A PAIR of painters called The Travelling Brush Dippers are searching for more venues to host their new YouTube vlog.

Sharon Hurst and Denise Allen are professional artists and painting teachers who came up with the name because of their love of touring the country to work.

Denise hails from Norfolk but Sharon lives in Steep Marsh and has been a member of the Petersfield Arts and Crafts Society for 30 years.

Sharon said: “We are always looking for new places to visit and to sit and paint in beautiful or interesting surroundings.

“The Travelling Brush Dippers was a project we started during lockdown to help the artistically inclined and the frustrated travellers during such a tricky, lonely period. Happily we have also collected foreign armchair travellers along the way.”

The project was born out of the isolation many people were feeling during lockdown.

Sharon said: “It was soon apparent back last year that our students were left quite bereft. For many their weekly lessons or their annual painting holiday was one great source of social contact, both with their teachers and their fellow artists.

“We were swamped with emails and phone calls from unhappy people asking us if we could do something to help.”

Denise and Sharon also had some experience as television presenters and so they decided to put their knowledge of working in front of a camera to good use.

Sharon said: “The first stop was Zoom, and together we all grappled with the technology and got our USBs in a real twist. But eventually we all succeeded and we were able to at least hold a class.

“Unexpectedly this turned out to be the most incredible bonus.

“I found a whole new way of teaching where my pupils could watch every brush stroke, in real time, up close and personal.

“I am now teaching in this fashion even though I am back in the classroom.

“My students all bring along their iPads and I sit and paint at the front of the class, explaining my workings, and they paint along with me while they sit at their desks – social distancing at its best!”

Once they had mastered the technology and teaching Sharon and Denise turned their project into The Travelling Brush Dippers vlog.

Sharon said: “We started with a split screen, with the two of us on Zoom chatting art and trialling products, then as lockdown eased we were able to go out and paint outside, travel a bit.

“The programme has evolved, and we now find that we are able to visit places of interest, incorporate a travelogue, a painting lesson, along with our own chat and anything of interest along the way.

“Our shows have included historical Portsmouth, the Weald and Downland Living Museum with a peek into the Repair Shop, and The Harrow Inn in Steep.”

The Travelling Brush Dippers have made two vlogs in East Anglia so far – at Gorleston and Covehithe Beach – and they will be heading to the North Sea coast again soon.

Sharon said: “We will be back in Norfolk at the end of January, painting seals. We are looking forward to that.”

Recently she has been editing the vlog made at The Harrow Inn in Steep, a 16th-century pub which has been under the same owners for 42 years.

Sharon said: “I painted their Christmas cards. It’s a teeny-tiny building – you can get only ten people in the bar – but there are lots of wood burners outside.

“They’ve raised £11,000 for Macmillan and the Rosemary Foundation – they’ve done such an amazing job.”

The vlog has been both entertaining and challenging to do, said Sharon: “We paint, talk, chat and keep in the nonsense for the out-takes at the end.

“We’ve learned a lot, teaching ourselves to edit and make it look good, and grappling with video. The biggest enemy is microphones in the wind.

“It’s fun trying to get the cameras in the right place and deciding how many we need, and then we get home and find we haven’t got the critical picture. It’s like herding cats sometimes!

“We talk about new products and give how-to guides. We’re trying to build it up and get the word out there so people can join in and paint with us.

“I think my favourites were the Repair Shop, and painting the Spinnaker Tower – it was a beautiful day for that.”

A major health scare propelled Sharon towards making art her career.

She said: “I had cancer in 2003 and I decided ‘this is what I want to do’, and everything else went out of the window.

“I’m quite happy to teach all abilities. I get invited to judge art exhibitions and that’s always a really pleasant thing to do. Being creative is good for the mind and the soul.

“I think it’s important we do something that makes us feel good.”

The vlog can be viewed at www.youtube.com/c/TheTravellingBrushDippers