Birch Tree Class

We had a busy day today in the Birch Tree class. We were 3 down due to work and illness,(Sue , Angela and Graham) but still had 8 in class.
Jess had bought along her mum Joy to the class-Jess has been and painted the Birches before in sepia tones and her mum loved it so much Jess booked her mum as an early Mothers Day pressie.
Jess bought it along to class today so they could use it as a base to work from.
The idea was to end up with a triptych of 3 paintings to hang together. They also bought along a cushion from the lounge where the paintings will be hung-Joy wanted some foxgloves added in one of the pictures that would match in colour-we managed to match it up perfectly in the end with Jess adding foxgloves to the middle painting-you can see the three paintings further down this page.

Catherine also wanted a touch of colour in her painting so I showed them all how to use the encaustic wax pen to melt the coloured wax and create the foxgloves.

Mal was the only newbie today-everyone else had been before.
We had a great variety of pictures today-some on a white canvas, some on a black one and also a variety of canvas sizes too--16in x 20in , 20in x 16in and 36in x 14in .

We had monochrome and sepia shades-so a good mix of everything in class today!

In the first stage where we use sponges to create the background-the effects we got were so so different to each other.
Its very interesting to see how the paintings all develop as time goes on.
As soon as the birch trees start going in the painting really takes shape-I think everyone is amazed by how quickly the paintings take shape--

The time flew by today--it was lovely to see Sue and Celia from last week and although I speak to Liz often on facebook it was lovely to see her in the flesh so to speak!

Lyndsey came to class just before Christmas and enjoyed the Christmas truffles that we had made and taken along to class-Liz remembered them as well-I happened to remember that there were a few left-so off Bill went to collect them from home-they went down a treat with everyone-except for Jess who said they were too alcoholic for her-much to her mums relief and maybe suprise!

Sue mentioned her Vanilla Vodka and Cranberry Christmas cake she made last Christmas--sounded just up our street-and when I got home and finished cleaning brushes , switched on my computer to find an email off Sue telling me she had posted the recipe to me and she had loved her days painting! I dont suppose that we will wait til next Christmas to try out the recipe-we normaly make an extra cake to take along to Shobdon food and drink festival-the extra one seems to have been used up this year-so we have a good excuse to try this one before Christmas.

One of my previous students Sally called in during the lesson to book herself in to a couple of classes-we look forward to seeing her again soon for Serenity and also Mellow Moods.
All in all a great day as usual--looking forward to seeing everyone again soon!