Clare Shepherd
Artist and Teacher
Artist led Art Classes

The Picasso drawing on the left shows a simple still life but you can begin to see that there was more going on then a simple still life and he is including some of it into his drawing. It gave him a way of dismantling his image and creating movement in the composition. In the past we’ve talked about extending edges through a drawing, finding a reason for an edge (maybe a window or door, or something on the opposite table) and extending that edge in an enigmatic way through t

There was a great atmosphere of creativity and hard work today. Some finished projects and others will still be on-going at home. We have wonderful results from a very fruitful three days.

Another lovely day, not to hot - rather breezy!! (a few slammed doors!) and some wonderful things on the go.

Some people are following the lesson plan and others are bringing their own projects from home, lovely to see progress with all. Although it was very hot outside the hall remained cool; some were out and drawing early enough to avoid the hottest hours.

Chettle Summer School 2026 – ‘Landscape: Simplifying shapes, playing with colour’ Sunday, Monday & Tuesday 12th, 13th & 14th July 2026 On my laptop, we’ll look at some examples of landscape painting and ask ourselves ‘how have these paintings conformed to our motto this summer ‘Simplifying shapes, playing with colour’? Weather permitting, I shall send you out sketching the local landscape – it can include ponds, houses, barns, buildings, tractors, fences, fields, trees, bushe

I asked my students to bring long stems, a large sheet of paper, watercolours and black gel pens. They began by creating a simple landscape drawing onto which they then imposed the individual stems in black gel pen. The idea was to bring together the two distances - near and far and to weave an image of a wild meadow passing across the distance as (what I call) a foreground reference. As ever, some of my students follow their own plans, about which I'm very happy!

I'll be home by next Thursday! It's been hot and humid with endless rain and thunder so I haven't dared take out my nice camera in case it gets waterlogged. We've been mostly taken up with childcare. In China, new mothers lie-in for a month in a confinement hotel. Our daughter in law has done her confinement in Shenzhen (with the twins) so we've been going over there for weekends but spending the weekdays in Hong Kong doing the school run for their older sibling. As her paren

Inspired by the latest National Trust Magazine cover, I've amalgamated two ideas, one of which we've worked with in our previous weekly classes. Some of you will remember that we brought into class lots of long stems and drew them individually on one page with black gel pen, slowly gathering what looked like a field’s worth of lovely stems all on one pen drawing. Then some of you added a bit of watercolour for added depth. We’re going to do it slightly differently. I want you

We were looking at still-life through the eyes of Giorgio Morandi and his enigmatic watercolours. There were various exercises to complete to put our minds in the Morandi way of thinking. Here are the great results of the day's work. Some people brought their own projects from home which I always welcome and can help with. All in all a busy happy day.

It's been hot and steamy and we've been mostly busy with child care and school runs (lots of after school clubs including plenty of ART!). As there's not much time to paint (and I have to admit to being less inspired here than in Japan to paint) I have had plenty of reading time - great to have read (almost) four books here! We'll be heading home the day after tomorrow, overnight flight and back in Blighty nice and early Friday!