Jean Haines Workshop – Christmas finally arrives!

It’s been a long wait, I’ve been very patient, but it finally came around – this weekend is the Jean Haines workshop that Jim bought me as a Christmas present last year. Two whole days of watching extremely closely how she achieves her wonderful watercolours and soaking up the pearls of wisdom.

Today was Day One, and I made sure my bags were packed yesterday and the car full of petrol so I could set off today in lots of time to get there half an hour early… only to find half the class already set up and chatting like they’d known each other for ever! It was a good sign though, they’re a thoroughly friendly bunch and we’ve had a great day 🙂 .

I won’t go into everything we saw and learned, it would take hours… suffice to say I have some new insights, a new size 12 sable brush (a treat to myself), and half a dozen squirts of exciting new colours on my palette that people have shared with me – I can definitely see a new Christmas list forming 😉 . This morning we did several practise washes to loosen up, saw lots of demonstrations and we spent time this afternoon putting some of what we’d learned into practise.

Here is one of the more finished pieces I have from today, a Rainbow Lorikeet in very vibrant colours. You may recognise this as one that I’ve tried before, however this is much larger than previous attempts and brighter, cleaner and looser. I had problems with the background to begin with and washed it off, but then I had some advice from the expert and dropped in the diagonal splash of turquoise. It was suggested I also add something similar to the bottom left to balance this, which I may try tomorrow (if we get time).

The day ended far too quickly and none of us wanted to leave, but now I’m shattered and ready for bed. I have to be up with the birds again tomorrow, Jean suggested we start early to make the most of the remaining time!

I think this is probably the longest I’ve ever waited to play with a Christmas present… but it is utterly worth it!!