Victoria's marvelous day out...

Painting in gangs...

I have discovered a new love: Plein Air Painting. Unfortunately if you set up an easel outdoors you attract an expectant crowd so it is much safer to paint in gangs.

I thoroughly enjoyed two Jackson's Plein Air Days, at Glyndebourne and Scotney Castle with a couple of students. I am a bit of a novice to painting outdoors with heat and curious flies so my attempts have so far been very underwhelming. I am teaching myself to think of everything as just the start of a project rather than pressurizing myself to create an immediate masterpiece. Something that I constantly tell my students but which is surprisingly hard to do. So I have lots of preliminary ideas to work on over the summer.

So this year I decided to plan a marvelous day out and eventually settled on asking the Abbey in West Malling if we could roam the grounds. I was so excited as I have lived across the road for over twenty years. They very kindly allowed 25 of us in to paint this magnificent 11th Century building with its weirdly impossible proportions plus some magnificent Van Gogh style trees. It was so zen in there, the perfect place to relax and be sketchy and apparently we can go again en masse, next year. Most of us popped up to the park for lunch and then a few of us lasted til dusk, musing amongst the pond life.

I am planning on this being an annual event as it was absolutely brilliant and so relaxing with all the different classes bonding over their pencils and paint. The Abbey staff were so welcoming and I ordered the perfect weather.

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