass of wine and refreshments throughout the day.

To book, please email me to confirm if there is a place.  Full payment needs to be made to secure your place within 5 days of the booking.  This can be done either by cheque or online banking.  Once payment has been received I will send you a confirmation/directions etc.

emily @ treetops-newbury.co.uk

Winter Scene Watercolour 2

Our second Winter Scene of the week was of Lowther Church in the Lake District.

We used our own artistic licence and added a door facing this way!

Soft pinks and purples were added to the painting to contrast with the crispness of the snowy scene.

Here the painting has had the masking fluid applied and the first wash.

Here are the pretty churches and wintery trees ....

Winter Scene Watercolour 1

One of most popular classes each year is Winter Scene, it's so popular we have to hold two classes. 

Winter colours are really interesting, creating a feeling of cold, frost and atmosphere.  Claire shows how even when the world is white and snowy, that you can still see the colours in the snow.

Today's picture was a beautiful river and barge boat scene.

Our artists are busy above taking notes of all the colours needed for the early stages of the painting.

Their first stage was to mask out the very white areas before they brushed over their first watercolour wash.

Here are the finished works of art!

At the end of each class, Claire displays them in a mount and we have a gallery of paintings to admire.  They are all so different despite starting from the same idea.

Our first Oils class at Treetops! Huge Success!

After all our years of painting Watercolour, Acrylics, Pen and Wash we decided to hold a Watermixable Oils class (or rather I gave in after Claire convinced me she would clear up any horrible mess!)

It was really popular and sold out very quickly, all but one person had tried Oils before, so everyone was slightly nervous at what lay ahead. 

Whilst everyone enjoyed their morning coffee, Claire spoke about the oils, brushes and how to apply them, she demonstrated at the easel, blending and mixing the colours to create a gorgeous effect. 

There was a huge array of images to choose from, all atmospheric and misty.  We worked on a thin canvas board fixed to some great desk top easels.

Some stood, some sat, but always remembered Claire's words ... "stand back from your work to look at it every now and then".

We broke for lunch, all that concentration makes you hungry!

Citrus Baked Chicken with Pomegranate Rice

followed by Ginger Spiced Cake and Toffee Sauce

Everyone managed to embark on a second painting in the afternoon, after the morning experimentation of getting used to the oils, the artists produced much quicker paintings.

Below is a gallery of our work, some will still be drying .....!

Claire was delighted with everyone's first time at Oils, they were brilliant works of art.  The feedback was that it was an easy medium to apply, and many preferred it to Acrylics.

We will be holding another Watermixable Oils class in the Spring, keep your eye on the dates page (at the top of this blog) for when the dates are published.