Bottles and brushes

On Sunday my friend Danielle and I went to a new art class in my local area. You may have seen in previous blog posts that we have attended arty things together before, but Bottles and Brushes was a new one for us.

I found the event on a local Facebook page and decided to give it ago. We didn’t really know what to expect, but recently I’ve been looking for inspiration for new things to paint so I thought it would give me some inspiration and be a fun few hours.

We entered the art hall we were greeted by Daisy one of the artists who leads the Bottles and Brushes classes. She offered us a glass of prosecco and then we chose our table. There were a number of items laid out on the table, card, paper, newspapers, paints and paintbrushes, fine liners, a mixing tray and glue along with snacks.

After everyone had arrived, Daisy gave a demonstration on what we would be working on. The session was based on creating an architectural mixed media piece to take home in a frame.

We started out by selecting an architectural image to work from, and then prepping our pre cut watercolour paper with a background. I chose to use darker and dirty colours, whereas my friend Danielle chose to use more colour.

We then used carbon paper to transfer the image onto the watercolour card. Carbon paper is something that is essentially tracing paper but quicker. I haven’t used this for a very long time as I do prefer to hand sketch my own subjects before painting them. However, this is a great tool for somebody who maybe isn’t very confident in their own drawing skills.

You place the paper shiny side down under the image you want to transfer and you trace the image which will give you something similar to the image below.

We then went on to use fine liner pens to add dimension, depth and more colour. We used splashes of paint to create a more lifelike image and we were left with free rein to create whatever we wanted.

Daisy popped over to our table to offer advice or help but she was quite keen to let us explore whatever we wanted to and she really liked our designs and even used mine as an example to other people on the night.

Here is Danielle checking out her masterpiece in the making.

Here was my finished piece. I used black fine liner, paint and newspaper.

You can see the image below that I used to work from.

ta dahhhhh!

The finished product!

I’d recommend a Bottles and Brushes event! They have a Facebook page and do Cardiff art, textiles and printing classes in Caerphilly, Penarth, Llandaff and more.

We asked a little bit about other classes that they do, and Daisy explained to us about their recent workshops that involved printmaking and textiles. I think it’s a really great idea to attend one-off things like this to stay creative and get inspired to go off and do things on your own too. It made me want to take a (potentially financially dangerous) trip to HobbyCraft or The Range, which I havent done yet, but I’m planning on getting the paintbrushes out over the bank holiday weekend coming up.

We both really enjoyed the class and will definitely be attending more when they pop up in the future.

Here is their Facebook page if you’re interested in their South Wales classes : Bottles and Brushes