Big Poppy

We had a lovely time with 4 ladies on Saturday. 3 of them were friends who meet up to do creative things together...They have done various painting workshops together before but never used acrylic and melted wax..Judith chose the lovely browns and beiges for her painting..

Sue has been to me once before to paint Summer Day--which is completely different to this one!

Sue chose to do the bright reds with a touch of yellow,

Jackie chose some lovely purple,lilac and blue for her painting,,

Once we had done all of the acrylic painting we dried them off with hairdryers in order to add the melted wax ..

The ladies used a wide range of colours for the wax middles...

I love the colours used by Heather,,the wine colour works lovely with the purples..

Lovely results from everyone...

Poppy Drift Workshhop

We had 7 students in on Saturday for a new subject in acrylic called Poppy Drift..A nice loose subject with lots of options for students to choose from. A good mix of new students and some that have been loads like Pauline and Chris...

Chris has always done his own thing--and although the theme was poppies he decided to create his own flowers and beautiful they were too...

His wife Pauline chose to do purple/pink poppies and that worked really well too..the photos really don't do this subject justice

We met Robi at Tenbury show last year where she was exhibiting besides us...she has had a go at watercolours at home but found them a bit wishy washy,,she loved the acrylic paints and we will see her again for Reeds In The Breeze very soon when she will be using oils..

Dave was painting with me for the first time, he chose to do a darker,brown shades for  his background and it really worked well..

First time also for Amanda--who did not know a thing about what was going to happen---Dave had just told her to dress in jeans and trainers and bought her along! I think she was a little shocked at first but soon settled down to painting poppies,cornflowers,daisies,and the odd dragonfly or 3 ...

Pauline has been once before with hubby Phil,,this was a completely different subject to the Yesterday painting they did before!

Phil is just adding his poppies here!

Chris and Pauline with their masterpieces..

Amazing how different the paintings turned out--loads of movement in all of them! Well done everyone..

Big Poppy Workshop

Well what a day we had on Saturday...I was expecting 11 and 16 turned up...must sack the secretary!!! Any way we always have extra brushes ,canvas etc on the van so it was OK! This workshop always takes a bit longer than the usual 4 hours mainly because of the drying times of the mediums and the paint..its amazing just how the paintings change through the workshop,,

as you can see we had a wide variety of colours...its one of those paintings that seems to work in whatever colour people choose..

love the purple and turquoise shades that Fregia did...

Subodh chose some beautiful yellow and oranges for his painting....it was really bright and vibrant

Sri chose the more tradition red and black

Carol had a bigger ,chunkier canvas to use...

starting to add the melted wax here...

its a good job we have a big room to use!

adding texture with the wax and irons..

I loved Subodh's finished painting...none of the photographs do these paintings justice,,the texture and variations in colour just do not show up..

Sybils's painting really came to life when she added the silver wax middle..

you can a bit more of the detail in Carol's picture here..

Abbie,Carol and Tony

Cathy and Fregia

John, Sybila and Ann

Connie and Carol -- Subodh  is holding  camera shy Sri's painting too!! 

Christine ,Shirley and Margret

Julie's One 2 One

Julie was using oils for the first time..only the second time she had painted too.She used acrylics last time in the birches workshop.

she got the hang of the brushes and the quite different feel of the paint right away..

We had a lovely day-and put the world to rights several times over!

Julie went back to her sky and did some tiny adjustments which made a world of difference.Its lovely to see people start to make decisions about their paintings so quickly during a workshop....

Sorry Julie-managed to get you when you blinked! Beautiful painting-well done!

Poppy Workshop April 6th

I love teaching this workshop--its so much fun exploring the different mediums and colours..you can see the texture on the canvas here..it takes a lot of drying but is worth the effort!

Karen bought along a sample of her new wallpaper so she could match the colour up--I knew I had just the colour for her..and sure enough it was a perfect match!

Jenny used shades of browns and creams and it worked lovely...to be honest it seems to work in any colour combination you like..

Doreen chose the beautiful bright poppy red..

And I love the blues that Bev chose...she is just making the centre a shade darker here!

Wendy seemed to find it easy to get a more random shape to the poppy centre,its one thing that a lot of students can find hard when painting--its so easy to make everything symmetrical !

Joy used blues with a touch of purple-a lovely combination..

Margaret choice of colour worked well too--a beautiful cerise pink...

Nicola chose the popular Teal /turquoise colour--i love it-its one of my favourite colours of all time!

Virginia used the teal but added a touch of blue --

Lisa was really nervous as it was a first time for her, but the nerves soon went once she started painting!

Steph was with me for the 2nd time-and of course this one was completely different to do from her first one which was Serenity and done in oils...

The painting really comes to life when the melted wax is added and we had some lovely combinations of colours done...some just black and silver, some added a touch of gold  and Jenny added a few browns to hers a swell to compliment her colours..I even managed to find a purple one to match Karen's so she was a happy bunny too!

Looking good Jenny!

Wendy adding the finishing touches..

Silver paint for the stamens is last..

The paintings are all very dramatic and vibrant..

And Doreen's looks just beautiful,,,

Karen's centre was a little larger than some of the others but it goes to show there is no right or wrong with this subject....

How lovely to look down the row of paintings as they were being created and see the wonderful colours!

Beautiful results ladies!

The photos never do these paintings justice!!

WOW!