Phew!! It was very stretching, this week's Masterclass. Claire was definitely pushing us to try new things and really tested our ability. There were quite a few moans and groans, stress and tension, but the beautiful sunshine and the large serving of Mary Berry's Divine White Chocolate Cheesecake definitely helped us!
The general idea of the two days, was painting dark into light, with negative painting included in that. We spent the first morning, pencilling our scene - a Market Place in France with "Mr and Mrs" eating their ice creams under a dark and shady stone archway.
The painting above shows where we were at after Day One; we had painted our first wash, windows, roof, archways etc. It all looked very soft and pale.
The painting below shows the finished painting. We spent Day 2, mixing a variety of dark browns, greens and creating blacks, to keep layering up our colour. The stone arch was actually bright orange to start with, which looked very scary! But we then put a dark glaze over the top and there was our stoney shade.
It was very hard to do the people, that is a class in itself I think!
Here is a row of the finished paintings, mounted, looking very professional. (If you click on the photographs, in theory they should appear larger in a new window on your computer).
Below is everyone hard at work! It was a great two days, we all left with a huge sense of achievement. Claire taught us so many new techniques and skills, we definitely felt we'd had a Masterclass!
