My New Class Begins and Autumn Leaves!!!

 THURSDAY 4th OCTOBER

I arrived early with hubbie in tow to do the "blue" jobs like putting the table and chairs out ready and waiting for the group to start arriving... must admit I was quite nervous about whether everyone would turn up, I had a few apologies from those who couldn't come... how polite and considerate were they to take the time to ring and excuse themselves so wasn't sure how many we might expect. Well, I needn't have worried...... 25 people turned up and am happy to say I really enjoyed myself... just hope everyone else did too!!

We started off with a chat and a quick demo about mixing mud and from there we did a simple painting of an old barn door..... had done a couple of practices at home to make sure it would work and the feedback I got was really encouraging, mainly to say they had enjoyed doing it step by step and it was great to actually finish a painting in the time. This was music to my ears and means I can  happily keep things simple until I am ready to do more complex stuff. It isn't easy demonstrating live in front of all those people, even if you have practised at home, watercolour, being the temperamental mistress it is, can easily mess things up for you when you're back is turned and you are least expecting it!!!

Taken from a photo on Paint My Photo by Max Hemingway.

I did have one moment, where in my excitement I think I scared one of our members half to death when I  saw something lovely happening on the page and I snatched the brush and shouted "leave it alone!!!" The brush fell to the floor, and he nearly jumped out of his skin... note to self need to curb my enthusiasm and act with more decorum!!! So big apologies there!!

SATURDAY 13th OCTOBER

I have been to Rivington today as next Thursday we are doing Autumn leaves and I wanted some with a good variety of colours rather than the boring old beech leaves we seem to have too many of in our garden. Sycamore seemed to be by far the best colours, the oak seemed rather dull and the horse chestnut all seemed blighted and looked very much worse for wear. Anyway we found one tree where the colours, sizes and shapes seemed endless so I have a gorgeous selection to take with me with a lovely range of colours.

As always I practice what I am going to do in advance and have decided to show two ways of working. There is a cross section of ability in the class ranging from some very new painters to some very experienced ones and I need to pitch it right so that everyone gets something out of the session. The first two paintings here were done with just one application of paint and three colours dropped in wet in wet and allowed to mix on the page. I am trying to get the group to buy into mixing on the paper not on the palette so I am first going to demonstrate a leaf done just with the three colours mixed in the palette then show them how to do it like this. This first one was a mix of UB, Burnt Sienna and Aliz Crimson, the second Windsor Violet instead of UB.

 This one was a looser impression where I have painted negatively to define edges, keeping some and washing others away, it isn't as easy to work this way which is why I am doing the two options. Green/Gold, Aliz crimson, Raw sienna, Quin gold.

 This final piece was done with a full wash and leaves added again using positive and negative painting techniques, washing some edges away, defining others. Same colours as above.

In the meantime I am back at Westhoughton Art Group on Monday morning so they get a choice of what to do, the barn door or the Autumn leaves... lucky them!!!