Rockies Watercolour Day

Our lovely group from Rock Choir in Wokingham returned today for another fun day, painting, laughter and a few ripples of song!

Everyone managed to capture the beautiful reflections in the water.

They used a calm palette of colours to create their first wash, which then progressed into more autumnal shades.

Fantastic!  See you next term x

Christmas Aga with Sarah Whitaker

Sarah returned for our very popular Christmas Aga Class, which this year featured

TURKEY!

Sarah gave everyone plenty of tips and ideas for making a delicious Christmas Day Menu, this included lots of dishes that can be prepared and frozen ahead of time.

The Cranberry Sauce can be made as a gift.

Sarah made a delicious pear, walnut and stilton quiche for the vegetarians and showed us all how you don't need to 'bake blind' in an Aga.

There were plenty of vegetables accompaniments, crispy roast potatoes, perfect make ahead gravy, a root and sweet potato mash and a great recipe for the perfect sprouts!

As an alternative to the traditional Christmas pud, we also had a chocolate and fruit bombe, here it is covered in cream and golden stars glitter.

  

Sarah will be back with us in the New Year with new recipe ideas and plenty of tips and advice for using your Aga.

Friday 5 February

Springtime Aga

10am - 1.30pm

£65

Autumn Art with Claire Warner

Claire had two paintings on the go today, a tractor ploughing a field full of Autumn colours and a painting full of cow parsley, teasles and honesty using some new products.

Claire masked the areas she wanted to remain white before applying the first wash.

Once dry and the masking fluid had been removed, Claire then set to work with some metallic relief paints, glue and beads, bleach, tissue and brushes, to create some lovely effects. 

Below is the tractor scene with it's first wash having just been applied. 

Here is the gallery of our tractor paintings:

And our foliage paintings:

A brilliant day with some fantastic paintings.

An English Seaside Watercolour Class

Last Friday's class was Mudeford and Lobster Pots

Claire had a white paste that was piped onto the lobster pots to give them some texture, after the first wash had been applied.

The room was very quiet during this time, there was a lot of concentrating going on! 

Great group, lots of fun and laughter and some fantastic paintings; 

We have an extra class on 13 October, called Autumn Art, mainly based on Watercolours used alongside lots of other goodies Claire has discovered, to create interest and sparkle to our work!

Aga's One Pot Wonders with Sarah Whitaker

We held a very popular class on Wednesday themed One Pot Wonders.

Sarah had some great new recipe ideas, a vibrant beetroot risotto, a delicious Thai dish, chicken casserole and a toffee and date tart to name a few. 

She also passed round some great supermarket finds and shared with us her many useful Aga cooking tips.

During a demo Sarah puts together a set of recipes that show everyone how to use their Aga whether it be baking, roasting, simmering or grilling.  Ideas on how to retain the heat and how to use the Aga efficiently.

Afterwards everyone enjoys a tasting lunch of all the food cooked along with a glass of wine. 

A copy of the recipes are available to take home.

Sarah will be back with us on Tuesday 10 November for Christmas Aga - Turkey and Friday 5 February for Springtime Aga.

Both classes run from 10am - 1:30pm and cost £65.

Please contact me if you would like to book place, the Christmas one is almost full.

September's Beginners & Refreshers Watercolour Class

We had a lovely start to the new term last week

our Beginners and Refreshers class

Claire covered so many skills in today's class and they coped brilliantly!

The day started with learning about paints, paper, brushes and mixing before moving onto technique.

Claire showed the group how to put a composition together, sometimes using parts of various photos and images.

We had a rest over lunch before putting all the finishing touches on the paintings.

At the end of the class, Claire presents the paintings in professional mounts and displays them for us all to see.  It's great to see them away from the scruffy boards and messy tape.

If you look closely at the barn and the hay bales you can tell which painting our Farmer Artist did!

We will be holding another Beginners class in January.