Hen Party

We had such a laugh today at the hen party, you wouldnt belive some of the conversations we had aroung the table! Make your hair curl!

As with the best hen parties we had to have a real giggle and this took the form of a wax willie painting competition!!!!

I showed the girls the best 'tool' to do this and there was no stopping them! We had willies coming in all shapes , colours and sizes!

We decided to let Bill judge the contest when he re-appeared to help clear up after all the fun!

Hen Party Competition Results

As you can see Bill had a very difficult choice to make to decide the winner of the competition, in the end he chose Tina! I think the fact that she made a comic face out of it swung it for her!

Sparky

Just look at this cool cat!!!!

Brushes and Palette Knives

I have managed to source some very good script liner brushes to sell at the classes, they are quite difficult to get hold of in this area.I am going to replace the ones that I use in the classes too. The old ones are still in quite good nick but I will keep them for the acrylic classes.The new ones will retail for just £3-50 which is a real bargain. I have also had to replenish my stock of palette knives--they sell out as fast as I get them in -they will still retail for £4-50
I hope the postal strikes wont hold up their delivery too much!

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

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!

CONGRATULATIONS CAT GIBSON!!!!!!

A big big congratulations to my dear friend Cat who has become the first certified Alexander Art Tutor in the country!
You can check out her website http://www.gibson-art.co.uk/

Cat and her husband John started painting not that long ago and progressed very quickly---now they teach a wet on wet method similar to the one that I teach.

I was more than happy to help Cat in every way to start her own website, after she found my site and we started chatting.
Cat has turned out to be a genuine friend, and I am not worried about competition from her and her husband---there is room for everybody in this game, so I wish them all the luck in the world!!!!

Jeannie Zelos

I want to tell everyone about a great forum that I am a member of http://forum.jeanniezelos.com/


is a great site with like minded members on board. Lots of hints and tips as well as being able to make small talk with other artists.
Its amazing what you can learn from forums such as these.Drop in and say hello to me and all the other artists on there!!!

Laughing in Class!!!

We had such a laugh today in the class, if it wasnt about being scared to put paint on the canvas it was about how many times there was a request to renew the red paint on the palettes!

We soon realised just why Evonne needed so much red paint--she had more on her hands than her painting almost!

It really is immpossible to do this oil painting game without getting covered in paint-although it is usualy me who gets covered in it!

Chip

We had a lovely addition to the class today in the form of Sharleens beautiful chocolate poodle 'Chip'. He was very well behaved and really enjoyed the biscuits that were sneaked him by Bill!!

We learned lots from Sharleen who trained dogs for over 20 years.

The main one for people who have smelly dogs(as in dogs that fart a lot!!!) is to give them wet food(tinned dog meat ) in the morning and dry dog food at night.

We will be testing that out on my sons dogs Max and Sarah, I will let Sharleen know if it works or not!!

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!

Affordable British Art

I am so chuffed, I am ''artist of the week'' on
http://www.affordablebritishart.co.uk

Its a brilliant site,very easy to navigate and use even if you are not computer literate like me!!
I have lots of my paintings for sale on there and Ros who runs the site is introducing more and more great things to the site all the time.
I have also had one of my paintings used on the artists web newsletter-chosen out of 23,000 other paintings.
I have lots of my work on this site also.
www.dianetheartist.com

Cat

I mentioned here while we were away on the painting holiday that I had bought a limited edition crazy cat from the boot sale at Blue Anchor, I just had to share this with you!

You can see who it reminded me of!!

I knew Sparky was model material!!

Ledbury Art Society

We went to Ledbury today to do a demo for the local art society. There was a good turn out and it was a very interesting morning for everyone concerned!

There were lots of questions from the very interested audience-who had never seen the like before!

Everyone was amazed to see the speed at which the paintings developed, paintng on a black canvas proved to be new to everyone there, most of the people there were watercolourists and the technique I used with the oil paints was quite a novelty to them!

I painted Winter Wonderland and Summer Day for them, and Lesley won the Summer Day painting and Jill won the winter Wonderland one.

Both said they had never won anything before in their lives so they were chuffed to bits with their prizes!

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!

Beautiful Night

we were very lucky again with the weather while away,we only had one day of wet weather and that was just for a few hours. we were rewarded that night by this beautiful sky.

I have so much inspiration from this beautiful place, I shall never run out of painting material!!

Lilian---star pupil!

This is lilian painting her waterfall painting.

She wont mind me telling you that she is 83 years old.

We met lilian last year when we at St Audries.She said then''I feel like Ive known you for years,'' ----the feeling was very mutual!!!

Lilian painted her first painting last year and she painted 2 more this year.

The waterfall painting was much admired by everyone who viewed them--- all the paintings were put on display next to the dining room, and she actualy had someone want to buy her painting, but she didnt want to sell it!!!

Her grandaughter claimed her black and white birch tree painting last year, saying it was beautiful. Lilians son Graham who is the bar manager at St Audries wanted her to paint the poppy field painting which she promptly did and gave to him!

When she returned to Neath her grandaugher said to her that she had found her vocation in life, must say I agree.Lilian is a natural and although I said she was quite capable of painting at home she said she would wait til next year cos she enjoyed the classes so much!

I have a feeling that we will be seeing more of Lilian well before next year!!!

Her son Graham is the bar manager at SA and he had requested that she paint the poppy field painting. She did so and no one could tell hers from mine

Terry and Anne

Here are Anne and Terry with their Summer Day paintings they did at St Audries.

Anne thought she would have to attend every day in order to produce ONE painting.

When I explained to her that she could do one in less than 4 hours she didnt belive me.

The proof of the pudding is in the eating they say--Anne is coming to me at Ludlow in the near future as she lives not to far away in Brum! She was gobsmacked by the result and her husband couldnt belive his eyes when he came to collect her.

She admitted after the class that she hadnt slept all night worrying that she wouldnt be able to do it------she was very pleasantly surprised!!

Terry returned a week later and painted another beautiful picture.

Another Sunset

Another of the beautiful sunsets--I never tire of seeing them!

a Beautiful Sunset

I have so many photos of the sunsets taken while away.

I have this one as my screen saver,its so peaceful to look at and reminds me of the great times we had there!