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There was a good turnout of 50 members and guests for our first meeting of the new season, in spite of the extremely warm weather. We welcomed several new members, one of whom, Maria, sent this message to our Membership Secretary, Amanda:

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"It was fantastic meeting you and everyone else last Saturday.  I was really impressed by ... how smoothly everything was organised .... Elizabeth's demonstration was a highlight for me..."

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And so to the demonstration .... Amanda introduced herself, explaining she usually works in watercolour and acrylic ink but also all sorts of media.  She passed around some of her sketchbooks, including some of her preparation work for paintings.  These were inspirational to look at on their own!  

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She had lightly sketched out her landscape, using blue masking fluid to marks out the fields, trees and some of the foreground flowers.  She then loosely brushed in the sky, with 3 different watercolour blues and pink, leaving some white of the paper to show through for clouds.  She used a stirring stick with acrylic ink to sketch in the distant trees and bushes, and filled in the fields with a range of soft blues, yellows and again leaving some gaps for the paper to show through.  Fluid acrylics of turquoise, pink and yellow were used like watercolour and splashed in the foreground, then once that had dried, Elizabeth used her stick and sepia ink, a grey watercolour pen, white fluid acrylic and a pink Posca pen to add dimension to the flowers and grasses.  You can see the stunning result below, along with a couple from her sketchbook.  

 

Elizabeth explained her processes throughout the demo and encouraged us to try out different media, techniques and ideas.   I am sure all of us took away some useful ideas for using in our own work. 

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