Finished Painting

I have emailed Bet, who commissioned the latest Summer Day ,the image of the finished painting and she loves it!!!!
As you can see on the close up, I have added the ladybird she requested.
Its only a rough draft of the ladybird, will have to wait for the paint to dry a bit more and add more colour and detail to it in a couple of days.
I have really enjoyed doing this painting, I think the addition of both the daisies and cornflowers as well as the normal poppies really adds to the tranquil feel.
It will be around 3 weeks before I can post it to her, so it will in time for the birthday she commissioned it for.

Some More Pics For Jan!!!

The latest sky pics were all taken traveling to and from Wellsbourne last week.Every picture was taken out of the car window as we were going along.When I got home and loaded the camera onto the computer I found that I had taken 222 pictures in just over a day,mainly of trees and skies!!!

They are all good for practising techniques, and Jan was going to have a go at skies before the next class, Ive certainly given some food for thought again!!!

Visit to Stratford

We had a lovely time looking around Stratford Upon Avon in the week. They were busy putting up the christmas lights in the streets, it looks like it will be a beautiful sight when they are lit up!

The giant teddy bear was just gorgeous,he was standing outside a teddy bear shop funnily enough!

We went for a nice stroll around the park next to the Royal Shakespeare Company and the young swans thought that Bill had some goodies in the bag for them--unfortunatly it was just some new painting materials!!

Rita RIP

Our dear friend Rita passed away last night 31st Oct.

I have known Rita for over 3 years now, she was a real character-full of beans and most of the time a laugh a minute.

Bill used to tease her and call her 'a cantankerous old bugger'.

I cant tell you how much she will be missed.

We didnt miss many days going down there to see her and sorting out bills, or taking her some shepards pies that Bill made--she kept saying in hospital ''please get a job in the kitchen-I do miss your cooking Bill!''

She is going to leave a great big gap in all off our lives--Bless You Rita xxxxx

I found this lovely poem and it sums it all up.

Don't cry for me
When tomorrow starts without me ,

And I’m not there to see.

The sun that shines upon your eyes, which are filled with tears for me.
I wish so much you wouldn’t cry,

The way you did today.

While thinking of the many things we didn’t do or say.
I know how much you love me,

as much as I love you,

and each time that you think of me I know you’ll miss me too.
But when tomorrow starts without me don’t think we’re far apart for every time you think of me I’m right there in your heart.

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

Todays Class

You can see the results from todays ''Poppy Field'' class.

It was the first time that I had tryed out this painting in a full class and I was very surprised at how different they turned out.

Even from the very start when we put the blue sky in , they were all very individual,and by the time we came to do the poppies everyones personality was starting to show through!

It was Jacks very first time painting and he was very surprised at how easy it was, he said afterwards that he really felt that he had achieved something--which he had.He is coming to the next class so he must be happy!

He was a very easy student to teach, he seemed to take in everything I said at each stage and produced a lovely painting.

We varied the paintings a little and added some cornflowers to some of them just to make a little change.

Evonne was quick to add some little flicked out bits to the cornflowers to ,make them look more realistic.Once she added some smaller poppies to the right hand side of her painting to balance it, it was just beautiful.

Jan was very bold with her poppies which turned out beautiful---I think she was a little dubious about them when she first started,but everyone loved them--very impressionistic!

Ive told her to have a look at Google images--poppy paintings.

Sharleen was very keen to learn how not to be not so heavy handed! She has painted at home and thought that the results were ''too heavy handed''. Today she produced the most beautiful subtle poppy painting.The background was blended until very quiet and muted and then she painted the most lovely stylized poppies, a beautiful finished result!

Carol is the flower arranger and she always paints the flowers soooo easily.It comes natural to her-she always knows where to put them without being told!! Because she does flower arranging as a hobby she's one step ahead of the rest of us!

Hayley is Carol's daughter and she was a little more scared of putting the poppies onto the canvas--the first one is always the worst, after putting on the beautiful background it can be hard to put that first blob of red paint and start the poppies!

However the painting turned out lovely--very subtle as are most of Hayleys paintings!

Hen Party

I will be having a group of girls at our usual venue on the 13th Oct to do an ''encaustic'' hen party.
The 'hen' is a Ludlow girl, and Paula the organiser of the hen party was looking for something different for them to do in the afternoon.

We ruled out the oil painting because with the drink that will flowing it might get a little messy!
Also with the encaustic, their paintings will be dry for them to drop off at home before they go back out in the evening!
I am sure the day will be great fun for everyone concerned!!!
It will make a change to have something other than tea or coffee while doing a class!

Commission

Tonight me and Bill went for a drive to nearby Corley Church. I have been asked to paint it as a commission for someone. I have taken loads of photos and will make a start asap.

We are on the craft market tomorrow so will maybe make a start on it then. Ive also got the glass portholes to start soon too!! Its all or nothing lately!

New Class Saturday 20th Oct

''Mystical Forrest'' is the subject for Saturday 20th Oct.

It is suitable for both beginners and experienced artists alike.

PLease get in touch to book through the website

www.paintingmyway.co.uk

Meet Holly

Isnt she adorable!!!!! Our little grandaughter is down for the weekend with her mum and dad.

She has grown so much since she was born under 2 weeks ago.

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.

Clifford WI

We went to Clifford WI last night to do a talk/demo.

The evening was great-a lovely bunch of ladies they were! We had hoots of laughter all night as I told them all about my life as an artist!
Some of the ladies are going to do a class later in the year,end of September/early Oct time-its pretty manic til then for me.

Silvia won the raffle and chose Summer Day as her prize. The other painting shown ''The Waterfall'' was donated to the WI to use for fundraising.

Craft Fair

After a wet start to the day-fortunatly it stayed dry while we set up the stalls, we had a very good day.

We had 3 stalls today because some people didnt turn up, due to the weather forcast.

We had one good downpour at 10;30am and then it stayed fine.

I was busy with people doing encaustic paintings most of the day, although I did get some other paintings done as well, I have a lot of uploading to do to my websites.

I have booked 3 more dates for the craft fairs they are Sunday 22nd July, Sunday 29th July and Thursday 30th Aug. All are taking place on Ludlow's Castle Square.

Wild life In The Garden

We decided that the small pond that we had let go 'wild' had got a little too wild and the 4 fish that we had put in earlier in the year hadnt been seen since! So Bill started to pull some of the reeds that had taken over when the little frog appeared out of the water.!He seemed very quiet concidering what was happening and hung around til Bill had finished! You wouldnt belive how much stuff was in the pond-the fish will be much happier now they have room to swim more freely!

I was tempted to move the fish and put them into our big pond, but the fish in there are getting so big I think they had better stay where they are!

Friday at Malvern!

As you can see from the picture it rained very heavy on Friday-it came underneath the marquee like a river-thankfully there was plenty of straw to put down over it and it didnt deter the visitors to the show!

Paddy

Im not the only one in the house who likes Weight Watchers yogurt! Just look how he turns his head right round!He licks it out clean with his huge black tongue--I have tryed to get photo of his tongue but hes too quick!

Paddy

This is Paddy waiting for his shower--he only has to see the silver spray bottle come into view and he gets into position like this ready for his shower!
You can see all his beautiful wing feathers have grown back beautifuly--they were clipped off very badly when we bought him 2 years ago.It has taken 2 years for them to get back to normal-he is a little beauty-although he terrorises poor Sparky to death!

Birds

Bill spent an hour in the garden yesterday filling up the various bird feeders and tying some fat balls to the washing line.We were rewarded this morning by this woodpecker who loves the fat ball!

We alos have a family of bull finches who come down to feed at the one bird table-its beautiful to see the more unusual birds here.

Another busy week!

Well after the busy weekend- we were looking forward to a bit of a quiter week, unloaded all the paintings and lugged them up the stairs ready for the next big event when we will need them all-----then Bill checked and saw that we are on the local Ludlow craft market this thursday so they all have to come down again!
Thats the trouble when its so busy, its easy to forget-I had it in my head that the craft fair was next week!

Craft Fair

Well it was soooo busy today at the craft fair-its a good job Bill was there too! I was kept busy all day with teaching children how to do encaustic art and doing demonstrations of my 4 minute paintings for people!I have to post one wet painting off --when it dries.Funny how people always want the wet ones-it doesnt matter how many similar ones are dry and mounted in the rack-they always want the wet ones!

The weather stayed dry but cold which was great for the carnival and everything else that was going on in town.

I have 10 small wet paintings drying in the garage which will be mounted and for sale at the next event. I have to catch up with the small paintings-I have nearly sold out of stock and with there being over 130,000 people expected at the 3 counties show in a few weeks, I need to replenish my stock!