Monday 28 February 2011

Stepping Stones

 In the 1990's, on a watercolour course at Juniper Hall ( which I left early as the tutor was so awful), I painted the stepping stones across the River Mole, catching sight of a mink strutting along the bank. I was trying to capture the difference in movement in water either side of the concrete 'stones' (and  wishing I hadn't taken the subject on given the difficulties in accurate perspective)
 A different view yesterday when we revisited Box Hill  although still interesting differences in water movement despite submerged stones
 It started out bright and sunny, if a bit muddy toiling up the steps from the river to the viewpoint. But just after we'd had our lunch on a bench overlooking distant  hills, admiring the cloud formations, just contemplating getting my watercolours out, it started to rain. As it wasn't forecast, we'd only brought light waterproofs - and we found the zip had gone on Ian's. In our haste to get down Burford Spur to the train, Ian took a tumble and got coated in mud  (bit shaken and sore  but otherwise ok) -  luckily I had a bit of plastic beachmat to protect the seats on the  train. No curry buffet this week - straight home for a good soak in the bath with a glass of 'Hever' ( homemade sloe gin!) 

2 comments:

Pheasant Run Studio said...

As a teacher, I'm wondering why you thought the watercolor tutor was so bad.

Alex

magsramsay said...

Poor tutor? Where do you want to start! Having been on lots of courses with this organisation before,this tutor was not of the calibre of others I'd been taught by. His main experience was in teaching evening classes where I guessed his methods had never been questioned. Apart from spending most of the time with his partner who was one of the participants, the advice when he gave it was inaccurate (a selection of pet theories including a muddled account of colour theories which applied to watercolours would produce mud!) He also avoided those of us with more experience.
I left early as I could spend my time more productively at home and wrote to explain why. They refunded me in full (even though I hadn't asked for it) and said there had been other complaints and wouldn't be employing him again.