3 August 2022

Today we worked from ‘dark to light’ (opposed to last week when we worked from ‘light to dark’).

We created a mid-tone ground from either graphite pencil, graphite sticks, or charcoal, and then ‘drew’ out the lightest areas using erasers; so the erasures were our initial drawing tools (both plastic and putty rubbers).

We then worked back into the drawings with our pencils (or graphite sticks or charcoal) which resulted in a kind of dance, of lifting out, and putting back in, until we were happy with our results.

Well done every one!

27 July 2022

We explored light and shadow today, using artists Morandi and Seurat as our inspiration. We practiced shading, smudging, rubbing away, hatching and cross hatching. We tried to use as few ‘outlines’ as possible and instead used the edges of our shading, erasing, and hatching, to create the ‘lines’ and edges. It is amazing how it works, the mind fills in the rest.

So here we have some wonderful examples of very careful and sensitive observation of (amongst other things) apples and jugs!

20 July 2022

Today as a group we made another large still life to work from. We started off with some warm ups to get our creative muscles warmed up and ready for action.

We continued looking at the formal element, ‘line’. We experimented with using line only to convey form and depth within our still life drawings. We experimented with using a variety of lines such as feint, thin, soft, dark, bold and thick.

Great work everyone, you work with focus and dedication, good work.

13 July 2022

It was a very bright and sunny day for our outing at Standedge Tunnel, so some of us were seeking shade to make our artwork in! Also due to the sun the photos of the artwork aren’t brilliant so my apologies for that. For today’s session, we were focusing on composition, looking to see what effects, feelings and emotions we could convey in our artwork by focusing on different compositional formats. It was really great though to be out together, supporting each other, drawing and painting outside. We will have to come back here in the autumn, I bet the colours will be very different to today. Thank you everyone for coming along to our art outing, it was very enjoyable.

6 July 2022

Today we started a new drawing project, ‘Looking & Seeing’. I don’t know about anyone else but I had an absolutely lovely session. A fantastic still-life was set up with items that everyone brought in, and then the most careful and well observed drawings were made. Very well done, everyone, I can’t wait for the rest of the sessions! And remember, we are on an outing next week to Standedge Tunnel - details are in this week’s brief. See you you all there next week.

29 June 2022

Today was a catch up session as it was the last day of our exploration of watercolour. Everybody has worked really hard and learned so much over the past few months, a really big well done to you all. I have had so much fun and I do hope you all have too.

There is a selection of wonderful work on the blog today, including an end of project exhibition!

Also included is one group member’s ‘Picture Present’. As you all know, I did a picture for my daughter as a wedding present, and some of you took up the challenge and did one also. The student’s Picture Present is an absolutely beautiful little book filled with watercolour paintings of verge flowers from their street. It is exquisite and an inspiration. Very well done. And indeed well done all of you, you have learned some quite complex things during this project, give yourselves a really big pat on the back! :)

15 June 2022

Today we looked at mixing our skin tones using watercolour. We saw how there are many ways to do this, and had a go at trying some of them out. First we made swatches of colour that matched the colours and tones we could see on our skin. Then we had a go at applying these colours by painting our hands and facial features. Everyone produced the most beautiful artwork, it truly is inspiring. Well done all!

(See you all in two weeks on Weds 29 June)

8 June 2022

We had a lovely time sketching outdoors today - wildflowers, landscape, sheds, gates, sculptures, trees, paving, chimney pots, sky, clouds, gravestones. Amazing what we could fit in. Everyone did really great and produced loads of fantastic sketches, well done! (I was so focused on everyone’s artwork that I forgot to take photos of the wildflowers and scenery - I will remember next time).

1 June 2022

We experimented with using various media over watercolour resulting in these fantastically creative artworks. Well done everyone!

25 May 2022

We had fun painting with gouache and ‘body colour’ paint today. Both very expressive mediums to use. Really wonderful artwork was produced - well done everyone!

18 MAY 2022

Today we experimented with using ‘pen & wash’. We used a variety of drawing tools to draw with permanent and waterproof ink. We then created ‘washes’ of watercolour over the dried ink, or, we created washes first and then drew over the top of the washes. There were quite a few different activities so we will continue next week, alongside using the ‘body colour’ and gouache.

11 May 2022

Today we investigated what effects we could achieve using pencil with watercolour. There were three activities - 1) pencil was the ‘star’ and watercolour was the ‘supporting act’, 2) pencil was the supporting act and watercolour was the star, 3) and then finally where they were both the stars of the show equally. They were fun and interesting exercises to do, resulting in some very creative artwork.

4 May 2022

Today we started off a new block of sessions having fun with warm up drawings; some were drawn with the non-dominant hand whilst not looking at the paper, some were drawn from memory, some were drawn using a ‘dangle-pen’ technique, and some with dip pen and ink. We are also continuing with watercolour and so some students worked in watercolour for the second half of the session, including watercolour and ink, which we will be covering in more detail soon. Good start everybody!

27 April 2022

Today was the end of this term so we celebrated by painting some wonderful watercolour pictures! Not all the pictures are finished and some were exercises, but everyone as usual very kindly let me photograph them to share on this blog. We also have a picture from part of the home work, to capture something growing or changing, as well as some examples of our ongoing homework, to capture colours for each month. This term has been really good, with students working very hard and supporting and encouraging each other in the process, well done everyone.

20 April 2022

Today we drew and painted objects and scenes from the views through the windows in the hall using only watercolour (no under drawing in pencil or pen). The result is truly absolutely beautiful paintings, full of character and feeling. They communicate really well the countryside around the hall. Really well done everyone, you should be really proud, they are GORGEOUS paintings.

Also the final photo shows a really fantastic series of drawings from our homework documenting ‘growth’ - thank you for brining this in to show us, there was another but I didn’t get a photo. Do bring in your homework next week and I will take photos for the blog.

13 April 2022

Today we learned about the properties of various watercolour brushes and what effects we could achieve with each one. One person also experimented with using stiff paper to make geometric marks. Really lovely work today! We didn’t get as far as looking at ‘hard and soft edges’, washes or masking fluid so we will cover these over the next two weeks.

6 April 2022

Today we looked at how watercolour paint can be applied to different types of specialist watercolour paper: smooth (Hot Pressed), medium (cold pressed) and rough (cold pressed). We tried out different watercolour application methods on each of the papers to see the results. This is helpful to do as it helps us to understand the properties of each of the papers better, and in so doing enhances our artistic abilities and outcomes.

30 March 2022

Today we looked at making two more ‘blacks’ - not as ‘black’ as last week due to the differing pigments and opacity used, but still very useful dark mixes. We mixed cadmium red with alizarin crimson / phthalo green; and we mixed prussian blue / phthalo blue with burnt sienna / burnt umber.

We then mixed a variety of greens using the following pigments: Cad. Yellow, Lemon yellow, Cer. Blue, Ultramarine Blue, Phthalo / Prussian Blue, Phthalo / viridian green, Yellow ochre and Raw sienna. We got a range of greens from bright lime greens to more subdued and mossy tones through to ochre greens. We then applied this to painting some spring themed greenery that we brought in.

Next week we will bring in our items again and work from them to explore the differing types of watercolour paper and the effects that can be achieved on them.

23 March 2022

This week we experimented with de-saturating and darkening colours with their complementary opposites. We added a very small amount of the opposite colour a bit at a time to show the potential of all the shades that we could achieve, including a vast array of very useful coloured ‘greys’.

We also experimented with adding certain opposing colours to get very dark shades, almost blacks, which provide us with richly textured and layered ‘blacks’ when compared to ready made.

Finally, we experimented with the complementary colours yellow and violet, to paint some absolutely fantastic daffodils (a very difficult combination of colours to work with). Well done, everyone!!

** We did not get round to mixing the green colours as stated on the brief. Please bring a variety of spring themed green items next week and we will do this at the start of the lesson.

16 March 2022

We did some more colour mixing today with our six basic, split primary colours, making a larger, three ringed colour wheel. We experimented with adding white to our colours for the inner ring, and one person began to explore the complementaries to desaturate, or darken, the colours for the outside ring. We will continue with the complementary colour mixing next week for the first half of the session, and begin to look at various watercolour paint applications for the second half.