Tulips Watercolour

The sun was shining and we enjoyed a colourful day studying and painting Tulips with watercolour.

Beautiful backgrounds and gorgeous flowers

Lunch was Saffron & Honey chicken with braised split peas and this colourful Red Cabbage and Quinoa salad

Winter Scene Watercolour

A festive sparkly class today with Claire

The morning was spent drawing and masking

There were some beautiful washes created for the skies and water

Lovely reflections and bullrushes

and the addition of glitter!

Father & Daughter with their great paintings ready to become Christmas Cards!

I'm now off to hoover up the glitter before tomorrow's class!

Upcoming Autumn Woodland Watercolour Class

I love the colours in this photograph!

Join us on Thursday 10 October for our Autumn Woodland Watercolour Class.

Claire will be showing you how to mix and create rich, vibrant and seasonal colours and tones.

9:30am - approx 3pm

£75

this includes all materials, a 2 course lunch and refreshments throughout the day

Inspired by Portmeirion Watercolour Class

We recently held a Watercolour class inspired by Portmeirion, it's colour, buildings, architecture and setting.

Portmeirion is an Italianate village in North Wales.

There was quite alot of drawing in this one to start with, we had some very talented freehand artists in the group

The next stage was to add masking fluid to keep the whites

I had received this fantastic box of Heritage tomatoes from the Isle of Wight Tomato company, great colour and flavours, which I used in the class lunch, we had baked salmon and tomato alongside a wild rice, chickpea and feta salad.

After lunch, the mixing palette, paints and washes came out, here are the finished paintings

Thanks everyone for a lovely day

A Room with a View Watercolour

Our 'Room with a View' Watercolour class had some lovely images from St Ives in Cornwall.

We were looking at images taken from a higher view, a different perspective to paint from and a useful technique to learn if you are on holiday with your sketchbook.

The images here are when dawn is breaking in St Ives over the town and church

There are some beautiful skies here produced by some very clever washes and a lovely perspective of looking down on the town and tops of trees

These two are of the harbour, looking down into the bay, at this perspective you catch the sea behind the pier and the houses which is a lovely addition to the painting.

Afternoon Tea Watercolour

Wednesday's Watercolour Class with Claire was all about Afternoon Tea in the Garden

With beautiful colours

The morning started with some drawing of the teapot, cup and saucer, milk jug and the cake stand

Placed on a table with a pretty tablecloth, it was time to start creating our background washes

Showing a hint of roses, hollyhocks, lupins in the background

We had a variety of flowers in the jugs and indeed a selection of pretty jugs, especially the one above!

The cake stands were full of strawberries, scones, sandwiches and cupcakes.

I knew a normal lunch wouldn't really work today, so we had an Afternoon Tea instead, full of delicious savoury and sweet treats served with a selection of teas, it really did hit the spot!

Mushroom and Pine Nut Tarts

Egg & Cress, Salmon Chive & Cream Cheese and Cucumber sandwiches

Strawberry or Gin & Tonic Meringues made by Emma at Wooden Spoon Macarons in Cold Ash.

Mini caramel, cream and strawberry tarts

Scones with clotted cream and raspberry jam

An amazing Limoncello Drizzle Cake

Gorgeous Banoffee Tarts, I loved the touch of brushing melted dark chocolate into the pastry cases before filling.

And finally some mini pink meringues.