On 3 July 2010 Dennis held a Watercolour Workshop mainly for members of the Auckland Watercolour Society. The subject selected was a photograph of a local rural barn. Dennis had them brighten up the colours and also add a stream with submerged rocks instead of the paved (tar) road. Here are some of the results of the Workshop.

	The original barn
	Dennis answering a question.

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Student’s Paintings Below is a random selection of my New Zealand student’s paintings done over the past year. In our studios you can stay on as long as you want to. Obviously, the longer you stay with us the better and more professional the results will be. Some of the paintings have been executed with the painting knife only while others also have texture paste to add interest and make it dimensional. All are in oils.

Lion by Roeleen	Ethnic Women by Roeleen
Sunflowers By Cuilan	Wolf in the Studio? Paige Williams
Lilies in Glass Bowl by Cuilan	Farm where Patricia grew up on
The Wood Carriers by Gill	Pensioner's Day? Patricia, Gill and Keith.
Peter’s third painting	Bowl of Flowers by Roeleen

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Here is a quick 1 1/2 hr pastel sketch on Ingress paper just to get my hand back into pastels after  not doing any for quite a few years.  It is from a photograph taken many years ago in Mpumalanga, South Africa while on holiday

	Stage 1. Quick charcoal outline to start with
Stage 2. Notice that I have compressed it horizontally	Stage 3. Middle area started.
Stage 5. Focal area begun.	Final Painting

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Yesterday  afternoon (Saturday 8th August 2009) was the official opening of our new Torbay Studio. The weather turned out very pleasant for a winter’s day and the turn-out was excellent.

The open time was from 2pm to 6pm and  we averaged 10 visitors per hour. There was a constant and spread out stream of visitors to the studio with a total of 32 visitors throughout the 3-hour period. There was great interest in the forthcoming classes and quite a few have expressed desire of becoming students. A few have  already put their names down for starting in the next couple of days.

Although yesterday was the official opening day, classes had already been started and a very successful workshop was held last Saturday where we had  8 participants - 4 of which were complete beginners. Everyone took home a finished painting of a Venetian Scene done completely with a painting knife only.

I have  included some photographs of the afternoon and also one of a very special visitor. She came alone without her partner and stayed for about 15 minutes to keep an eye on the proceedings. You will meet her at the end of this article. She and her partner are regular visitors to our place.

Thank you to all who were able to visit the Studio.

Enjoy the photographs!

Torbay Newsletter Advert. - August 2009	Studio ready for the visitors
Display of some of Dennis' paintings	Dennis in his Studio
Showing a portrait of himself by one of his ex students	Dennis showing demo video
Anna talking to visitor	An unusual but welcome Visitor

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On Saturday 1 August 2009 the Paint Basket Studio held an introductory Workshop to launch the new studio. We had 8 students who thoroughly enjoyed themselves in the use of the painting knife instead of brushes in executing a painting. I chose a Venetian scene because it needs a certain amount of dexterity in the buildings, specially the windows and the finer “detail”.

I had 4 students who had never painted before and they were highly amazed at the end of the day with their paintings. One added an article to her  Blog and you can view it HERE

All hard at work	Dennis demonstrating
Sophia concentrating	Vicki's painting in progress
KK's very first painting ever!	Also Joanne's very first painting.

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