Am I a Rocker!!!!

The first painting here was the start of my group wanting me to do a session for them. The two ladies who ran the group would sometimes bring things in for us to paint....... this topic was still life and this was one of the subjects. As often happens I did have a false start and then managed this as I got to know my way around the subject

When she saw this Ruth said she really liked how I did things (everyone seems to like loose watercolour painting) and would I be interested in running a session for them...... I said yes immediately and then thought about it...... yikes what had I let myself in for!!!! Anyway I had lots of time to mull it over and decide what I was going to do which I will cover in another blog.

In the meantime as I had quite liked doing the chair thought I would do our own rocking chair and also posted it as an image in the group.  The one above as far as I remember I did draw but this next one was straight in with the paint. We bought this chair before we got married and I still love it, it looked so lovely in the small cottage we had at the time and still sits in our hall today.

I like the colours in both these and enjoyed painting them and may never have thought of chairs as subjects had it not been for the group. I might do these differently now but I still look back on these with affection as at the time they were a bit of a breakthrough and of course prompted Ruth to ask me about doing a workshop and then on to running the group, so quite a turning point!!

Workshop at Art & Soul Hindley

This was my third workshop ever and what a lovely group they were!!! Made me feel so at home,  served me with coffee on arrival and were so warm and welcoming. Just wanted to thank them so much for inviting me and I hope they enjoyed meeting me as much as I enjoyed meeting them!! Hope so as I'm back in a month!!!!

We started the session with some of my colour planets, you know, the ones from a while back. As you will all know am very passionate about letting colour mix on the paper and though one or two of the group did paint like this it was new for the majority so always good to be able to share something new and different.  Then we went on to do pears, lemons, bananas (only bought them yesterday so hadn't scoffed the lot before the session!!!) peppers and garlic, all simple studies like we do in the Loose group but all good for learning some of the techniques for loosening up a bit. Even though this was new and alien to most they all had a really good stab at it although most said they thought it was quite hard... am glad I told them right at the beginning this isn't for the faint hearted but for those from the group who may be reading this it does get easier........... honest!!!!

Just a few pics from the session. By the way, I will e-mail Ann with the questions about the colours and any telephone numbers in the next few days.  Am really looking forward to the next session there and hope any other groups I go to will be as nice and kind as this one......