Today, Thursday 20 February, I am running an all day drawing and painting class again in the beautiful Music Room at Burgh House & Hampstead Museum.
I started running regular watercolour painting classes there on 1 May 2014 and you can see the room with the wisteria in bloom visible from the window that first day. I am so proud of my wonderful Burgh House students. Many of them started painting with me as adults during the last few years, just 2 hours a week, having stopped in childhood, convinced that they had no ability. When not at the art class they are doing humanitarian work in Afghanistan, on business trips in Africa or China, running a charity in Africa or exploring other remote parts of the globe. But – believe it or not – the weekly Hampstead Art class is as much of a personal adventure as anything else they do in their lives. Here is my student, Giovanna Piergallini from Sao Paolo, Brazil, with a recent work. I set up a composition each week and we have looked at work by Giovanna Garzoni, Morandi, Cezanne, Nolde, Matisse, Van Gogh and Renaissance masters for inspiration. But I am particularly pleased with how each developed their own particular approach – there is no “School of Rea”!