ColourWheel Art Classes East Cheshire

Face-to-Face Classes - Marthall
Tuesday Mornings/Tuesday Afternoons

It’s fair to say it was a bit warm in the hall this week!!🥵 Thankfully the heat didn’t detract too much from the enjoyment of our first lesson back after the break, where our students learned how to use gouache to paint a charming beach scene featuring a child or children.

Our teacher Dave spent the first part of the session revisiting colour mixing – possibly the hardest thing for budding artists to master, so incredibly useful. Students learned how to create tints, tones and shades which were then used to help them recreate the colours of the beach landscape in the reference images we were using.

Such a valuable class which also proved very popular. Check out this week’s fabulous artwork!

Face-to-Face Classes - Marthall
Tuesday Mornings/Tuesday Afternoons

What a fabulous way to end the first half of our spring/summer term! Our students had a wonderful lesson, revisiting the principles of atmospheric perspective and practising a range of watercolour and mark making techniques, to help them recreate a beautiful mountain landscape.

Great work everyone - enjoy the break and we'll look forward to seeing you again in a few weeks, ready to tackle some more new and exciting art projects!🙂

Face-to-Face Classes - Marthall
Tuesday Mornings/Tuesday Afternoons

We are so lucky to have the most wonderful teachers at ColourWheel. This week, while our brilliant teacher Dave was taking a well-earned break, we were able to call on the services of Lelanie who teaches at two other local CW locations and did a fabulous job when she stood in for Dave this time last year.

Our art project came highly recommended by Lelanie and she was so right – everyone absolutely loved it and said they found it very relaxing and enjoyable. The line and wash technique is always popular (black pen with a watercolour wash) but the subject matter for the lesson, whimsical houses, made it even more fun. The students were encouraged to be as creative and fanciful as they wanted, and there was no pressure to draw anything accurately – in fact Lelanie actively encouraged them to make their houses as wonky and quirky as they could – nothing was off limits!

A lovely lesson – thank you so much Lelanie.

Face-to-Face Classes - Marthall
Tuesday Mornings/Tuesday Afternoons

Something completely new for our students this week – learning to use Chinese brushes and brush strokes to paint some truly beautiful images of blossom on handmade cotton rag paper. It was a hugely enjoyable session – and I think you’ll agree, the finished artwork on the rag paper is just gorgeous! Great work everyone! 👏👏👏

Face-to-Face Classes - Marthall
Tuesday Mornings/Tuesday Afternoons

Working with a white medium on black paper always produces such dramatic results – and our lesson this week was no exception. Check out these wonderful drawings of the majestic black panther – not the easiest subject matter to draw – so well done to all our students for another fantastic gallery of artwork!

Face-to-Face Classes - Marthall
Tuesday Mornings/Tuesday Afternoons

It was a challenging, but incredibly worthwhile and informative session for our students this week. Drawing or painting from real life is always more difficult that working from an image so, every so often, we devote a lesson to helping students develop these skills, teaching them how to: use a view finder to plan their composition and position it on the page, think in terms of shapes rather than objects to create their initial sketch, identify the light source and mark in areas of light and shadow - before building up layers of colour and tone, and finally adding detail to their drawing.

A bunch of grapes might look like quite a simple object to draw but as our students quickly found out, achieving the form of the grapes so they look 3D, is far from easy – not to mention getting the colour right using a set of coloured pencils! A big thank you to our teacher Dave for an invaluable lesson, brilliantly taught – and a big pat on the back for our students for throwing themselves into the challenge and producing such a great set of drawings!

Face-to-Face Classes - Marthall
Tuesday Mornings/Tuesday Afternoons

Tuesday was the first day of the new spring/summer term and as usual, there was an incredible buzz and energy in the hall. We love to see all our returners again after the break, and welcome our new students.❤️

For the first lesson of the term, it was back to one of the most basic, yet probably one of the most popular mediums - graphite sketching pencils. It was a thoroughly enjoyable session and our students proved just how talented they are with a simple pencil and eraser! Just look at these wonderful birds of prey, with such fabulous mark making to suggest the texture of their feathers. Great work, well done everyone! 👏👏👏

Face-to-Face Classes - Marthall
Tuesday Mornings/Tuesday Afternoons

Something a bit different for the last week of term - our students were taught how to scribble!

'Scribble art' is not as easy as the name might suggest, especially as pen can't be erased - but it is such an effective technique for producing beautiful, textured artwork. Students were encouraged not to reach for a pencil to sketch out their initial drawing - instead, to embrace the qualities of the ordinary black biro, learning to integrate any mistakes into their final piece! It was a great session and a fitting way to end a wonderful term of creativity. 😃

Enjoy the break everyone and see you again in a couple of weeks for the start of the spring/summer term!

Face-to-Face Classes - Marthall
Tuesday Mornings/Tuesday Afternoons

The subject matter for our classes this week was very apt – ‘Spring Showers’! We certainly had a few during the course of the day but when it’s dull and grey outside, there’s nothing nicer than being in a room full of enthusiastic artists, enjoying painting together!

Learning to draw umbrellas wasn’t the only challenge presented by this week’s art project! Dave, our very talented teacher, spent time reminding everyone how to mix a full range of colours from just the primaries and white – not easy, especially to get a near-black - but an incredibly valuable skill to learn and practise. It was also an opportunity for students to be really creative with the background to their painting, using credit cards and palette knives as well as brushes to suggest a blurred, rainy scene. Definitely a popular lesson with some wonderful results!

Great work everyone! Happy Easter!🐣🐣🐣