paintings of chickens

"buff orpington chickens at sampsons farm" by sarah bell


Good morning from Ruby, Olive and Doris...........

Yes, here are my beautiful chicken girls, first thing the yesterday morning, deciding whether to venture out or have a lie in for a bit longer. We've moved them into new luxury accommodation, that is, Eliza's old Wendy House.

I had to brief them before breakfast with some modelling tips, as it was the third day of teaching my watercolour workshops, and yesterday was "Painting Chickens and Ducks". After a few pointers on deportment, holding a pose for as long as possible and keeping hydrated with lots of water, I left them to it.

Below is a pic of Jamie the miniature Pinscher, who is now an expert on watercolours. He came all the way from the Netherlands with his mistress, Susan, to take part, and slept and sat quietly in his basket in the studio for the whole of the three day course. Well done, Jamie...

Here's one of my lovely students showing off some of her one minute paintings of the chickens in the paddock.

And below, one of the models, striding back to the field after coming to do a quality control inspection some of the drawings

The students had a visit from our newest babies, two of seven tiny bantam chicks currently having a very snuggly time with their mum in the maternity unit (I'll post a family photo of them later this week.) In the meantime, here's a shot of them sitting on a drawing board, but we didn't keep them out long enough to draw as they get cold very quickly.

We had a fantastic day, bobbing in and out of the studio, visiting the chickens , sketching and painting....

The next two paintings are some examples of paintings by my clever students: all eight of them did some fantastic work, and we all had a really enjoyable time.

And here we all are for a group photo at the end of the day. I don't know how everyone managed to smile, as we were all exhausted by such hard work by 5 o'clock: I think it was only those vats of coffee we consumed that kept us going. ( And my boundless enthusiasm , of course!) It was a really lovely day: lots of lovely ladies, lots of painting, lots of chickens, lots of lunch, lots of tea and coffee, and best of all, lots and lots of laughter........
Well done, everybody!

And another exciting thing happened during the three day workshop. I received an email from my friend Jilly Balantyne. She is Artist in Residence at Villa le Reve, in the South of France. Villa le Reve is the former home and studio of one of my artist heros; Matisse.
I spent some time painting there last year.
I even stayed in his bedroom.
So I could almost say," I slept with Matisse".........
Hmmm.
Anyway, here's a little sketch I made whilst I was there:

I watched a wonderful documentary about Matisse last Sunday night, and had a lovely surprise when they spent a long time at the house, and also interviewed Jilly. And now Jilly has sent me an email to ask me to come to the house in France to teach painting alongside her in September.

OH JOY........ thankyou, thankyou, thankyou. Yes.
Of course, I mean I'll have to consult my diary.............. (not!)

If you'd like to watch the programme about Matisse, and I can't recommend it enough, here's the web address:
www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00sfsnd

I'm off now to have a dig around to see if I can find my sketchbook from Villa le Reve, and a few photos that I can show you next time you pop round.