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.

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A Frosty Morning Watercolour Class & World Cancer Day

Today was World Cancer Day, we all wore our Unity Bands and marked the day through painting and friendship.

A small group but yet many all too aware of the impact of cancer.

Claire spoke about the therapeutic effects of painting, and in particular her theme today was about being in the moment, and when you are painting try and be 'in' the painting, use your senses to help you with the creative process.

A few years ago Claire won first prize in a national competition (run by the SAA, Society for All Artists) for her teaching, the theme was 'Art Therapy'.

Claire believes that we are all born with a creative side, which can benefit anyone going through a difficult time, ie bereavement, illness, stress and has found the therapeutic effects of painting have helped many of her students all over the country.

For those that have been to Treetops before, Claire certainly creates a calm and fun environment, aided by the small groups and quiet Treetops setting.

Claire's work area was set up to show us lots of techniques today, with masking fluid, spray bottles and salt!

Then it was time to paint!

The paintings were great, very frosty, wintery and atmospheric.

Our next class is a loose and free Flowers Watercolour class on Thursday 26 February.

There are a few spaces left if you would like to join us.