After a too-long 5 week break, Will’s art class started up again this week. Since this is the start of another term, Will is repeating the syllabus, and I can choose to follow along if I think it would be useful, or do my own thing with the materials provided. I asked Will’s advice, and […]

On Easter Sunday I went to Clevedon with friends.  It felt like the first sunny day of the year, and was warm enough to sit outside to eat our lunch.  Although I did leave my coat, scarf and hat on. Walking along the sea front I saw a gorgeous tree, swept back from years of […]

In the gap between terms of the Paint and Draw art classes with Will Stevens, I got withdrawal symptoms. My friend Dani had posted an image on Facebook of an abstract tree by Louise Mead.  I decided to use it as inspiration and try to paint something similar on my iPad. I used the Procreate […]

Last week of the term :-( So, another week of mistakes, and learning from them! This week was acrylics again, this time doing a full picture.  I messed up the assignment slightly, as I think Will intended for us to practice blending colours in our pictures, but I’d picked a picture to copy that was […]

Today was our first experience with acrylic paints. Will did quite a long lesson in how to mix colours, which was very interesting.  Then the rest of the lesson was exercises in mixing palettes ourselves. First we had to do some natural progressions from one colour to another (kind of like a colour wheel).  Then […]

Oh dear.  It seems that these class go in cycles!  Once again I’m less happy with this week from a point of view of the art generated – although I’m pleased in terms of what I learned! This week was watercolours proper.  Most of the class was spent doing simple exercises – doing a basic […]

After my disappointment last week, I was back on form this week. The subject was pen-and-ink (for the first half of the lesson) and water colour wash (for the second half).  We were working from originals that were ink drawn, so we could copy hatching techniques to get the hang of how to shade using […]

Week 4 was pastels again.  This time Will got us to use hardboard as a canvas.  You use the rough (back) side of hardboard to give a texture that will accept the pastels.  But first you have to lightly sand the surface to get off any coating put on in the manufacture of the board.  […]