"Yesterday " Workshop 24th Nov

We had great fun as usual in Saturdays workshop...a mix of new students and ones that have been before. Above you can see Jane adding her horizon line to her wonderful atmospheric picture...

Denise was with me for the second time--she had done oils in her workshop before so this was completely different! She chose to do the bright vibrant oranges and reds--my favourite!

Karen comes down from Mansfield with her lovely Mum Sandra...Karen chose the beautiful blues and purples and quickly had a lovely dramatic painting happening.

Bev was painting her picture as a combined birthday/Christmas pressie for a friend of hers--I'm sure she will be delighted when she opens it!

Paul has attended a previous oil workshop with his sister Elaine....however he really found his forte here in acrylics--it seemed almost effortless, a beautiful sky and water were soon done.....and his tree was just stunning-cant believe he hasn't been painting for years!

Elaine was using acrylics for the first time--she seemed to manage the acrylics fine like her brother--brilliant sky with some wispy clouds..and gentle water with just a touch of metallic to make the water shine...

Charlotte's daughter had booked her in after seeing my exhibition at Bishops Castle and picking up a leaflet...I felt that she wouldn't manage a huge 40 in wide canvas as its quite a physical painting to do--and luckily I had a smaller 20in x 16in canvas on the van. She managed that quite well and really enjoyed her session..

Sandra created a beautiful painting,,,lots of light in it --we always have a lot of laughs with Sandra and daughter Karen....and Saturday was no exception!

We met Bill at Shobdon Food and Drink Festival-his wife bought him a gift voucher and this was the one he fancied having a go at....the photo doesn't do this painting justice...it was dark and moody and the light coat of silver metallic on the water just bought it to life...brilliant result Bill..

Well Done--brilliant results everyone!

Brilliant--Camera shy Karen has managed to hide behind her mum!

Brilliant!

New Pond

Bills been busy doing some alterations to the fish pond...the sun gets on it quite a lot of the day and was starting to turn the water green so we decided to put a roof on it to protect it from the sun,,,,after a few drawings he came up with something we both liked!

The reed roof works really well--lets enough light through but keeps the brightness off allowing us to see the fish much better!

It didnt take too long to do---next job is to move the filter box and get the underwater lights set up again...then the fairy lights in the roof ready for the late night BBQ's -cant wait to see it all finished now!

We had a visit from the little whirlwind--aka Ollie yesterday when he came with his mummy for dinner...one thing we learnt is we need to be able to put up a net across the patio side of the pond when the little ones visit--Ollie soon lobbed his water bottle into the pond--followed closely by some mint from the garden! He would soon have been in the water as well if we hadnt been on hand to stop him! Not a very child friendly garden!

Ive been waiting for somewhere to put my lovely wooden turtle for ages--now he looks at home on the side of the pool! The new air stones we have fitted to the pond have made a huge difference, the ripples and bubbles in the water are so calming..we have decided that we are not going to have the water dropping into the pond making a noise when the filter box is moved, but will have the water diverted right into the water so it will be much quieter..

There was a beautiful rainbow last night  when we came back from the hospital!

Who Ate All The Pies?

We get all sorts of birds in our garden eating at the bird tables but yesterday we noticed this little Blue Tit on the nuts looking for all the world like he had been eating all the pies!    He was huge- and had a big fat belly on him!

He was feeding fine and could fly OK so don't think there was anything wrong with him..

It was lovely to see the Bull Finch back again today...

and little fatty was back today, looking slightly smaller today I think,,so maybe he had a bad case of wind!

Finished Glass

I'm quite pleased with my finished tree coaster...

And my semi abstract Summer Day triptych turned out pretty good too..can see i needed to use more of the blue glass powder in the sky to give more depth but its still fine like it is!

Bills first coaster reminds me of a stick insect...love it!

He used strips of ribbon in this one--very effective...

We both love this one,,,,,shame he didn't make me 3 more so I have a set for the dining table!

Bills abstract triptych turned out lovely,,the colours are beautiful and I love the shapes in it..

very interesting to see how the different glass reacted when it was fired in the kiln..it was a great experience and we would love to do it again!.

Glass Fusion Workshop

Me and my Bill spent a very enjoyable afternoon in Leominster at http://www.exemplar-glass.co.uk/#/classes/4556882167  it was an early birthday pressie for Bill and it made a lovely change for me to be on the other side of instruction! I was a bit nervous to say the least but the lovely Jane who runs the workshops soon put us at ease with a lovely cup of coffee and shortbread's. She explained all the different techniques and things that can be done with glass and the photo above shows some of them...

first thing we did was some glass cutting...not as easy as it looks! I tyred a basic little tree to start with....

This is Bills--we had to cut the glass then stick it back onto another piece leaving a small gap so we could fill it with a glass powder to fill in the gaps.....when its fired in the kiln it will change colour..

LOL I struggled to get my glass stuck onto the base glass--couldn't get it very even at all...so I used a stencil to add leaves on top....not a brilliant job but it was my first time!

the glass powder will change colour when its been fired--it may turn out a little bit abstract !

I wanted to do a version of my signature painting "Summer Day as my big piece..it was lovely picking out pieces of glass and arranging them onto a triptych of plain glass,,,,I cut out cloud shapes out of paper to mask them for the sky, then used the glass powder to put colour around them, then I used chunky pieces of turquoise ,blue glass and white  to create the sea, !

Bills pieces in the kiln ready for firing.....he was really creative and imaginative and found the whole session very relaxing....

I used some  glass crystals for the beach, and more chunky glass for the foliage in the foreground.There were some very thin strips of glass that made great grasses and a few red crystals of red made some poppies..the end result may be a bit abstract but I don't mind--it will be recognisable as a Summer Day picture with a bit of luck!

A closer look at the bottom of the picture....we cant wait for Jane to ring and say the pieces are ready to pick up...they will have to be fired and cooled down for a few days then we will pop over and collect them... for anyone wanting to do something different I would recommend Jane's workshops highly--it was great fun to do and the time just flew by so quickly it was unreal.....many thanks Jane xx

Mellow Moods at Eardisley

First of all I would like to thank Sue Amos who did all the hard work organising this painting workshop--she collected the deposits and sent them to me, organised the room, and generally had everything sorted.Most were members of the local craft group and only 2 had painted before so they were all quite excited about it! We had 12 ladies and one man-Alan had dabbled with oils previously....and Verginia has been to several classes with me...

as always it was very interesting to see how everyone tackled the painting--and right from the word go everyone had put their own mark on their painting and were making decisions for themselves

making sure the acrylic paint is dry with the hairdryers before adding the oil colour

the pictures all changed again when the oil colour was added--we had beautiful results and everyone seemed very chuffed with their results--- we have a lot of the ladies coming over to Ludlow in August to paint the Summer Day painting and Sue rang today to say she had another lady coming and she was going to try and get another workshop organised at Eardisley later in the year, so that will be something to look forward to..

We had a good mix of paintings -some were quite delicate while others were bold and bright-there is no wrong or right--just what people feel on the day!

Lovely results!

Hard to believe these are first timers!

Brilliant-

Reeds in the Breeze Workshop April 7th

Sarah was back for the second time and she brought along her friend Suzy with her...

quite a funny story as to how Leslie came to be in class---last week I had to go to Hereford hospital for an MRI scan as my specialist is trying to rule out things as he thinks I'm too young to have polymyalgia...as I was lay there a ladies voice said "your the lady from Ludlow who paints aren't you?" The nurse recognised me from doing a demo at Dilywn  WI a few years ago! Martin the chap who was actually doing the demo was interested and we ended up chatting about the classes--he said it was his wedding anniversary at the weekend and he would go and check his wifes diary, see if she was free (she is a nurse ) and book her in as a surprise.. when we were setting up in the room we heard squealing and looked up to see Lesley being bought into the room with hubby's hands over her eyes....when she opened then she said OMG but I cant paint! I assured her she would be able to  do it no probs and she soon got chatting to another  lady who was painting for the first time-Suzy---to say they were both a bit nervous was a bit of an understatement! I still dont know how Leslies hubby got her past my A board and van without her seeing where she was going or what she was going to do......

14 year old Lydia came along with her mum Helen for the 2nd time, she was a confident artist and followed my directions very carefully..

Jenny chose to use the duck egg blue for her painting, and she made a beautiful job of it--she has been quite a few times now and she has gone from strength to strength--I'm very proud of her because she hasn't had an easy time of it bless her ...

Suzy was a brilliant laugh--we were creased at a few things several times...we have the same sense of humour--wicked! You wouldn't believe that she had never painted before--she was quite subtle with her colours and wanted to make the flowers at the end have impact.. she also had some amazing glasses with spotlights on each side,,everyone wanted a pair!

Melanie was another first timer, she got a bit lost and was  a bit late for the class  although she arrived in Ludlow 2 hours early!  Anyway she eventually found the right church after trying 2 others--the information centre were very helpful and gave her a map to show her the way...but for some reason she parked the car about a mile away from our venue and ran there! I hadn't realised until she asked what time we finished in the room so she could go and fetch the car! I was really worried she would get a parking ticket as I couldn't make out where exactly the car was so Bill took her in the van to fetch it at lunchtime!!! She was a real good sport and we all had a laugh about her being blonde...it was good to meet someone as bad as me to be honest..since Ive been on the steroids Ive had a proper treacle brain!

you could cut the concentration with a knife at times.....

the girls with their paintings--we had loads of laughs all day--and everyone really enjoyed it--everyone wants to come again-and we will look forward to seeing them all very much!

Lovely paintings ladies

great work,,,,,Suzy's painting is looking a bit washed out on this photo---I have managed to bring out the detail a bit more on the photo below....

lovely picture Suzy...

We even have tea towels with a painting theme on them now LOL