For many of us, our first experience of paint is as children, using watercolours. Now might be the perfect time to revisit the medium as adults with a series of workshops for beginners in July with Thirroul artist Christine Hill.
Christine, who is a self-taught figurative artist, grew up in Kent in the UK.
“My father was an architect, so there was always a lot of paper around to practise drawing on,” she remembers. Today, she lives in Thirroul and runs the art show at the Thirroul Festival.
Her series of four classes at the Clifton School of Arts covers all aspects of mastering the basics of watercolour, from mixing paints to how to achieve different effects depending on brush technique and types of paper. By the end of the course, participants will have completed a work based on a favourite photograph.
Less intimidating and costly than oils and acrylics, watercolours have a user-friendly quality of immediacy that appeals to Christine. “I love their freshness and spontaneity. They are very portable, which makes them perfect for quick pieces done on the run, while you are travelling.”
Some years ago, Christine put this to the test teaching watercolour painting to passengers on a cruise ship. “Motion certainly added a degree of difficulty when it came to controlling the wash of paint on the paper,” she says, remembering how her students would gather in the ballroom every day around the dance floor on their voyage between New Zealand and California, with plenty of colourful landscapes to inspire them at stops from Christmas Island to Tahiti and Hawaii.
“As someone who paints in a transparent style suited to watery scenes, I love plein air painting and being out in nature; but it also really helps to be in a beautiful place like the CSA rather than a smelly, dark old hall,” Christine says.
She tries to paint a little sketch every day. “I feel so grateful to live in a place that provides constant inspiration.”
‘An introduction to painting with watercolours with Christine Hill’ comprises four 2.5-hour sessions on Tuesdays, 10am-12.30pm on July 4, 11, 18, 25. Cost for 4 classes: $180 CSA members, $200 for non-members. Book via Humanitix.
Join the CSA for $20 at www.arts.clifton.org
