More information about painting days with Cecil Rice

Painting days are held at:
14 Granville Road
Hove
East Sussex
BN3 1TG

Parking is not be a problem! On Sundays parking is free in the immediate vicinity of Granville Road and on Saturdays, we will give you a complementary day-parking permit if you need to park your car.  Granville Road is about ten minutes’ walk from Brighton Station and is close to Seven Dials and regular bus services.

The days commence at 10.30 prompt and it is a good idea to arrive approximately fifteen minutes early in order to get set up comfortably for painting.

 

If you are an experienced watercolour painter you may well know what to bring with you. But if you are a beginner I'll describe what you will need.

 I will be able to supply some watercolour paper at cost price, though you may have some favourites that you always use or that you'd like to bring. Proper watercolour paper is a must, at least 300gsm weight. Many painters like the economical Bockingford and I will have supplies of this paper. I encourage the use of 100% cotton papers such as Saunders Waterford or Arches or Fabriano, for their excellent feel and absorbency, which I find so essential for 'wet-in-wet' techniques. I'll have limited supplies of cotton paper at cost price. I no longer recommend 'blocks' of watercolour paper because the paper is not certain to stay flat in spite of the manufacturers gluing the sheets on all sides. Straightforward masking tape does not keep paper flat either.  Instead, if you know how, stretch a couple of sheets of paper, not bigger than A3, to lightweight boards and bring them along on the day. If you don't know about 'stretching' paper do not worry. We have clever ways to get around this.

If you have a set of watercolours bring these along.  If not, you'd be advised to purchase a few 5ml tubes of Windsor and Newton Artists quality watercolours (you can often find these on offer, to reduce the cost somewhat. Ken Bromley's art supplies or Jackson's are good online retailers that sometimes discount watercolours and Seawhite of Partridge Green supply highly affordable paints of 'student', i.e. slightly lesser, quality).  I would suggest including Raw Sienna, Alizarin Crimson, Cobalt or French Ultramarine blue, Light Red and Windsor blue red shade or Prussian Blue, at the least. New Gamboge (or similar transparent yellow), Naples Yellow and Burnt Sienna would extend your range considerably. Optional extras would include Cerulean Blue, Cadmium Scarlet and Lemon yellow, but not Cadmium Lemon or Windsor Lemon.

Brushes: You should ideally have a large soft brush, about one inch wide or larger. A 'hake' will be fine but squirrel mops are great too.  Then a moderately large sable brush or equivalent synthetic round brush that comes to something like a point. Lastly, is useful to have one or two smaller brushes such as number 4, 3, 2 or 1, nylon, sable or squirrel.