I've added a 'follow by email' box to my blog

Following some helpful feedback, I've added a 'follow by email' box to my blog.

Setting up this blog has been, and continues to be, a real challenge for me. Having spent 16 years programming computers, I thought I was fairly computer literate - but NO, it turns out there is a lot more to this than I thought!

And I still need to learn so much. Next I think I'll tackle how to set up a slideshow on my blog, but it will have to wait until another day...I can't take any more right now!




Thanks so much for dropping by, I do hope you enjoy reading my blog. Why not leave a comment to say hello so that I know you called? Feel free to link back to your own blog too.

Stephie

I taught my first watercolour class today!

Teaching art to committed adults is very much one of my long term goals. Today it became one step closer.

I am a member of my local art group, we meet for two hours every Friday morning. The group has been meeting up for over 12 years, and most of the members have been with them for the whole time. They're a very friendly bunch, and when I joined in January I offered to share my skills with them. Mostly it's a free and easy format, come along and paint and chat. Really that should be chat and paint, as an awful lot of chatting and not so much painting gets done!

Once a term the club organises a demonstration, and this morning I took centre stage and taught the group how to use clingfilm and salt to create dramatic watercolours.

I began by demonstrating how to paint a tree trunk using clingfilm, and secondly how to create a canopy of leaves using the same technique. The group then went away to try it out, and I wandered around to make sure they were all coping. Some needed more help than I expected - everyone clearly doesn't find it as easy as I do! But after half an hour everyone had something resembling bark and leaves.

Next I demonstrated how to create these leaves using clingfilm, salt and negative painting. Everyone was most keen to try this, and again they all created something that they were either happy with, or were happy to work on further at home.


The fourth demo was the sea effect that I used in this lighthouse. Although using the same technique, this is definitely trickier to achieve than the previous exercises as this requires careful placement of paint, water and salt.


Finally I did a quick demonstration of how to use the clingfilm in straight lines to paint a door, using salt and water to achieve a peeling paint result. Sadly we had run out of time for them to try the door, but hopefully they will now be able to apply this technique to other objects.

The group all seemed to be happy with their morning's work - and I haven't been banned so it must have been OK! Not everyone will use the technique, but I could see the light of inspiration shining in some eyes as we left...I can't wait to see what they bring back to show next week!




Thanks so much for dropping by, I do hope you enjoy reading my blog. Why not leave a comment to say hello so that I know you called? Feel free to link back to your own blog too.

Stephie