PAINTING HOLIDAY PRICES WITH GILLY MARKLEW

Flatford Mill, field studies center

willy lots house accommodation

FULL PRICES FOR THE FLATFORD MILL PAINTING HOLIDAY,

 23RD TO 26TH OF AUGUST 2013 INCLUDING GILLY’S TUITION FEE’S.

These varying prices are for those who can't make the whole 4 days

and therefore will not be charged the full price.

4 DAYS TEACHING AND FM TOTAL FOR SHARED,

 3 NIGHTS = £329.00

3 DAYS TEACHING AND FM TOTAL FOR SHARED

3 NIGHTS = £259.00 ( leaving out either Friday or Monday daytime class )

4 DAYS TEACHING TOTAL AND FM FOR SOLE

3 NIGHTS = £366.00

3 DAYS TEACHING TOTAL AND FM FOR SOLE =

 3 NIGHTS £329.00 ( leaving out either Friday or Monday daytime class )

NON PAINTING PARTNERS £188.00 SHARED

 A fri eve to Sunday afternoon  can also be accommodated by request

Price to be fixed by FM.

PLEASE MAKE REQUESTS TO GILLY BY EMAIL TO AVOID MISTAKES. THANK YOU.

       gill@gilly-marklew.co.uk

Flatford Mill is a field studies center situated at the Mill where Constable painted The Haywain, on the Essex Suffolk border, and on the river Stour a few miles from the coast.

 Today it has full accommodation with mostly ensuite rooms, along with various teaching rooms, and it provides Breakfast, packed lunches and an evening meal. Flatford Mill has not lost any of it's charm, and is an inspiration to paint and visit.

http://www.field-studies-council.org/centres/flatfordmill.aspx

We will meet on friday the 23rd a.m August, weather permitting, outdoors to paint, or if it's wet from 12.00, where you will be shown to your rooms by the staff and greeted by me with a cream tea, and introduced to each other.

There will be more painting in the afternoon indoors if wet, before our evening meal in the big hall.

Tuition will be from after breakfast at 9.30 a.m. till 4 p.m. and is  structured, with specific goals for each lesson, and plenty of time to practice technique before building up to a painting .

                                       After 4.00  we will free to take a walk,

row, ( or swim! ) down the river, visit a beach or

                            or just laze around on the river, then after dinner we will meet for another short art related activity, then spend the rest of the evening to ourselves. There is an excellent pub in Flatford, or for those who prefer a quieter evening F M has it's own library, and I will also supply painting DVD's to watch.

It is my aim on this painting holiday to combine painting with fun and leisure time.

We will finish at 4 p.m. on monday the 26th August.

                                                                       Some of the lovely locations near flatford, are the beautiful old village of Dedham, Pin Mill, Wrabness and Harkstead beaches, all roughly 10 to 20 minutes by car, but some 5 -10 minutes walk to get to, which tends to make them very peaceful, unpopulated and unspoiled.

We will finish at 4 p.m. on monday the 26th August.

It is planned to paint on some of these locations during tuition hours, as well as at the mill, however for some of the longer walks, work will be set for those with mobility limitations, or those who wish to take a more leisurely approach.

For more details on Flatford Mill Field studies center follow this link

   http://www.field-studies-council.org/centres/flatfordmill.aspx

Harkstead looking out to Wrabness

DEDHAM

But make Bookings through Gilly

PIN MI

PIN MILL

Boats at Pin Mill

HARKSTEAD BEACH

2012 LEARNER FEEDBACK

Hi Gilly

Thanks so much for including me in the group and for all your hard work.  I really count myself lucky to have got that last place!

I thought you did a great job.  The course was very well structured, with just the right mix of demonstration, tuition and practice.  You taught me a lot that I can apply to all my work, not just watercolour, and I definitely felt that I made progress in watercolour itself, which was the main purpose. That small landscape that I did on Saturday afternoon was a step up for me and very good for morale!

Thanks so much again, Gilly, and for the personal touches such as our welcome pack.  It was all lovely, helped by the beauty and atmosphere of Flatford itself.  I'll send you a few jolly photos when I've downloaded them.

Lots of love,

Colin XX     

Dear Gilly

what can I say, it was a lovely, lovely weekend: even though I was non-resident, I don't feel that caused me any disadvantage within the group. It was lovely to actually have time to paint and create: learning new things and consolidating old learnt things as well. It was so nice to see that many of the other people on the course, were the same as me! I see myself as enjoying painting, although I'm not very good, and although there were a couple of stars amongst the group, people seemed to be of similar opinions of their own abiltilites. I loved the way the group supported each other, expressing "like" of each others efforts and sharing similar diffculties when encounted. The feel of the weekend can only come from the leadershiop, which of course is your goodself, Gilly!  I also loved the way your were accesible , and learners could use you as much or as little as they required.

Once agian, thank you for a smashing weekend..very enjoyable, and has got me itching to go off explorer with my artist backpack on my back, so as to speak!

Sam

Hi Gilly

Would like to echo Phil's comments - a great weekend, with fun people and great balance between work and play - just wish I could improve a bit more!  I learnt a lot, especially about composition and the value of simple thumbnails, so I certainly think I can adopt these ideas when I next go into the countryside.Keep up the good work!

Love Vanessa

Gilly

What a splendid week-end that was - and I'd like to echo your sentiment of what a fun bunch you are. I've come away with some  some good memories. Willy certainly has a lott to answer for!

Regards to everyone , and I look forward to more in future.

Keep calm and carry on painting ..

Regards

Phil

Lucy.............Had a fantastic time thanks Gilly! The setting was 

perfect and you laid on the best weather for us :-)

I could quite happily have stayed another day.

Thank you for organising such a brilliant weekend - would definitely do it again.

Gilly,

very many thanks for such an enjoyable and stimulating and well organised weekend, from the welcome pack to the last swim. Fantastic location and facilities, weather even better than Turkey. Lovely painting by the water under the trees.

Good to meet others and enjoy sharing ideas and time out in the evening.

Not often we're privileged to paint surrounded by a herd of bullocks!

Colen ( my husband ) says thank you for the weekend and making him feel comfortable with the group and activities. He really enjoyed himself and getting back to sketching.

Julia

Dear Gilly

Thank you very much for all the hard work you did in organising our painting holiday.  I enjoyed it tremendously and learnt alot about composition and painting

trees (much practise needed here!).  Every one was so friendly which made it all the more fun. My one regret is that I forgot to bring my bathing costume!

I can't think of any way in which the programme or content could be improved except to say that it would be lovely to attend a similar course next summer.

I think that painting outside makes you to set down the basics quickly, with no time for dithering.  The picture can then be completed indoors if necessary.

With best wishes.

Rosemary

DRAWING CLASS, UNDERSTANDING CONTRAST

This week's class was all about understanding contrast, and translating colour into contrast, see picture above.

This term will be all about comparing high and low contrast in relation to the whole picture, see rocket reference below, where we copied the 2 boxes of tone, first enclosing a box with as dark a block as our 8b pencils could go, and shading the middle in a slightly lighter tone, then we drew another box next to it, and tried to match exactly the same tone of the interior box to the right.

The object of this exercise, was to train our minds to see exact tonal values, despite the distraction of being compared to a relative tone or colour.

It is easy to make a small area of light and dark in our drawings correct in relation to that small area, but more difficult, but necessary to judge tone's in relation to the whole.

Before we did that, we had a warming up exercise of making different marks by holding the pencil in a different way.

lign: center;"> We chose a bird bath for the drawing exercise today, as it is dark in tone, and high in contrast compared with the snow.

We started by transferring same size measurements from a photocopy to a piece of paper, starting with the top and bottom and only getting into detail when the larger shapes were outlined.

We mad horizontal and vertical measurements, with a vertical center line, and horizontal lines at right angles across the ellipse and base. 

When we had drawn the proportions correctly, we measured the tonal value from our copies with a value grader with holes in it which we made as beginners, ( so homework for begs includes one of these, from as dark black as you can get out of an 8b to a whispy light grey. )

We had the option of drawing from the Church room window over the grave yard, which was partially covered in snow.

The challenge here was to gauge the varying tones of the grave stones against snow, and grass.

Home work for the beginners who couldn't make the 1st class, please try and follow as much of the above class as you can, including the tonal valuation grader ( above ) Hopefully, I can streamline you with the other beginner who came today, and eventually the rest of the class.

PORTRAIT OF A VERY SPECIAL CHINESE GIRL

This is a portrait of the daughter of an old friend of mine who I wrapped in stripy fabric over Christmas, ( the daughter, not the old friend, and not for the whole of Christmas, just for 5 minutes whilst I took the photo's )!

Christmas festivities

Firstly, I would like to thank my thursday group for clubbing together to buy my festive dinner at the Red lion in Granchester, it was a smashing dinner, and brilliant to be out socialising with you lot.

And I'd like to thank Mel and Maureen for bringing the mince pies and mulled wine to the Wednesday class, topped off by Vanessa bringing her brand new grandchild into class at the end, it was like the adoration of the magi!

I'd also like to thank those who came to my end of term party, especially as we are so far out in the sticks, and few couldn't have a proper drink for driving, thanks also for the cards and presents! I wasn't expecting that! although I should know by now what a lovely bunch you are!

I was so busy enjoying myself that I only managed a few blurred photo's.

So seasons meetings to you all, and I'll see you in the new year! : )

Stunning pool photo's

Just look at these stunning pool photo's I took yesterday!

I owe a massive thank you to one of my Sawston watercolour group members for organising this photo shoot.

those of you who know me will know how difficult it is for me to find models and a pool together, this is why I have had to resort to using myself as a model in the past, but on hearing this, Uwe,

( pronounced Oover ) volunteered himself and his kids to pose, arranged permission from the pool owner, ( no mean feat in itself ) and arranged for us to meet in the pool at a time of day when he knew we would get natural sunlight in the pool area, which I had asked for, but not dreamt of getting! An hey presto! All came together!

Not only that but Ewe and kids were a delight to watch playing in the water, they did all the poses I asked for, but I think you'll agree, the most stunning one, is the pose they chose themselves, the one  below, I  couldn't have asked for more!

Thank you Ewe and kids! I now have a stock of pool shots to keep me going for years! : )

G XX

SAWSTON SPLASHING PAINT AROUND

For the past few weeks we have been doing portraits across the board in my watercolour classes.

Sawston evening  class, like my other classes have been drawing and painting faces with subtle colour mixing, and hard & soft edges.

The primary focus of these exercises, apart from the drawing proportions, was to learn how to mix colours on the paper, without hard edges, and enough, so they were slightly neutral, with a hint of intense.

The portrait below illustrates this point, with hints of blue and green on the skin tones, which added interest without leaving the subject in the portrait looking bruised.

Then the Sawston class moved on to creating portraits with strong intense colours.

The object of this exercise was to lay the pigment down and leave it alone, this can be harder than you think!

This involved mixing colours on the paper allowing the colours to do their own mixing across a very fluid surface, with little manipulation from us, therefore avoiding neutral mixes.

I was aware from experience that some learners would love the way the paint did it's own thing, whilst the lack of control made others nervous,

However, it is important to explore all the possibilities and  potential watercolour painting holds, no matter what style of painting you prefer, it allows you to thoroughly explore the medium.

These portraits were not finished, but to my mind, had phenomenal potential to be stunners!

As we did the background wash last week, and we were already practised at adding features, I felt it best that we finished our portraits off at home, and move on to a 3rd colour mixing exercise.

I set up a still life of clear, see through glass objects of analogous colours with 1 complimentary, the Dahlia,  oranges being on the opposite side of the colour wheel, and therefore complimentary.

The object of this exercise, apart from understanding a little colour theory, was to build up washes in glazes, which involves waiting for 1 wash to dry, before painting over it wet on dry with another translucent colour wash.

However, again  from experience of Learners being impatient to wait for a wash to dry properly, I asked them to paint at least 4 sections of the still life, so that work could be carried on whilst other parts were drying.

However, even this did not deter the most impatient of us, and there was a struggle to wait, resulting in soft edges where the paint had not dried sufficiently.

However, where there were successful glazes laid down the results were lovely and revealing.

More of this in spring you Sawston lot! You'll sit there and wait for it to dry even if it takes all night! And you'll go to bed without supper! ; )

This was the last class before the Christmas holidays, see you all in the spring term!

G x

Describing the form in drawing

The past 2 classes have been about describing the form with directional linework, that means giving the viewer information about the contours of the object you are drawing, as opposed to simply outlining it, or blocking it in with shading.

The example I did below, describes the form of a jug with lines curving around the form.

But we wanted to explore cross hatching to develop tonal differences in light and shade, so we did the exercise below of doing lines with hard pressure and closer together for the darks, then lighter and further apart for a gradual gradation from dark to light.

We did these lines over the top of each other and in different directions, to create a dense darkness of tone.

Here are some of the results of this exercise, drawing from a still life in class, set up to have tonal differences in the local value of each object, for example, the onion was lighter than the jug, but still had it's own range of darks and lights

Here the plum was darker than the mug, but still had it's own range of lights and darks.

All the items had areas darker than others, but had to be built up with a succession of of directional  lines, following the contours of the object.

The thing we need more practice on, was gauging the tonal differences in relation to the whole, as opposed to the tone next to it.

All these drawings were very competent, but we will be exploring tonal relationships after the Christmas break in spring term.