Skip to main content

Love and Blue



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 a booklet, which worked perfectly. After this class, I never painted simultaneously with students again.
 I had a full house for "Love and Blue" and the images produced were lovely. As this was the first big class it amazed me to see how a group with the same instructions could all produce quite different images, every bird had its unique personality.
I sold the original to one of the students. She had taken her painting to work and her colleague wanted to buy it. She couldn't bear to part with hers so bought my painting to give to the colleague instead. A great result all round.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Hydrangeas Online Guided Painting Class

I love hydrangeas, they are such unlikely flowers. I was so surprised I could grow them in Queensland. One of the first drawing assignments I ever did at art college was a pencil and wash drawing of a dead hydrangea head, carefully rescued from an English autumnal garden.  "Hydrangeas" Guided Painting, first ran in May 2014 and proved to be a massive learning curve for me and this fledging style of class. I have learnt so much since the early step by step classes and you get all the benefits of that knowledge when you choose this downloadable class. I have ironed out all the problems my " live" class encountered back in 2014 .  My Guided Painting classes often have quite whimsical imagery and feature animals. My practice was once concerned with narrative and illustration and many of the Guided Painting images I have used over the years are based on paintings from back then.  “Hydrangeas” was my third live Guided Painting class. I wanted to have a more represe...
Post a Comment
Read more

Little Owl

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...
Post a Comment
Read more

Hydrangeas on line clip by The Art Train

Post a Comment
Read more