Shobdon Food, Drink and Flying Festival----and more...

Cant believe its been a year since Shobdon Food and Drink Festival-- a new venue -at the Airfield...and lovely to see our little grandson Tommy there with his Mummy and Daddy...

happy little soul as usual..

took over 3 hours to set up there..

it was lovely to get home and sit down by the pool with a glass or three of wine....Ludlow festival is on too...so we sat outside on the patio to listen to Jools Holland  and his  Rhythm &
Blues Orchestra featuring GILSON LAVIS
with special guest
ROLAND GIFT -
the voice of Fine Young Cannibals and guest vocalists
RUBY TURNER
& LOUISE MARSHALL Jools Holland & His Rhythm & Blues Orchestra will provide a highlight of the Ludlow Arts Festival concerts. Jools’ passion for music has made him a doyen of the music scene, and he was awarded an OBE in 2003 for his services to the British music industry.
His phenomenal success has seen him sell millions of records throughout the course of his career and he holds the unique status of performing with musicians who have achieved success in every decade of the 20th Century.
Roland Gift, the voice of Fine Young Cannibals, will make a very special guest appearance, also featuring the fantastic former Squeeze drummer Gilson Lavis, and guest vocalists Ruby Turner and Louise Marshall. Jools and his incredible Rhythm & Blues Orchestra look set to raise the roof of Ludlow Castle if it had one!  What a great night...hope it is as good tomorrow might when we have The Searchers and the Hollies playing-followed with the usual fireworks display..

We love the new lights we have by the pond and elsewhere in the garden..,.the fibre-optics are just just beautiful..

We put the underwater lights on and it was lovely to see the fish getting excited...it must have been like a real treat for them as they got really frisky! I have loads of pictures of the children who did the encaustic art today-but have left the book with all their names at the show--so will be doing all the photos and names on here tomorrow night!

Shobdon Flower Food and Drink Festival 2012

The flowers in the church for the Flower Festival were stunning this year....

this arrangement was done in this bowl of melted wax....

at the end of every pew was a beautiful arrangement..

what a beautiful display around the old yew tree..

We were in our usual corner,it was a bit cramped when we first arrived to set up on Thursday afternoon as the awful wet weather had caused all sorts of problems for the organisers. Some of the people who should have been outside in gazebos were put in the marquee..however when we arrived on Friday morning it had been resolved and we had a bit more space to spread out over for me to demonstrate.With the tarpaulin down on the ground everything stayed nice and dry...

As most of you know I have been getting into the photography more and more lately, and have had some prints done of some of my favourite ones.....I will be creating a new page on my website this week hopefully with all of the available prints on there...there will be lots of sizes available....6in x 4in , 4ins x 6ins,,8in x 6in, 6in x 8in, 10in x 8in  and 8in x 10in..all mounted and ready to frame in white,cream or black mounts.They proved very popular at this years show...and there will be more new pictures added as I take them!

Poppies are always popular...

but I love these cow parsley...

I love this one--taken on a cold frosty morning....

Friday is always quiet at Shobdon....so we ended up playing with the encaustic wax....Penny,Virgina,Lynne and me ended up making some wax willie pictures that would make great bookmarks for 50 Shades Of grey ;-))

The encaustic wax was very popular again ...here is Lucy with her lovely shades of blues and greens...

and Bethany...

Ella with her masterpiece..

Grace came back fro a second go--and made a beautiful job of her bigger one.She wanted to do something for her GSE art course work where is studying Rastafarian, she used the colours well....red,yellow and green and used the special tool to create beads in the same colours over the top of the background colours..

Millie came along to have a go at the oil painting....we both had a  8in x 12in canvas and she followed my instructions carefully.. within 15 mins she had created a beautiful seascape that amazed everyone who watched it happen...her dad Matt managed to get it on his camera...

say "Cheese" LOL

Well Done Millie

Georgia had great fun with the encaustic wax....she did an abstract and a lovely landscape..

This is the lovely Penny who had the stall next to us..she was a laugh a minute...she went and had some face painting done---the lady who did it was one of the best Ive seen....there were some stunning creations walking round the show all weekend!

Kinver Show JUne 2012

We did Kinver Show on Sunday--a first for us--and we will definitely be doing it again next year...the organisers gave us 2 gazebos so I had plenty of space in which to demonstrate.I painted all day in oils,acrylics and also encaustic wax which proved to be very popular as the public were able to have a go as well..

My new shelves were very useful and I was able to get a lot of my small paintings on them..

My apologies to Thomas--I had promised to get the pics on here yesterday--but its been very hectic so didn't get done until now! Thomas did a fantastic picture--he had fish, several horses heads and loads of other things appearing in the melted wax...

Sales of paintings were very good as well...the Summer Day painting above was sold....

as was this yellow ochre  version....alone with  some of the smaller paintings I had on the stall.....

Carl had watched me demonstrating earlier in the day and came along for a go--he loved it!

On the way home Bill stopped the van so I could get some snaps of some poppies I had spotted on the way to the show.....I'm very pleased with how the photos  turned out and have logged them with www.protectmywork.com    prints will be available very soon off my website......there will be several versions of the one shown here.

Bill had a lovely surprise when he opened  his Fathers Day cards and found this one off his latest grandchild Tommy.....made his day!

Shobdon WI Demo

We were at one of our favourite places last night-Shobdon- to do a demo for the local WI..The village hall is actually in the school and we found a nice corner to set up my stands with some of the paintings on..and my card stand as well.

Only one or two of the ladies had painted before and then in watercolour--so it was an eye opener for the ladies to see paintings being done so quickly in oils....

all watching intently!

you could hear a pin drop at times...

I painted Summer Day and The Waterfall as they show the technique at its best, with lots of different brushes being used for different effects...

Pam was the lucky winner of the raffle and she chose the Summer day painting---she was over the moon that she won and said she had just the place for the picture-on her stairs that had just been decorated with a poppy wallpaper! We will see some of the ladies again at Shobdon Food and Drink Festival in June....

Day 1 of Shobdon Food And Drink Festival

I cant believe its come round again already--Shobdon Food and Drink Festival-----its the 7th year and we have done every one of them! This is my favorite view---the avenue of trees leading up to the venue!Bob the little artist bear is sitting in his usual place in the van window admiring the view!

just before the avenue is the pond---the pond is always green-covered in duckweed! When the sun shines on the water it creates a stunning picture! Im going to get round to painting soon!

Just about set up and ready for action here!

Our lovely friend Elaine (otherwise known as Jones The Bead) who creates the most beautiful beaded necklaces,earrings and all manner of beautiful things ,had her usual place next to us--and she had a lovely suprise for me---Pimms----yumm yummm! So me and Jonsey had lots of laughs all day while enjoying the refreshing hic hic fruity drink! Some interesting encaustic art was produced afterwards!

Elaines stall---must get some close ups of some of the beautiful things she makes tomorrow---the knitted cakes are new--and just brilliant!

here he is--our most regular customer at Shobdon---ZAK!!! He has come to do the encaustic art every year--and its lovely to see him each year with his family! He has grown even more this year....he chose to use the black card this year--he had some lovely results.....

Zak's sister Emily--I didnt reconise her at all-she has really grown up--but she still loved having a go at the encaustic art.....and created a lovely pink/purple painting with a few little spooky faces in it! Looks like blogger is playing up--- It will not let me put on any more pictures--so will try to morrow to put the photo of Emily's friend Bethan on...

Shobdon Food and Drink Festival

We are getting geared up for one of our favorite events of the year--Shobdon Food and Drink Festival http://www.shobdonfestival.co.uk/   lots to see and do for all the family---under 11 's are free and adults pay just £4 to enter the event. I will be there demonstrating oil,acrylic and encaustic techniques --and looking forward to seeing some regulars like little Zac who comes every year to do an encaustic painting!

Bunty

Well we used Bunty for the first time on Wednesday to do the regular market.
The difference it has made to us is incredible.
Everything is to hand and I no longer have to pack the boxes and paintings in a certain order to get them squeezed into the car!

It was also quite funny to see all the fellow market traders swarming round the van admiring her and the fittings inside her!

There is a place for everything in there-special sections for diffrent sized paintings, sections for boxes-even a space for the cooker , kettle and fan!
We seemed to get set up quicker than normal and Bill can be seen relaxing with the paper after we finished!

Sam and Anna-Encaustic Stars!

I wasn't able to get photos of all the kids today having a go at the encaustic art--Bill went off with the camera several times to get some pics of things!
However I did get these two--Anna used a pretty combination of purple and green--she had lots of interesting things going on in her painting-including a lizard and a tiny bird!

Then along came Sam-who had been last year as well--he soon created a lovely caterpillar using the special electric tool--he concentrated hard bless him-it was finished off with a lovely silver moon!
Its lovely to meet up with the children year after year--this was our 6th Shobdon Festival--and we have met some of our closest friends there over the years--