Tea in the Garden - Watercolour Class

Last week we enjoyed a lovely day full of sunshine for our Watercolour Class day.

We were painting a "Tea in the Garden" scene, there were several to choose from, with Claire demonstrating the stages throughout the day.

The wisteria is on it's way!

We took a break from painting and mixing colours to enjoy lunch, some pistachio, honey and mustard salmon served with an asparagus and avocado green salad

whilst the vegetarians had an aubergine, lentil and feta dish

(which was so delicious I made it for supper the following day!)

Here is the gallery of everyone's paintings ...

So pretty and accomplished!

Thank you everyone for coming.

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I had some of the lovely rhododendrons from the garden on the table at lunch, we have a great Online Watercolour Workshop with Claire featuring Rhododendrons, it's easy to buy and download from the website.  The film is about 90 minutes long with Claire teaching you step by step how to paint the chosen painting.  You also receive a materials list, a paint chart of colours used and images of the stages to print out and have alongside you.

A Frosty Morning - Two Classes this week

Claire and I have spent the last two days with some lovely artists, painting a Frosty Morning Scene, the painting was filled with such glorious colours in the sky.

It was really fun to create the first wash of the sky, but not before we'd masked the sheep, fence posts and church.  We used 300lb Saunders Waterford paper from St Cuthberts Mill, it's great at absorbing the amount of water we use for this wet on wet technique.

Above are the colours we used today, we used lots of Claire's gorgeous watercolour paints/colours.

Claire demonstrates in a step by step style, you can make notes to refer back to and being a small group, you receive plenty of attention from Claire as she makes her way round the room.

It's always good to break for lunch, have some time away from the paintings and the concentration and enjoy some delicious food and a glass of wine.

This week we have enjoyed Chicken with spinach and artichokes served with herbed rice and a mixed leaf salad and slow roasted tomatoes.

For pudding we had a Raspberry and Lemon Fool.

Vegetarians and Free From diets are easily catered for.

Below is the gallery of this week's paintings:

Thanks everyone for coming

Claire is back next week for a Lake District Watercolour painting, looking at mist and reflections.

Book Here

Porthleven Watercolour Class

On a rather muggy day yesterday we held our Stormy Seas Watercolour Class with Claire.

I have to start with the photo above as this is a lovely new Beginner and her first attempt at Watercolour!  Never be afraid to join us and give painting a go, we have small groups and the most amazing tutor to teach you.

We were shown some beautiful images from Porthleven in Cornwall, which has fantastic waves and stormy seas in the winter.

A Stormy painting at Treetops always includes toothbrushes and masking fluid flicked across the painting!

I'm sure you'll agree the paintings are all incredibly atmospheric.

I logged onto a webcam that sent a live stream from Porthleven, lovely and calm yesterday of course, but if you want to take a look it's here

A photographer called Carla Regler has some amazing photographs taken in Porthleven, Cornwall and all round the country, I can definitely recommend making a cuppa and visiting the gallery section on her website

Below is our own Gallery of some of the finished paintings mounted.

All that concentrating requires lots of food!

We had a variety of salads today served with a spinach, nutmeg and roasted red pepper roulade.

Claire will be teaching at Marlborough Summer School next and will be back at Treetops for a lovely bright and breezy Summer Florals at the end of August

Find out more HERE