This afternoon I celebrated my monthly painting class with four beautiful  women. As usual, the vibe was relaxed and I think that's partly the nature of my sessions, but also the beautiful surroundings. Seriously, the space is just beautiful and it makes relaxing into Art-making really simple.

This session we began with some collaborative fingerpainting.  It's my favourite way of loosening up and really connecting with our creative energies without trying to paint a 'something'.

After working the entire tabletop with paint, we chose our favourite sections of colour and made simple monoprints. by placing paper over the top and rubbing the paper onto the painted surface.

Once the entire surface has been smoothed over the paint, we simply lift it off and we have a monoprint!

We needed to work pretty fast with our printing, as the warmer weather causes the paint to dry pretty quickly. Working on a non-porous surface, such as glass, is most ideal for monoprinting, but we were experimenting and working in the moment, so we went with what we had!

Unfortunately I didn't take any images of the monoprints we made, but they had a really lovely, gentle forest-like feel to them, like tall trees reaching for the sky. Really pretty stuff. 

Next I did a demonstration of a couple of painting techniques I use in my paintings, called Scumbling and Glazing. They both involve adding washes of paint over the surface to mask or alter the existing layer beneath. After my demo, everyone was free to work these new ideas into their own paintings for the rest of the afternoon ...

Jennifer has come along to all of my monthly classes and every session I see her willingness to create and experiment freely, truly shine! Jennifer used fingerpainting techniques and etching to create an expressive background for a new canvas she'd bought along, and then began to incorporate some scumbling techniques I'd shared with the group earlier. Look at that texture!

Sam worked on a couple of paintings at once to keep the flow happening while the other one dried. She experimented with creating beautiful washes and using layers of colour and finger-work to build up her canvasses, as well as some really beautiful fine-brush work and expressive brush stamping. Beautiful view, all round!

I encourage my Artists to draw from the natural environment and even take a little treasure hunt in the surrounding bushland for inspiration. There was one really beautiful moment when I came over to find Emily had picked some beautiful flowers and was stamping them onto her canvas. I shared a few ways she could extend this idea and she finished a pretty little canvas with these ideas, and also created some really juicy backgrounds using purple and magenta glazing and washing techniques. I love how people's paintings often end up matching their clothing!

Judith is an Art teacher herself and I learnt a thing or two from her this session! It's wonderful to approach teaching from a learning perspective. We've all got amazing things to share, and I love that in this group, we are free to wander around and chat with each other to share and learn each other's techniques and processes.

Judith created her entire background using only a fan brush with watery paint. Yum yum!

The time really flies when you're having fun, so before we knew it, our 2 1/2 hour session was over. We all managed to make a great start on some new works and develop our ideas further, ready to build on in future Art sessions.  Creating juicy, colourful backgrounds make perfect bases for amazing and richly layered Artworks! I look forward to what next month brings, when I share techniques on 'Nature Inspired Painting'. Join us! 

Love C x