Holiday

We are off on holiday tomorrow--down to Wimbourne , Dorset for 5 nights courtesy of Tesco vouchers. I saved them religiously for 2 years and transferred them to holiday deals while they were still 4 x the face value!
We have the 4 poster suite booked up and it sounds wonderful....jacuzzi bath and the works! Then we are stopping  at a hotel in Yeovil for 2 nights on another special deal!
Its Bills birthday on Wednesday so we will be relaxing and chilling out while we are away....we just love mooching around and people watching.
My niece and her partner are house/pet sitting for us--so Ive been catching up with a few odd jobs around the house before going to bed--We have an early start tomorrow---I will be sleeping in the car on the way there after this late night!
Anyway Im off up to bed now--everything is spick and span---so I can relax properly while Im away!
I will have my laptop with me  so can keep up to date with bookings for classes/orders etc...bye for now....

Oliver's Birthday Party

We had a lovely time today at Olivers birthday party.
We met Oliver a while ago at one of the craft fairs here in Ludlow. He came along to the first oil painting class of the year and is booked in to do the "African Dream" one on March 8th.
All six of the children had great fun using the encaustic irons,wax, and special tools. Their imagination ran riot with all sorts of wonderful things being spotted in the finished pictures.We had polar bears, foxes,dogs, people, fishes--you name it we had it!!
Everyone really enjoyed themselves, and apart from Oliver who had one go at it previously at the craft fair-no one had come accross this unusual way of creating art before!
Oliver was very pleased with his birthday present of a frame big enough to put his big picture into that he created today!

Childrens Encaustic Parties

After an inquiry today after a mum who I met at the weekend, I am able to announce that I will be available for childrens encaustic art birthday parties.

The children will be supervised and shown how to create beautiful melted wax pictures.
I will also supply a frame for the birthday child to put his/her favorite picture in.
They will be able to make some postcard size pics and also 1 A4 size.
If you are interested in having an encaustic party please get in touch with me.

Little Stars !!

As Promised --Kate and Sarah who both had a go at encaustic art and really enjoyed them selves--Its been very busy today with everyone wanting to try it out!

Paper Boy

When we came out of Saturdays class this is what we saw outside--Cheek-a--boo the shropshire star paper -pony! He was waiting while his owner popped the paper through the letter box-isnt he cute?

Who Wanted Mosaic Tiles!!

I didnt realise when I chose the tiles for the kitchen walls, just how much work was involved in grouting them! 2 days Ive been at it, but what a difference its made, the whole lot looks much lighter than before, I will take some more pics tomorrow so you can see the difference.

I decided to tile behind the dishwasher and the cooker, or rather I wanted Bill to tile behind the dishwasher and cooker, so this has made more work for him-hes very patient with me bless him!

BBQ

Well after a morning mooching at the car boot sale, we decided to hold a family bbq, so we rushed off to the supermarket to stock up with steak and burgers, I have made some of my celery,nut, apple and sultana colslaw and Bill has made his own colslaw cos he dont like celery!
I have also made a delicious mango and tomato sweet chilli salsa to go with it all--I think the diet has gone out of the window this weekend somehow-but you have to make the most of this weather!!
Off now to prepare some more food!

Jordan's Painting

You can see 10 year old Jordan concentrating really hard in the photo, he and his little 8 year old brother Kieron decided to put an owl in their painting, as well as some twigs on the ground, that had fallen off the tree! I love it when pupils decide to do things without being told,it shows that their imagination is working and that I have given them the confidence to express them selves!

Kierons Painting

This is 7 year old Kieron, he has made a smashing job of his very first oil painting, some very dramatic trees and a lovely sky! He decided he wanted an owl his paintng, and the result was great-a cartoon owl, he was really chuffed with the result!

He couldnt get comfortable to sign his painting and had us all in stitches as he kept changing position!

Childrens Class

Here is Paige creating her own masterpiece, she is looking very serious signing her name at the end!

Everyone seems to find that the hardest part of the whole thing-as you will see when I put on Kierons pictures !

More Pics From The Childrens Class

Here is Svanah who painted a great picture in todays class, some really spooky trees, and she tryed really hard to get her reflections right in the pond too!!! She did really well, and listened to what I told the class very carefully!

Some More Pictures from Childrens Class

This little star got more paint on herself than on the canvas-but she is only just 5 years old and Rivkah produced the most beautiful painting! David is putting the finishing touches to his painting by putting a moon in, he is only 7 years old and is Rivkahs big brother.

I have just had an email from Sarah, the childrens mum saying how much the children enjoyed their day painting with me-well all I can say to they is that they were a joy to teach and I look forward to seeing them again when they come next time with all the family!

The Childrens Class

As you can see from the photo we had some brilliant little artists in todays class!!! Jordan on the left has been to me twice before-all the others were new to it! Will post more later!!

Childrens Class Full

The childrens class this thursday 26th July is full--I have children coming from Litchfield, Telford and Ludlow--weather/flooding permitting!!!

We will be painting a version of ''Winter Wonderland''

The ages range from just 5 years old to 10 years this thursday-3 girls and 3 boys so a nice balanced class!!

Paintings

After finding myself with a free morning after all the floods, I decided to do some tweaking of some of my previous paintings.

There was just a few bits annoying me in each of these Winter Walk paintings!

I just altered the paths a little bit and added a bit more snowy foliage and Im very please with them now!

Busy Weekend Again!"

This is the subject of this Saturdays Class. I have 5 people coming to it so far.

Its one of the most popular painting classes that I do

It is a busy weekend--my daughter is moving home on Saturday--we wont be much use to her cos I wont be free until 3ish but my son Jim will be on hand with a big van to help her move the big stuff.
Then we are going out in the evening to wet the babies head-Lyndsey and Darren and little Holly are coming all the way down from Sunderland on Saturday.
Cant have too much to drink cos we are on the craft market on Sunday!!!!!!!


The childrens class is almost fully booked, just 2 places left--the local paper is coming to take some more pics at the class on Saturday--after we came back on Wednesday night and found that the local paper had dug up an ancient pic of me with short hair(YUK) and 2 stone heavier for a otherwise brilliant review of me and my demos at the WI's in Mondays paper.

I am working on some other ideas at the moment-re the kids classes-I have a lot of enquires about other dates for the classes-will keep you posted via email for those interested.

Spoiling The Little One!

I went shopping this morning and couldnt resist this beautiful little dress-its soooo pretty- it cost more than I would usualy spend on something that will only fit her for a few weeks, but hey if you cant spoil them when they are little when can you?

House Sitter

My friend is coming to look after the pets this morning--lucky she has a easy going hubby who dosent mind her coming for a few days at short notice!
The animals are in for an unexpected treat--they get spoiled rotten when she comes to stay!
She will also be checking my emails for me and letting me know if there is anything that cant wait til we get back.
What did we do before mobiles?

Encaustic work

Examples of some of the paintings created using the melted wax today on the craft fair. They are all for sale at £5 each including P+P

please get in touch if you would like to purchase one of them. They all come unmounted and unframed and is the latest affordable way of collecting my art.

Bills Painting

I thought Bill was winding me up today at the craft fair-he picked up the brushes and started to paint one of my small canvas that I use for my 4 minute paintings!

Within 10 mins he had produced this lovely painting! Not bad for his 3rd attempt at painting ever!

He has cleaned hundreds of brushes but he surprised me big time by using them to paint with today!
Several people watching thought he was the artist with all the work on display!

I am going to be able to let him do the craft fairs and classes on his own if he carries on at this rate!

He is a real help in my classes as he knows what is suposed to happen with each brush stroke at each stage and if he see's anyone who does not look sure about what they are doing he can advise them what to do, while I over see the others and get round everyone.

I have a full class this Saturday and I am looking forward to see if Carol from Leominster has done any painting at home since the last class, she bought a knife from me at Shobdon and said she was going to have a go on her own.I am going to take Bills painting to show them all, what a clever hubby Ive got!