Yellow Daffodils, water colour painting and photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.
I painted this watercolour on the Art course at Writers' Holiday in Wales in February 2020. I had attended all the writing course over twenty years, the poetry and novel writing, romance, crime, travel writing, non-fiction courses, when Writers' Holiday ran a whole week in summer. Now they only organize the weekend in springtime.
I originally took the art course in order to illustrate my poems and books of poetry and other fiction and non-fiction books.
This large A4 picture which fits most A4 frames was meant to be an illustration of flowers in the wild, or rather in a garden. Larger daffodills with smaller flowers around them.
I had no room for my signature, so I added it in the middle, like a gift tag on a bouquet.
I also painted a small A5 size version. this time I outlined the flowers in black. I prefer the orange outline. Susan showed me how to do the white circles to fill in space under the flowers.
I recall visiting England's Lake District buying a postcard with the text of Wordsworth's poem 'I wandered lonely as a cloud' with a frame of Daffodils. I kept it framed in my kitchen where I used to live for several years. I could write my own seasonal poems and illustrate them.
You could take a photo of your holiday destination and write a poem at the time or later. And paint from a photo.
At Fishguard Bay Hotel there is a lovely view of the bay.
In a previous year I had painted the bay. Two other ladies painted the bat. Susan stood with us by the window and she pointed to the sky and clouds, and the light on the water, the waves, where the sea met the cliff, the dark colour of the nearby trees and the colour of the further trees.
The course is suitable for beginners or advancing.
At Writers' Holiday, Susan Alison, the art teacher, showed us:
1 What sort of paper to buy and how to remove it from a block.
2 How to use different types of brush to create different effects.
3 How to mix colours, which 7 colours to buy,
4 How to try out colour on a practice paper.
5 How to remove paint and start again.
6 How to start with a distant background colour.
7 How to leave white paper to contrast with the foreground for a moon.
8 How to use the base of a wineglass to create a perfect circle moon.
9 How to create clouds.
10 How to find a cheap bowl or two for water - why you need two bowls.
11 How to buy a cheap palette
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12 How to create the effect of distance with different colours and shades and sizes.
13 How to create birds in the sky at different distances.
14 How to use different widths of black pen to outline your flowers and other objects.
I had read about all these painting technique subjects previously. But it's like reading about swimming or riding a bike. You need somebody to show you, watch you doing it, and advise you how to practise and do it better.
Susan is a very patient teacher and very encouraging and complimentary. She kept telling us that it was a delight to teach keen would-be-artists like us, rather than people who had to be in an art class and didn't want to do it (such as pupils at a school).
By trial and error - yes, error, I learned how to leave space for the inner white frame.
How to leave space for my signature.
The Fishguard spring weekend holiday starts with dinner on Friday night and ends with lunch on Sunday. You can extend your stay by a day and see the area or continue practising what you learned. Or arrive a day earlier.
Why Arrive Early?
That way there's no risk of delays making you miss the first night dinner or the first day of the course.
Two people who had expected to arrive in Fishguard and Goodwick on the ferry from Ireland were unable to join us because the weather was so bad that the ferries were not running.
Angela Lansbury (left) with poetry writer and teacher, Alison Chisholm.
Meeting up with friends year after year. Fiona from Scotland who reads Burns poetry at a Scottish National Trust property on the Burns trail area.
The organizers of the Writers Holiday and a speaker. From the left: Gerry Hobbs, organizer; his son, David, who drives to collect guests from the nearby station and returns them. David's wife, and supporter. Steve Wade, author and poetry performer and often teaches courses on crime research and writing. Anne Hobbs, organizer alongside Gerry.
More details from
https://www.susanalison.com/drawing-painting-classes/About the Author
Angela Lansbury
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