I started a three- day workshop in Bosham yesterday and was surprised to see that all those attending chose to use coloured pencil. Those artists who have already been to me before, know that I teach both coloured pencil and watercolour. I think it has only happened once before that the medium of choice for everyone was coloured pencil

Some people had brought Hellebores from their own gardens to paint, but in the end they all chose from our garden. You might already know that Hellebores are rather promiscuous and therefore breed more than rabbits do and aren’t too choosey about which variety they choose to mate with either! We have Niger ones, slate ones, pale ones, dark ones, spotty ones and a really lovely one we noticed today that was pink and green, with tips of lime green. Amazing.

People have been working hard and concentrating on what they were doing, except each time the pheasant appeared in the garden. He is quite beautiful with a white head and with wattles. I’m not exactly sure what type he is, but if anyone knows, please tell me.

Yesterday a lot of time went into planning the Hellebore picture. Although they probably wouldn’t finish the whole thing over the weekend, I felt it important to focus a little on composition so that when they added to the picture later,  the composition had been planned properly.

The colour was started yesterday, mostly around the stamens. Today they have been forging ahead and these were the results by about lunchtime today. Hopefully I will be able to show some finished results by end of play tomorrow.