Birches Workshop

We had a few students unable to attend due to various reasons--however they will be coming along in the future! Although there is a wide variety of choices for the workshop, colour and canvas size-almost everyone decided to use the 20in x 16in canvas- Jenny and Anna used the 24in x 12in and the 12in x 24in..And the monochrome version proved to be the most popular colour...Everyone wanted to add a bit of bling in the form of metallic silver birch trees....Steven has been to the Yesterday workshop previously--and we will look forward to seeing him and his wife in the future ..

Jenny chose the same colours as me-beautiful bright autumn colours--love the path disappearing off in the distance..

Anna has quite a distance to travel from Bristol..but Bill was able to tell her an easier way  home than the satnav had bought her..being an ex lorry driver is very useful sometimes! She made a lovely job of her painting--managing to get her splatters on the trees very fine--though we couldn't work out exactly how-although I watched her every move! She admits she is addicted to the workshops--and we will look forward to seeing her again next month!

We had 4 ladies come down from the Telford area after one of their mums came along to the demo I did recently at the  Withington WI..all had tried watercolours before and a bit of acrylic but this was a first for them.. Helen is adding her dark trees here...

The silver paint stands out lovely against the bright autumn colours in Jenny's painting..

the last of the silver birches going in...

everyone was amazed at the difference each stage made to the previous one...

layering dark and light trees added distance and depth to the pictures..

I love the way everyone gets more confidence with each step...its often quite hard to paint over stuff you have previously painted--but it is necessary to add the depth and distance to the paintings...

adding the lines to the birches...

When we do acrylics we always have mats down to protect the floor in the room --its new and very light----to be sure we put down a huge tarpaulin sheet to do the splattering!!!

always interesting to see how everyone tackles this bit...

for a lot of this workshop you could hear a pin drop...everyone concentrating so much..

what great results from everyone..

After a 5 hour workshop it was lovely to come home and have a quick dinner to prepare--diet coke chicken is a firm favourite here-so quick,easy and tasty-and as the weather was so beautiful we sat outside by the pond to eat it...

One of our original fish--Moby is a real greedy bugger-and is always first out of the water  searching out food on the lily pads..

waiting for their dinner!

Pud was just as easy and delicious-fresh local strawberries, with low fat strawberry greek yogurt and a few tiny meringue's