The subject chosen by our friend and Watermill tutor Mike Willdridge was a simple scene of a few bare trees in the foreground and a suggestion of trees in the distance, all blanketed in a cold, snowy, wintery setting in Norfolk, England. The inspiration for this session was a painting by the great English watercolourist Edward Wesson, whose works are known for their simplicity, boldness and understanding of brushwork, Mike based his practice painting above on one of Wesson’s.
People from all over the world signed up to Mike’s session painting along happily with him for hours in the convivial online company of like-minded people.
As part of our service, those who joined also had the opportunity to put their paintings into an exclusive Gallery. You can only see the Gallery if you signed up to the session, so I thought it might be pleasant to make a montage of some of the contributions, picked entirely at random. A big thank-you to all the participants, to Lois Breckon for so ably hosting the session, and of course, to Mike himself who led us through the painting brushstroke by brushstroke.
We are so pleased to have created an international community (we have participants from many parts of the world, from Australia, via Singapore and Israel, through Europe and into the United States of America and Canada. *Even if the timing means you can’t join the session ‘live,’ we make an edited video of it, which is available to participants the next day, so they can paint along with the tutor in their own time.
Our next session is again with Mike Willdridge, when we will be tackling a dramatic sunrise (and sheep!) painting along virtually with him, celebrating a new day and new hope. The session is on Thursday 27 January. Just click here to join up.
And if you would like to see the programme of online sessions organised by the Watermill for the next month or so, please click here.