A Winter Scene Watercolour Class

Beautiful and atmospheric paintings at this week's Watercolour Class

You can feel the cold 

After a little bit of masking, our artists created their first pale wash across the whole paper

(click here to see the great paper we use in our classes)

Claire and I have been running a Winter Scene class every year, for about 10 years now, and it is always one of our most popular classes.  Many of our artists have had their masterpieces turned into Christmas Cards.

It's really great to learn how to see and paint colours when it's a white snowy day 

Glow, reflections and shadows were added

An Autumn Watercolour Scene

Claire had some lovely colours last week in the paint palettes for our Autumn Scene class.

Trees are notoriously difficult to paint, but our artists have created some gorgeous scenes. 

A pathway leads you into the painting

Adding shadows really helps pull the painting together

And we even had some artists who braved putting in a deer!

We had a delicious pudding today

Orange and Almond Cake

Christmas Aga Class with Sarah Whitaker

Sarah was here yesterday for our Christmas Aga Class

The Aga managed to produce an amazing amount of food in two hours and Sarah supplied everyone with loads of brilliant tips and advice to make Christmas with an Aga much easier. 

Best of all was Sarah's advice on which recipes can be made now and frozen (or hidden!)

We had Beef Wellington, a marmalade glazed ham, a delicious tart for vegetarians and a variety of vegetables, including Brussel Sprouts, which were delicious, simply roasted in sesame oil with sesame seeds stirred in afterwards.

The trifle was very popular, having made chocolate muffins Sarah used them to line the bottom of the bowl, followed by sparkling cranberries that had been cooked and soaked with other great flavours, and the toppings included cream, mascarpone, custard and white chocolate!

After the demonstration everyone sat down for a lovely festive tasting lunch 

 

Christmas Aga Class 2016 BOOK NOW!!

Our Christmas Aga class is slightly earlier this year:

Friday 4 Nov

There are a few places left, so please get in touch to book your place

CONTACT EMILY

The class is with Sarah Whitaker, an Aga accredited chef.

It runs from 9:45am - approx 1:30pm and includes a tasting lunch of the food cooked.

We alternate each year with either a beef or turkey menu.  This year it's the Beefs turn to take centre stage!  So even if you came last year, do come this year and get yourself another set of recipes to help with Christmas.

Sarah is great at giving you ideas of things you can make and freeze ahead of time, helps you with juggling the ovens on the day, and how to retain the heat.

There is plenty of time to ask questions.

Sarah also brings her travelling shop, there are some great present ideas, useful kitchen and Aga things, as well as her brilliant recipe books

The class costs £65 

Autumn Berries Watercolour

We last did Autumn Berries in 2014 and the paintings were great, so we always meant to do it again, I can't believe it's taken 2 years though!

My lovely neighbour had made a great arrangement of autumn colours and berries and Claire had lots of great photographs for us to use.

We started by pencilling our chosen image and then masked the outline of the berries and filled in the smaller berries.

We had a few new people today, so Claire spent some talking about the papers we use here for watercolour classes, Saunders Waterford, in various weights 140lb, 200lb and 300lb.  Paper is so important, these papers are lovely and thick and hold alot of water, so when we create our wet in wet paintings, it holds and absorbs the water and colour brilliantly.

Best of all it's made in Britain, at St Cuthbert's Mill in the Cathedral City of Wells in Somserset.

After the masking was absolutely dry (we use hairdryers to help this process along!) Claire put in the colours for her first wash, creating some loose berry shapes behind the main berries.

Here is her almost finished painting, after she had started to fill in the berries. 

Here are brilliant paintings from the day, I loved the addition of the conkers too! 

They were really lovely to look at and enjoy at the end.  They should all be framed and on the wall for this autumn.  

As a PS, I had a lovely autumn walk yesterday around Kintbury, the colours were stunning

If you're local, look at the link, you can park near the Dundas Arms, which is lovely for lunch either before or after!

Kintbury Canal and Meadow Walk - 5 Miles

Hares Watercolour

My favourite - Hares!

I did get quite carried away with today's theme, from my hare necklace, to hare front doormat, hare napkins and my various paintings, prints and hare bits and pieces from the house, out on display either in the kitchen or hall!

They look lovely, either as a solitary hare or a boxing pair.

Real characters, all of them!

We had a gorgeous lunch of Orange glazed Salmon with beetroot, chorizo and lentils, I can definitely recommend the recipe

RECIPE HERE

Hares was a very popular class and booked up very quickly, so we will put it on again next year, just incase you missed out.