On Line Guided Painting

Love and Blue was the first live Guided Painting class I ran at The Art Train, so I will always be fond of it. The image originates in the whimsical practice of my early career. I used to draw little birds endlessly, they would be on branches, in trees, balancing on top of one another, in birdhouses. My early sketchbooks are filled with drawings of these little birds, which have so much character. The slightest change in the shape or position of a beak, eye, tail or wing can alter the personality radically. Little birds and leaves were imagery I used constantly in my embroidery work too.  I ran this class in 2014 and was so nervous. Fortunately, the students were lovely and they all did a fabulous job. I painted the image simultaneously while teaching the class, which was a disaster. However, by the time this class ran, I had trialled "Hydrangeas" with two students, realised written instructions with step by step progress photos were the way to go. So this class ran with...

Little Owl ran as a live class in 2016. In 2016 owl imagery was popping up in homewares and stationery and it seemed like a timely image to use. It was a very popular class and everyone went home happy. I often use imagery from my early career practice as Guided Painting images, giving them a second life. I have many sketchbooks to refer to, many from 30 years ago. I used to paint and draw whimsical animals as my main creative output, however, I never drew owls. I was wondering why.  As a child, I was intrigued by owls. I grew up in a town and had no real experience of owls. I remember a Whitsuntide week family camping trip to Kielder in Northumberland. As usual, we went with several other families and lots of kids. This was to be my family's last trip in a tent. The other families had already upgraded and moved onto caravans. It rained every day and my Dad declared that he was finished with tents. We went on to own caravans and had many much drier and warmer holidays in the...

This painting was inspired by the classic children's nursery rhyme, "Mary Mary". I loved this rhyme as a child, my mother was called Mary and I would wonder if she was Mary of the rhyme. She was always out in the garden so it seemed perfectly plausible. I also thought my Aunt was Princess Margaret, I had a colourful imagination or me was just easily confused. I always thought that the rhyme was about Bloody Mary Tudor. I've checked Wikipedia, so bound to be right, and the rhyme could also be about Mary the mother of Jesus or Mary Queen of Scots. The oldest printed version appeared in 1744. Mary, Mary, quite contrary, How does your garden grow? With silver bells, and cockle shells, And pretty maids all in a row. I added the bees and bugs to the painting as our precious ecosystem just wouldn't work without all their hard work pollinating. When I painted this image the catastrophic drop in work d bee populations was all over the media. Ho...

"Flower Tree" ran as a live Guided Painting class in 2016. I offered two paintings that day, “ Flower Tree” and “ Enid”, a gorgeous violet elephant. It was the first time that I had offered a "double bill", you could choose one or the other. It proved to be a challenging afternoon. I had a couple of students who went completely off-piste. While I was checking on everyone's progress I was confused by their “ interesting” colour mixes, it turned out they weren’t bothering to read the instructions and were "doing their own thing”. They just couldn't work out why their's didn't look like mine. If you want to do your own thing with a guided class that's totally cool, just don’t expect the same result as the original. I write instructions to help you achieve a good approximation of the original. Sometimes I don't have a grand plan for Guided Painting, "Flower Tree" was simply an image I wanted to paint. I love gardens and this remi...