Wednesday 12th 7-9pm – paint on a book page

At the last Saturday session we painted on oyster shells. This time use a page from a book or sheet music for another different surface to paint on. Don’t deface a treasured book but get an old one from a charity shop or use an out of date phone book. Some old pages may be quite absorbent so acrylics or very dry watercolours might be better than using very wet media. Newer books will have shinier, less absorbent pages, so make your choice.

Paint any subject, but you could choose a word from the page and paint that object. A page from an old dictionary would be the perfect prompt. If you use sheet music then the title may spark your imagination. A couple of old books will be available if you can’t find your own surface to paint on.

Saturday 22nd 10am-3pm – In an English Country Garden

Take inspiration from the lyrics of the song of the same name written by American country singer Jimmie Rodgers in 1962. The music is based on an old English folk tune from the 1720s called ‘Country Gardens’.

Paint a whole country garden with a house or cottage in, any colourful flower close-up or in a botanical way, birds, insects and maybe a gardener too if you prefer painting people. The choice of subject and media are yours, and if you love painting flowers then this session is perfect for you. Remember back to when we used coloured pencils with visiting tutor Amber Halsall to create viola pictures.

The song lyrics are below, but a few birds are from the Americas and definitely not from England!

Here’s the song on YouTube (if the link doesn’t work for you then just Google the song)… https://youtu.be/EUyxCP5Rvco?si=YKofuJ5p1UABxBUE

The Society of Botanical Artists have their annual Plantae exhibition online from today for the month of June… https://sbaonlinegallery2024.oess1.uk/Artwork/ViewByThumbnail

Here’s the main website about the SBA… https://www.soc-botanical-artists.org