Three lovely days with lovely people. And what’s more there was improvement and each grew in confidence about their abilities. Some used watercolour and others coloured pencil.

One person hadn’t been on one of the workshops before and in fact hadn’t used the medium for a number of years, or even done any botanical painting. I was impressed about how quickly the technique was picked up and the result was very good.

The roses didn’t always behave as intended. We had some cloud and a lot of sun. And, blow me down but the flowers opened up and followed the sun! We drowned them in a bucket of water each night, but there was one sort that didn’t even benefit too much from that. One rose was picked on the first day and we noticed that there was only one tight bud left that was unlikely to open up until the end of the week!

That night the one rose disintegrated entirely! The student painting it felt a little despondent, but we looked up the garden and there, in front of us was an absolutely splendid open bud. The petals were rich and velvety and we couldn’t believe our eyes. The flower lasted that day and long enough for her to complete it. Luckily, there were plenty of leaves available.

Pictures from the workshop: