5 November 2025

Today we explored dry media that is not normally associated with water, such as soft pastel, charcoal and Conté crayon.

We used wet brushes and spray bottles to wet the dry pastel and charcoal after it had been applied to the aper. We also tried laying the dry media onto wet paper. Some students used their wet brushes directly on the stick of pastel to create “paint”.

Inspired by Bonfire night, we also investigated the use of bright colours by using a sharp edge to scrape along the soft pastels to create areas of colourful pastel “dust” on the paper, and then sprayed it with water.

The effects from all the experiments were gorgeously thick and textural. Some of the works are in progress. An exciting art session, thank you, everyone.

22 October 2025

What a lovely catch up session. Most students carried on using natural objects (and a little pumpkin!) to continue exploring ink and wash (using dip pen, brush and mechanical pen), whilst one person used ink alone to make a carefully observed study, helped with the use of a magnifying glass to see the details of the hydrangea seed heads.

Some of the work here is still in progress, so keep your eyes peeled for the next blog when you may see the finished pieces.

This was the last of our ink sessions, and they have been really fun. Thank you, everyone.

15 October 2015

Today we worked in “Ink & Wash”. Many of us made a preliminary rough graphite drawing to guide our ink drawing. We then used either dip pen or brush to create an outline in waterproof ink, which when dry, we then “washed” over with thin layers of watercolour paint.

Everybody is at different stages with this activity, some are still at the pencil stage, and some have already made two ink and wash pictures.

It was such an enjoyable session, thank you, everyone.

8 October 2025

We had great fun experimenting with ink and brush in this session. We created sample sheets of mark making with neutral inks (blacks and sepias), followed by drawing and painting our subject matter with our brushes. 

We used non-waterproof walnut ink (Daniel Smith: click here). We also used non-waterproof carbon inks (Winsor & Newton calligraphy inks, including colours: “Black”, with a slight sheen and blue tint (‘blue tops range’): click here, and “Matt Black” which is a very deep black, warm and velvety and is part of the ‘red tops’ range: click here. And we also tried out waterproof and acrylic inks, and finally Chinese ink sticks.  

1 October 2025

Today we started the “Wet Media” stage of our observational drawing and painting project. It was messy and a lot of fun. We all got pushed beyond our comfort zones - go us!

We experimented with waterproof and non-waterproof inks. We made quill pens from feathers. We tried out bamboo reed bens, metal nib pens, and sticks. We practised using the ink neat, as well as diluted.

Really wonderful work, and fabulous and courageous attitude, everyone!

10 September 2025

This was our last session of working with dry media in our observational drawing project, and it was a catch up session. Students revisited past briefs and caught up on missed activities, or looked to see how existing work could be progressed. A range of media has been used, including soft chalk pastel, oil pastel, pastel pencils, coloured pencils, charcoal.

Also more work on the Large Picture was done.

Well done everyone, on a great term! Wet media next!

3 September 2025

27 August 2025

We explored soft pastel and oil pastel today, as well as pastel papers and card. Our subject matter was vegetables. We practised with really seeing the shapes and dimensions of the vegetables, double checking that the shapes that we had drawn were the same shapes that we were really seeing with our eyes. We then looked at colour, texture, light and shadow.

We also did the ‘Thumb & Penny’ experiment, where we get back in touch with our binocular, or stereoscopic, vision; this practice really helps us to see the depth of the objects in our world, and can assist us when drawing what we see around us.

Thank you everyone, for a fun, and messy, session!

20 August 2025

We had a bracing time drawing outside with our artists’ drawing tools today. Well done, everyone! We finished off by drawing the views from inside where it was a little warmer. We learned about, and experimented with, all kinds of charcoal, compressed charcoal, graphite sticks, Conté, and graphite and carbon mixed drawings tools. We experimented with various Derwent wax based drawing pencils also.

We looked at how we create a ‘unit’ when drawing a view (or person) from observation, and using that ‘unit’ as our measuring base. Lorraine kindly offered her head for part of our demonstration, thank you, Lorraine!

13 August 2025

This week we worked from household appliances, items and gadgets using ready made pens. We made sample sheets to explore our pens and the marks that we could create from them. We then did continuous line drawings to warm up before drawing in our usual way from the objects.

There are some excellent drawings here, really very well done everyone. Drawing from items such as these really does require careful looking: taking time to look at shapes and proportions before drawing is really important, ensuring that we are really seeing what is there rather than what the brain thinks it sees. I’m really glad that someone brought in a fountain pen to draw from because I had forgotten to mention that. If any of you have fountain pens, do have a go drawing from them.

There are also some charcoal drawings where some of you continued from last week, as well as more work on the Large Picture of which we are enjoying the weekly instalments of, including this week work on the deer and fox, the idea being to make sure all the elements harmonise with each other. Again, well done all of you!

30 July 2025

A great session today. Really good work produced, well done everyone. We experimented with ways to use willow charcoal in order to achieve a range of effects. We tried out these effects on white, grey and black papers to see what the differences would be. The differing textures of the papers also contributed to the resulting studies. We then used what we had learned to draw from draped fabrics, focusing on highlight and shadow, but with added texture and detail on many of the pieces. Really excellent charcoal work today, very well done everyone.

We also have the continued work of an artist’s book, which is slowly being filled with abstracted, mixed-media, decorations, patterns and images. These studies and artworks are inspiration for standalone art pieces, one of which was finished today, and involves stitching onto watercolour paper - a wonderful, celebratory piece of artwork. Also there is a series of nature inspired works, begun in Diane’s Garden utilising mixed media and including actual plants as well as collage - very creative and imaginative artworks. Also more progress on one of the pieces from the ‘Larger Artwork” project which now has three magnificent avian characters in sublime colour. And, a fabulous larger artwork, completed, with a fantastic and dynamic composition, brought fully to life by the grande finale of glorious colour.

16 July 2025

9 July 2025

Our fourth year at Diane’s garden! A huge thank you to Diane for having us back again, we were made to feel so welcome. We had such a wonderful time, drawing, painting, and enjoying the “tranquility”. Thank you also to Alison and Linda B for being the best hosts, making much needed cups of tea, and for allowing us to traipse in and out of their lovely home to use the loo.

I will let the photos and artwork speak for themselves.

And who knows, maybe we will be super lucky and return once again to to this beautiful garden!

A great end to our book and ‘large’ project today. Some of you have finished, and some are still working on final bits. Some have already started the next project, working from observation! Do enjoy these photos everyone, bear in mind that some are not quite finished. I didn’t get photos of everyone’s work I do apologise.

A huge thank you for your participation in the project, and to those that began it way back last autumn - a HUGE thank you for staying the course, you have done so well! Do pat yourselves on the back, all of you. Good work. I have enjoyed it so much, I have learned so much too - that book binding! And the wonderful talk from artist Kate Wells also. How lucky we are.

Looking forward to the next project!

18 June 2025

Today we spent an absolutely delightful, summer’s afternoon at Beaumont Park. What a range of fabulous and differing subject matter and views to draw and paint. A really good one for sketching in. Thank you all for your bravery in drawing and painting outdoors; and you all did really lovely work as is evidenced in the photos. Well done!  

11 June 2025

We have a wide variety of artwork from this afternoon’s session. We have some large floral pieces, which are giving the chance for experimentation in watercolour, exploring composition, pattern, colour and mark-making. In another larger piece we have various media being used together including watercolour and posca pen to create a more abstracted design using circles as a starting point - this piece is potentially going to be sewn onto as well.

We have a lovely watercolour study of the flowers that I brought in, looking at depth using the white of the paper and layers of watercolour - the flowers are alive on the paper. The large apple watercolour painting is now finished - very well observed pieces of apple looking at highlights and shadows, texture and colour, and with a lightly painted grass background.

We have the beginnings of a lovely composition of a floral arrangement inspired by Rennie Macintosh - watch this space for the colour. Then there are more apples, but by a different artist, and using graphite to render light and shadows as well as texture - you can almost pick the apples up off the page. Then, watercolour studies in painting chive flowers, mixing and trying out different shades and tones of violet, and a larger chive flower placed centrally on beautiful hand made watercolour paper, with a surprising amount of detail considering the textured paper.

Inspired by the idea of painting something that is very small but on a large scale, we have micro life of a pond, using mixed media, watercolour, ink and pen - the jewels colours and application of paint are very evocative.

A series of practice portraits in charcoal and graphite follow, exploring interesting face shapes, as well as having opportunity to get to know a variety of noses, eyes, mouths and chins! What great characters these portrait works have.

There is a very sensitive and lyrical portrayal of a musician, in a limited watercolour palette of flowing colours that sing from the page.

And then cat studies using pen, graphite and watercolour pencil, these were exploring ways to portray depth with different media - there is a real sense of cat-ness in these studies!

And finally, more work on the dove this afternoon, with coloured pencils using gorgeous coloured greys and beautiful mark-making.

A lovely session, thank you all so much!

21 May 2025

14 May 2025

Today we started our ‘larger’ artworks. Some of the works in the photos are works-in-progress, and may be changed when you next see them! So far, we have three works that are on the large A1 paper that I brought in. One person used willow charcoal to draw a beautifully observed scene of another student at her table with curtains, bunting, and arched window behind her: large, light and flowing strokes were used; there is a lot of life in this drawing. Another student used dynamic and expressive black willow and various compressed charcoals along with red pastel / conté to draw a fittingly large oriental poppy onto her A1 paper. These two images were photographed outside (after being ‘fixed’) to give a sense of their scale. 

On another sheet of A1, in pencil and using an artist’s work as a starting point, we have the beginnings of a series of human and animal faces and bodies flowing into and out of each other - very evocative. Then we have a continuation of the very worthy cat experiments, in chalk pastel, working with the pastels to create both flat and three dimensional forms of various parts of the cats, as well as studies in mixing pastel colours to create depth (as opposed to a single colour, such as instead of using the black pastel, using a variety of dark colours to create rich ‘blacks’). It is always good to spend some time on studies, we learn a lot. 

A sketchbook flower study using line drawn with ink pen has been turned into a larger, more abstract and vibrantly coloured piece (not yet finished). Then, taking inspiration from Joni Mitchel’s artwork is the starting point for a very moving double self-portrait in graphite pencil. After that is a calligraphic study using a beautiful pen, and a blackbird in coloured pencil shows the workings out of an idea for a bigger piece - a beautiful example showing the power of text and image. 

Finally, impressively woven papers and magazines make the background for two paintings: one, a seaside scene with houses, tiles, boats and netting; and the other, a woman holding a child, created by painting over - and sometimes incorporating the original images from - magazine papers. Truly inspirational. 

AMAZING work, everyone, I am so impressed, what a fantastic session! 

30 April 2025

Today we continued  working on our ideas for our larger piece of work. Also, it was absolutely beautiful at the hall, and so how could at least one of you not go outside?! It was glorious and it is good to take advantage of the weather whenever possible. You are always welcome to draw and paint outside at anytime, regardless of what project we might be working on; the result is a sensitively drawn landscape in graphite pencil, with focus on differing textures of the wall, gate, tree, filed, sky, path and vegetation: very good markmaking. 

There was also experimentation with a set of new waterproof inks, using flower motifs to try out different techniques to see what results happen. Also glorious experimentation in colour with burnt orange wallflowers, using watercolour. Another image shows exploration of creating depth in very dark purple-brown hellebores, a challenge that is working really well. 

Then we have some compelling portrait studies in differing media on light brown paper to see how each media behaves. Another student tried out chalk pastels for the fist time in her ongoing exploration of different media using cats as the subject matter, with some lovely and creative results in the use of colour. 

And then we have someone who did watercolour explorations from a live flower, as well as tackling one of Rosie Sanders watercolour artworks, creating a careful and beautiful study of one of her watercolour pitcher plants (from one of the books that I brought in). 

Thank you, everyone, and I will see you on Wed 14 May.