Room In Class This Saturday "Forest Pool"

I still have room in the class for this Saturday-its been organised at the last minute after the encaustic class had to be cancelled.

This is a lovely painting to paint as its done on a black background rather than a white one. Its suitable for first time students and more experienced ones.

If you are interested in joining in this class please get in touch via http://www.paintingmyway.co.uk

Latest Newsletter

Well Ive sent out the latest newsletter to everyone who requested one--didn't realise how much time it would take up--I'm sure that as soon as I get used to the format of it , I will get quicker!
Its been an interesting few days with my brother in law showing me the shortcuts etc on the computer! I do need him back here to verify a few things that went in one ear and out the other mind!
Must admit am not the most computer literate of people, would rather spend my time painting than computing-but needs must and all that!
I have got to catch up with some housework too--I have a student travelling from Yorkshire next Friday for 4 days, Joyce will be having a mixture of one to ones and also joining in a class.
Ive been so busy working on the "Trio Of Sunflowers" commission that there hasn't been much dusting going on lately-still cant do everything.!Will have it all sorted by the time I pick Joyce up from the train station!!
Bill has been busy varnishing all the latest paintings for me--he is much better at it than me.They all have at least 3 coats of varnish before they go out, with 24 hours in between each coat.

Bird Table

Here are some of our regular visitors to our bird table.
The bull finch and his wife arent showing up very well in this pic,we counted 16 siskins on the table and feeder at one time, but wasnt quick enough with the camera to catch them all.
We love watching them from the house, the bull finches are quick to chase off anything else that comes near until they have had their fill!!

Getting into Christmas!!!!

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Well it seems ages since Ive been on here and updated things! I have got my computer room christmas tree up as you will have seen, and Bill and l put up the main tree in the living room on Saturday!

All was well until late on Saturday night as I was doing some finishing touches to the 'family paintings' in the kitchen, when I heard "come here quick"--I ran to the living room to find Bill buried underneath the christmas tree and Paddy looking very sorry for himself back on his cage!! Poor Paddy had tryed to land on top of the fairy on top of the tree!!!!!

Stick Insects

As you can see the stick insects are growing well.One in particular is getting very big.They really are hard to see when on the plants though. They seem to prefer the blackberry leaves to anything else.

They are giving all the kids in the family much amusment!

More Boot Sale Bargains

The stick insects have a lovely new home in this tank which cost just £2 at the boot sale on sunday. The biggest bargain though was all these paint and draw books-8 full volumes for just £2 and I had the other 2 oil painting books for £1. I love reading through art books, you can learn so much from them,its interesting to hear how other people do things.

I dont know just when I will have time to read them, they will join the ever growing pile of books in the spare room for now!

Boot Sales and Freecycle!!

I have had a lovely day today, we went to the boot sale this morning and ended up buying some stick insects for my little nephews and nieces.

A little boy was selling them at the boot- 10 for £1. After checking with the parents that they would like them we bought 2 lots of 10 and I have ended up with 4 myself.

We have read up about them on the interenet and found out what they like to eat etc and I am looking forward to watching them grow and mature.

They only hatched out in the past couple of days and will soon reach full size of 3-4 ins.

Ater the family came round to collect them, we had a quick look at the freecycle site and saw some lovely pine bedside tables on there,really well made and handy to hide away the clutter-luckily for us they were still available and very local so we went to fetch them.

We have previously had some storage stands off the same lady Tracy , so I took one of my small oil paintings for her as a thankyou.She was chuffed to bits with it-and exchange is no robbery!

We have been very lucky on freecycle , only yesterday we went to fetch some more storage stands for the garage, and also a brilliant back door for the garage.

While we were chatting with the owner of them, it came out in conversation that I'm an artist and the lady said she had a lovely big easel to go as well, Its a hand made one and is going to be every useful for bigger canvas, so we came back with more than expected!

Freecycle is a fantastic site-we have given lots of stuff away on there, from computer moniters to double glazing. Well worth a look at your local site if you are looking for anything, you never know what you will find on there!