Latest Exhibition

We went over to Church Stretton Leisure Centre this morning to set up my latest solo exhibition...its a great venue with lovely natural light.

I had the measurements of the available space and was able to map out on paper what was going where..

was very pleased with how it all looked...Bill measured everything accurately and got the pictures up quickly and neatly..

plenty of room fro all the information about me and the workshops as well..

From there we went on to The Plough at Shifnal...the landlady had asked me to do a solo exhibition there in Dec so we decided to go and suss it out..we had a lovely Sunday lunch there! But after seeing the space available and considering the distance from home Ive decided not to do it...I would have to paint smaller paintings to fit the space available as being an old black and white building there isn't any large areas to hang in and 99% of my art is on big canvas..so I will give this one a miss...I just don't have time to get enough smaller paintings done.....

The Plough---lovely place-full of old beams...

Centre

we had a visit off our Tommy with his daddy later when we got home....Tommy is growing so fast....getting chunkier by the minute love him!

Steve Machin -a brilliant artist

We have had the pleasure of being alongside Steve Machin and his wife at lots of local craft fairs over the past year or so. He is so talented its unreal. I have taken the photos of his work today to show you all the sort of thing he does.

He doesn't yet have have his own website, but hopefully he will do very soon--I have pointed him the direction of www.mrsite.com which is a very easy to use website which enables you to create your very own website for around £40.

Steve does the most beautiful pencil and charcoal drawings for an amazing price-I don't know how he does it to be honest--if you are interested in having him paint your loved one or your pet prices start at around £50---you can see just how talented he is at this sort of thing.His wildlife pictures are just beautiful and wont break the bank-- If you want to contact him please get in touch with me at enquiries@paintingmyway.co.uk

or ring me on 01584 872013 or 07800902488 and I will pass on his details to you.

Todays Class

Today we had a really laid back class!

Everyone had met in my classes before--

Jack had been once before, Jan was doing her 4th painting and Sharleen was painting her 3rd one.

The painting was a different one to the one advertised, but that is nothing unusual-nothing is set in stone with me, I will chop and change the subjects to fit in with what people want to do!

Sharleen bought along Chip who is seen checking out the subject for the painting today! I think everyone was surprised at the way that the painting evolved today. We started off with a black canvas, added some white acrylic with some various sponges, then we painted in some trees in various colours of white, grey and black.

As soon as we put the linseed oil onto the dryed acrylic you could see it come to life,as soon as the linseed oil hit the canvas it just became more vibrant, the black and white paint took on a totally different look- the original painting had shades of blues,yellows and greens in it. I had decided that I was going to paint mine all green to replace the 'Emerald Wood ''painting that I sold a while ago.

After seeing how my painting had progressed, they all decided that there were some changes they would like to make to their original acrylic paintings-mainly a big branch on their main tree!! We has such a laugh in the class, everyone was ok putting in the background trees but as soon as I mentioned painting BIG trees it all went very quiet and no-one wanted to do it! There was a lot of breath holding going on!!!!

Everyone watched as the painting transformed from black and white to a magical green enchanted scene.

After seeing mine everyone decided to ''go green''

I set the paint out onto the palette and said'' right then whos going first then''--silence for a minute and then Jan-bless her said ''Ok then lets get it bloody over with!!!!!'' it cracked everyone up!!

Earlier in the class after we had to use the sponges to apply the background, we all had lots of weird things appear in the paintings. Sharleen and Jan and myself all had strange faces and some animals in theirs, but Jack beat everyone with his 'witch on a broomstick-complete with moon in background!''

All in all a great day-loads of laughs as usual, Jan came home with us to borrow some of my extensive range of art books, I am always happy to help any of my students in any way I can, and as I have built up quite a collection of various art books in one form or another, I am quite happy for them to use them to practise with at home! I have also told them all to ring me if they are not sure about anything--Id rather they do that than make a major mistake at home and be put off painting for good!!!!

All of the students will be joining the SAA, of which I am a PA-- (professional advisor)

The Society for All Artists --- www.saa.co.uk

is a very informative and helpful site -the bi-monthly magazine is full of helpful hints and tips about painting and the regular catalogue is full of bargains.The joining fee fee is soon recouperated when ordering their paints etc at discounted prices-anyone who is going to paint on a regular basis would be well advised to join this society--everything is P+P free too.

Try This Out!!!

I have tryed this out and called Bill to try it out too--It is most weird try it yourself and see!!!!
www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,22535838-5012895,00.html

Some great links

My mate Sharleen has sent me some great links for some arty things http://fcmx.net/vec/get.swf?i=03702
and also http://members.fortunecity.com/camarila/jimwarren/04.html
take a look! Jim Warren is a fantastic artist-checvk him out on google for some more images

Jeannie Zelos

I want to tell everyone about a great forum that I am a member of http://forum.jeanniezelos.com/


is a great site with like minded members on board. Lots of hints and tips as well as being able to make small talk with other artists.
Its amazing what you can learn from forums such as these.Drop in and say hello to me and all the other artists on there!!!

Latest Painting

This latest painting in my ''Manic series'' is called ''Get Knotted''

Painted on staple free box canvas, coloured threads mingle with each other and are nearly knotted together.

There is a lot of depth in this painting, the more you look, the deeper it gets.

Very vibrant and colourful it measures 80cm x60 cm and is for sale at £150.

I have just spent half an hour putting all the latest paintings on www.protectmywork.com

Its a great site and well worth while doing if you are an artist.

Class in Hadnall

We went to Hadnall today to do a class of WI ers who we met earlier in the year.

We set up in Christinas consevatory which was very good of her!!

From the left we have Barbra, Betty,Liz, Jean, Christina and Caroline.

We had such a laugh -they were all nervous and convinced that they wouldnt be able to paint the picture-and all over the moon with what they achieved.

There was quite a variety of different sky's , ponds and trees as always. It is quite fasinating to watch how each student interprets every thing I tell them and show them-although we all use the same materials, each painting is totaly individual to each student-

All todays students were keen to paint again and I look forward to meeting up with them all again-next time at Carolines place !!!!!!!

Robbies Painting

Ive spent an interesting morning with Robbie from Wolverhampton. Its his 5th class with me, and today he wanted to do an abstract painting on a large canvas.

After looking through some of my paintings he decided to do one like 'Beneath the Waves''

Its an interesting painting to do, built up in layers and layers of paint.

It was quite funny to watch the proccess, because each stage was very good as a painting in itself, the first layers looked almost like a giraffe skin,the second layer looked like a photo of the world taken from space, and after the finished article looked like the underwater scene intended.

He is coming back later this month to paint a large seascape.

Latest Painting--Curly Wurly ll

This another of my latest paintings, I have had a great day painting---I should have been having a sort out ready to start the decorating and tiling but instead out came the easel and paint and away I went!

I spent a lot of the time preparing the canvas with layers of acrylic paint before doing the actual painting.

It measures 80cm 70 cm and is painted onto deep edge box canvas.The sides of the cavas have been left black.

The colours are more vibrant than appears on the screen .

The price of this work is £150 including P+P in Uk. If you are outside Uk please get in touch.

Latest Painting

In between all the chatting to customers today I painted this colourful new work.

Its called Curly Wurly for obvious reasons!!!!! it measures 8in x10in and will be mounted ready to frame.The cost of the painting is £30 including P+P.

I will be working on a much larger version tomorrow.

I have some lovely big canvas just waiting for something like this!!!!!

I have just spent the past hour updating all the paintings of the past week or so on the copyright site, ready for putting on my sites. its important to keep the records up to date, Sunday night is my night for doing all the sorting out ready for a fresh start for a new week.

If you need a copyright sevice I would reccommend the one I use www.protectmywork.com

Craft Fair.

This is me and Helen, a fellow artist member of the forum I am on, she was in the area on holiday with her husband for their anniversary.

They called by the craft fair, it was great to meet up with her and have a chat and a laugh!

All in all we had a very good day-the weather stayed beautful for us and there was LOADS of visitors about!

Day Off

It was lovely to have a day off today for a change.We went round to see mum and had a catch up with the news, been too busy to call for a couple of weeks.
Then me and Bill went to Hereford to buy some more paint and brushes to replenish the stock sold at yesterdays class.
While we were walking down the High Street we smelt a wonderful aroma of roast beef coming from one of the best hotels-so on the spur of the moment we went in and had the best sunday dinner that we have had for a long time!
Bill had a field mushroom sauted with garlic on a large crouton and I had an asparagus and cherry tomato tartlet with warm salad and redcurrant jelly to start and then we both had roast beef and all the trimmings!
It was beautiful, the veg's were cooked just right, not hard but not soft either. There was carrots,broccoli,swede,cabbage,roast parsnips, and poast potatoes! As well as a gigantic yorkshire pudding!
We have both worked very hard lately so we enjoyed the treat and will cook the shoulder of lamb that we had bought for today,tomorrow!!!

Todays Class

Here is the class of today,We had a great time- we spent more time in giggles than we did painting!from left to right---

Pauline and Irene'1' on the left of me had never painted before,Carole on the right of me has been to me before and is 'addicted to my classes' according to what she has written in my comments book.

Brian, to the right of her had tryed and failed to paint in other classes , and Hayley-- Caroles daugter was here doing her 3rd ever painting and Irene '2' on the right was scared stiff that she would not be able to do it!!

Every body enjoyed the class today-we were in uproars at Pauline who decided that one of her tree's was to be called'Angela'Why '?-we dont really know-she just thought it should be!

Irene'2' was a scream--she was to be todays ''fiddler''of which we always have one!

In every class we have one person that 'fiddles the most' that just wont leave the painting alone-and today that prize went to Irene '2'

And in the other competition of ''''the person who used the most white paint''--another contest that we have in each class it was a close contest between Brian and Irene 2. And again Irene 2 won it!

The winner of the most paint on the hands and anything else was a toss up between me and Irene 2!

And I won it hands down when we counted how many baby wipes we had used!

The muckiest palette was won by Brian-whose palette was a mud bath by the time we had finished! Everything was grey!

4 of the 6 have booked for next weeks class which has changed from 'Snowy Day' to 'Summer Day', as I have said on my website -nothing is set in stone with the classes and if people want to paint a particular painting we will do so!

Getting Ready

Bill has been busy today, getting the canvas prepared for tomorrows class.As you can see they are drying on my worktops .

The brushes are in the garage being sorted out their box's, so we are all set for the Winter Wonderland class in the morning.

Snowy Day

I ahve spent an enjoyable afternoon painting the latest new painting that we will be doing in a class on Saturday 7th July.

It is quite an easy one for beginners and more experienced students alike.

Craft Fair

Today, although the weather was a bit iffy to say the least,was busy.As you can see we had plenty of warning of the showers that came along and had chance to cover things up!

I managed to paint the alterative "Summer Day " painting for Saturdays class and it recived a seal of approval from onlookers!.

Coventry Class

This happy group came all the way from Coventry to do the class today.Cheryl (2nd left )had booked it for Grant (on left) 40th birthday.

We had such a laugh- they were a great bunch and I think we will see them again!

As you can see the paintings turned out quite different to each other-some were quite bold with the colour wash and some more subtle!

Grant certainly had a birthday to remember after the class they were off to The Feathers for tea, then back to Coventry to go to the theatre-and Im told there are more suprises to come tomorrow--Grant should think his self lucky he has such great friends!!!

Talking of friends-a lady and her hubby came talking to us for quite a while after the class,then about an hour later she was back-they had lost their keys and were retracing their steps.We looked and couldnt find them anywhere, so phoned my son who is a mechanic to see if he could help-he was on his way to a rally so I phoned the owner of the garage where he worked and he said he would come and get it started for her.They had a dog with them and they were looking at either staying in B+B for 3 nights until Tues cos they thought the keys might have been left in post office or having the streering lock broken and fixed which would have been cheaper!

She kept saying how good we were helping her-we said no problem.She went to find hubby to say we could get the car going for her and came back to say hubby had found keys-she had a beautiful bunch of flowers for us for helping, a lovely gesture.

They say what goes around comes around and I am finding more and more that this is true-you get what you sow.

Desire

As you can probly see, I have been tempted to have a play around with one of my recent works'Desire'
I was not completely happy with it, it just wasnt vibrant enough in some places.
I have reinforced the bits I wasnt quite happy with and also turned it round again, from vertical to horizontal.
I am much happier now.The strength of colour is much stronger in real life than on the screen.

You can see why so many people love my easel-when we do the craft fairs and demos we often catch people standing looking at it,it is a work of art in itself!!
This painting is 90cm x30cm and is for sale at £150 including P+P in UK

Latest Painting

This is my latest work. Bright, vibrant and bold, blues merge with reds and yellows to produce all sorts of beautiful colours inbetween, its hard to see where one colour starts and another one ends.
A great piece for the modern contemporary home.

Its painted on deep edge box canvas and is painted on all sides for easy hanging with no framing required.I created it using high quality acrylic paint.
It measures 30cm x 90cm so its quite a large piece.

It started off life as a horizontal painting but when I turned it on its side to paint the bottom-everyone prefered it this way!

At the end of the day its personal preference, the painting can be hung in 4 different ways-you can choose which way you like it!

The title is 'Desire' and it is for sale at £150 including P+P in UK.

If you are interested in buying it or commissioning one like it please get in touch, through either of my wesites
www.paintingmyway.co.uk
www.dianetheartist.com