And we're off.....!

Term started today with a great Beginners Class, a landscape scene that covered 'first wash' with a beautiful sky.

Claire spends the first part of the morning, practicing with different colours, differing amounts of water and various brushes, to get everyone relaxed and itching to get started on their painting!

By 3pm there were 5 very good paintings by 5 new artists!

There are spaces available on Winter Scenes with Claire, on either Monday 16 November or Tuesday 24 November. Check the website for further details www.treetops-newbury.co.uk.

Almost Autumn Term .....

I hope you have all had a great summer. The sea featured quite often in mine; youngest son and I discovered fossils in Lyme Regis, we did get lucky but it involved being under heavy rain for four hours! (lovely B&B: www.nettlebanklymeregis.co.uk, thank you to Sue's tumble drier!)

We enjoyed the wide expanse of West Wittering, go early when the tide is out, it is fantastic, you can see across to the Isle of Wight, and walk along the beach to East Wittering to buy a sandwich. For tide times and a webcam of the beach visit www.2xs.co.uk/weather/

And my favourite .... St Ives. Colours as stunning as ever, despite the un-August weather and a 7 hour journey back!

Schools are ready to start again and the new term dates are out in the post. Until they reach you here they are:

Tuesday 22 September - Watercolour Art for Beginners
Tuesday 29 & Wednesday 30 September - Watercolour Art Masterclass
Friday 16 October - Coastal Scenes
Monday 16 November - Winter Scenes
Tuesday 24 November - Winter Scenes

Friday 20 November - Christmas Aga

Tuesday 1 December - Festive Flowers
Wednesday 2 December - Festive Flowers

Timings, prices and other details are on the website www.treetops-newbury.co.uk.

Happy Holiday

What a beautiful view! This is from a house we stayed in, in Worth Matravers, Dorset. We were just visiting for the weekend, and England being England, we had one heavy rainy foggy day, when we couldn't see the view, but the following morning the blue sky was out and we headed off down the 1 mile pathway to the sea.

We walked 6 miles along the coastal path, which was stunning.

It was this time last year, that Claire and I were planning our Seascapes Watercolour classes for September. On 16 October this year, we will be painting Coastal Scenes, so when you are out and about this Summer, take plenty of photographs to bring to the class, see the website for booking details.

(If you fancy waking up to the view above, our friend's house is now available to rent from www.dorsetcoastalcottages.com. Ref 3409. Gwyle House).

Summer Cookery

The final class of term was delicious. Vanessa had some great ideas that were bright and summery as well as quick and easy to put together.

The Meringue ice cream was delicious, our other pudding was a Raspberry and Cinnamon Streusel Muffin Cake. We used the recipe to make muffins for taking home after the class, the crumbly topping with toasted hazelnuts was lovely.

We also had a wonderful bread, perfect scallops, more-ish thai salmon and pretty salads, served with a chilled Rose wine.

Have a great Summer, I will be emailing out Autumn dates shortly, if there are any you are interested to know more about just email me (emily@treetops-newbury.co.uk) or call 01635 44850. Some dates are on the website already: www.treetops-newbury.co.uk

Off to Uni - Student Cookery Classes

I will be running some Student Cookery classes over the summer holidays for 6th formers off to University.

They will be run as a one day class, to provide students with the skills and knowledge needed to help feed themselves away from home. It starts with basic culinary skills, food hygiene, useful equipment, delicious recipes and a great lunch of all the food cooked during the morning.

The dates are: Thursday 30 July, Tuesday 11 August and Friday 11 September.

Timings are: 10am until approximately 3pm

Cost: £55 - this includes all the ingredients, refreshments, lunch, recipes and information pack.

To book call me on 01635 44850.

Fantastic Flowers!

A very pink and summery day (despite the wet weather!).

Susanna did some stunning arrangements today, which as you can see had little twists, such as the peonies and marshmallow cube.

After the conditioning flowers tips and some demonstrating, it was everyone's turn to make something. There was a choice of cube or tall vase today, that could be covered in fabric, crepe paper, leaves or ribbon (Susanna told us she kept bits of ribbon, incase they came in useful, and then appeared with 3 tubs full!) Everyone attempted the hand-tied posy and understood the phrase 'all fingers and thumbs'!

We had peonies, roses, sweet smelling sweet peas, hydraengas and a variety of garden foliage.

After lunch and coffee, Susanna created the amazing strawberry centrepiece, it looked absolutely stunning.

Susanna will be back on Tuesday 1st and Wednesday 2nd December for Christmas Flowers.

Little Gems Watercolour Day

We had a great day today. The title was 'Little Gems'; Claire had us painting little pictures, as opposed to an all day painting. She had us thinking quickly, sometimes with no pencil sketch beforehand to produce little snapshot paintings.

Claire showed us her sketchbook, full of great little images of trees, flowers, animals, (great cats and chickens) and showed us that having a book of ideas helps you produce your masterpiece later on.

The weather was so gorgeous Claire had to hunt for artists in the grounds, and helped us with painting walls, putting in shadows, getting vibrancy of colour etc.

The kitchen was full of great little paintings at 3pm.

Lunch was delicious pork chops with a strawberry and balsamic glaze and a very summery Lemon Meringue Icecream Cake!