Try This!!!!

Subject: Can you read this? Let me know

fi yuo cna raed this, yuo have a sgtrane mnid too .
Cna yuo raed this? Olny 55 plepoe out of 100 can.
i cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno't mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and last ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can still raed it whotuit a pboerlm. This is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Azanmig huh? yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt! if you can raed this forwrad it
FORWARD ONLY IF YOU CAN READ IT.
My mate Sharleen sent me this, both me and Bill can read it ok!!

Class for 10th Nov

This class ''Tropical Summer Day'' is fully booked.

I will be setting another date to paint this picture early in the new year. I already have 2 children waiting for a date!!

I must sit down with my diary and get cracking with all the new dates for the coming year.

I have got a waiting list of people wanting to do specific paintings in the new year so I will work around those people and get the dates put on the website asap.

I have got quite a few WI's booked for next year already.

Class on Saturday 3rd Nov

There are some spaces left for next Saturdays class of the painting'' Snowy Day''

It is a lovely warm snow scene and is quite an easy one to do.You need no previous experience at all to come along and paint this one.

Contact me by phone if you would like to come along! The details are found on my website

www.paintingmyway.co.uk

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!

Babysitting

Look at this little cutie!!! Little Holly was as good as gold for us on Saturday night

Shes such a happy little thing. We decided to sleep in our caravan on the drive as we had Darren, Lydnsey and her sister staying, rather than have anyone sleep on the sofa.

Bill had made repaired the bed which broke when we were at Onslow Park when we playing scabble!.

It was a good job the cooler box was the right height to prop up the bed when we were there or we would have been stuck!

Plants and Ferbies

These are the ferbies that were the source of much amusment on Saturday.

The plants are what both Sharleen and Jack had cuttings off on Saturday.They had never seen anything like the spiders leg one before!

If anyone knows the real name of the 'spider legs 'plant please let me know!!!

Some Great Advice!!!!!!

A Doctor proclaimed the way to achieve inner peace is to finish all the things you have started.
So I looked around my house to see things I started and hadn't finished and, before leaving the house this morning I finished off a bottle of Merlot, a bottle of Shhhardonay, a bodle of Baileys, a butle of vocka, a pockage of Prunglies, tha mainder of bot Prozic and Valum scriptins, the res of the Chesescke an a box a chocolets.
Yu haf no idr who gud I feeel.
Peas sen dis orn to dem yu fee ar in ned ov inr pece.

I found this on another forum and it made me laugh, thought I would pass it on to you all!!!

Todays Class

Here are todays students Jack and Sharleen.

We have had such a laugh today, in between the serious painting.

We tryed out some new tools today--Lydl the German supermarket have had art materials on offer all week, and I picked up this pack of 5 rubber tipped painting tools, designed to remover the paint from the canvas---they worked a treat and at only £1;99 for 5 a real bargain. Sharleen is off to buy up all their stock tomorrow for me, I had the last pack from the Stourport branch, the sets of fan brushes were good too-and again just £1;99 for 5

Chip came along and really behaved himself-Paddy didn't think much of having a poodle in the house and scared him out of the living room-even though he was in his cage!
There were plenty of bikkies on offer for him (and us )

Half way through the session I bought out the singing hamster toys that had us all cracked up, then out came the shelbies and furbies!! We were like a load of kids, laughing and giggling!

Sharleen has gone home with 2 new 'pets' a baby ferbie and an adult one-I know they will have an excellent home and they will probley enjoy a trip to the office on monday!

Oh and Jack the bottle of wine went down a treat thanks!!!!

Tomorows Class and The Exhibition

I have had a cancellation for tomorrow which means that I have Jack and Sharleen coming here to paint.
I have had some more of my students get in touch wanting to display their paintings in the ''From Small Acorns''exhibition in Leominster. I am not sure that there will be much room for me to put any of mine in the exhibition at this rate!!!

I have already increased the order for glasses at Tesco because the numbers have gone up--the last thing I want is to run out of glasses at the private viewing!!!.
I have found that Tesco is very good --they hire out as many glasses as you want free of charge-whatever sort of glasses you want--I have on order a very large number of wine glasses and tumblers- so far! There is going to be a certain amount of car drivers there so we will be catering for them as well!!
I have some beautiful wines already-white ,rose,and red and we will have some orange juice cocktail for the drivers as well as some other soft drinks.
There will be some of the children that have attended the classes there-I have decided to group all of the childrens work together-I am sure that people will be amazed at their results!

Craft Fair

Here is ''Little Ted'' looking after the stall yesterday! It was really warm when we set up yesterday morning but as the day went on it went really cold! I was glad of the heat of the lights and the encaustic iron!

It was fairly quiet, but the encaustic stuff went well, got to get another order in tomorrow.

It was a pleasure to see Jan from the classes again, she was very patient and waited for Bill to fetch the latest batch of painting knives from the sorting office--its sods law that the first day you go out of the house early the delivery you've waited in for over a week turns up!

Some fun sites!

Have just found 2 interesting sites you might like--the first one is hilarious www.eyegas.com/attackofthesprouts
and the 2nd one donates a grain of rice to starving children with each correct answer.It soon mounts up so give it a go . www.freerice.com

Brians latest Painting

Brian, one of my one to one students came over with his wife this morning to buy some canvas off me and to show me his latest painting that he has done on his own at home.

Very impressionist to look at with his bold sky that had a hint of pink that stopped it feeling too cold.

He said that he had used a knife to do the sea, which works very well.

The addition of the little yacht with the red sail is a clever touch!

Brian had used what he learned in the classes to do this painting and I hope there will be some more paintings included in the exhibition that have been done out of classes.

When Brian has the black frame around the box canvas it will set it off a treat!!

I will be ordering some more frames this Friday for students who want them ready for the exhibition.

Tomorrow

We are on the craft fair tomorrow, lets hope that the weather keeps fine.We are having a different stall, to usual, the old one was quite exposed to the elements. We will be on the opposite side to normal and we will extend the stall backwards, as we do on the sunday, so we have lots of room for all of the stands and loads of paintings.

Cook Books

At last I ve got my new shelves put up to keep my cook books on, just got to find and finish unpacking the boxes they went into first. I have loads more than this somewhere!!!

We seem to have stuff all over the house--got to have a major sort out this week as Darran , Lydnsey and baby Holly are coming down from Sunderland to stay at the weekend.

We called round to see our little grandson tonight after visiting my friend Rita at the hospital, he is crawling now-the time has flown by so fast, he will love christmas this year!

Fish

Its quite difficult to see propley but one of our golden orf in the big pond has become very twisted,he dosent seem to be in any distress but he cant seem to swim in the direction he want to when feeding!

He is becoming Z shaped, havent been able to sort out whats wrong with him yet but dont suppose there is much that can be done!

Exchange is no Robbery!!!

we had some unusual guests at the class first thing today--Sharleen breeds Tuxedo Platies and we had agreed to swop some for a new blank canvas! We had restocked our large 4ft tank with various fish, but we still had room for some of these delightful lively fish. They arrived at the class safe and sound in a plastic bag contained in a bag designed to keep cans of drink at the right temp-which also works great at keeping tropical fish at the right temp!

I had also promised her some canvas for designing the ''from small acorns''exhibition 'private view invites' and the posters, so we had a swopping session! Me and Bill would have been on the computer for days trying to do them so a great big thanks for that Shaxx

Todays Class

Today we had a really laid back class!

Everyone had met in my classes before--

Jack had been once before, Jan was doing her 4th painting and Sharleen was painting her 3rd one.

The painting was a different one to the one advertised, but that is nothing unusual-nothing is set in stone with me, I will chop and change the subjects to fit in with what people want to do!

Sharleen bought along Chip who is seen checking out the subject for the painting today! I think everyone was surprised at the way that the painting evolved today. We started off with a black canvas, added some white acrylic with some various sponges, then we painted in some trees in various colours of white, grey and black.

As soon as we put the linseed oil onto the dryed acrylic you could see it come to life,as soon as the linseed oil hit the canvas it just became more vibrant, the black and white paint took on a totally different look- the original painting had shades of blues,yellows and greens in it. I had decided that I was going to paint mine all green to replace the 'Emerald Wood ''painting that I sold a while ago.

After seeing how my painting had progressed, they all decided that there were some changes they would like to make to their original acrylic paintings-mainly a big branch on their main tree!! We has such a laugh in the class, everyone was ok putting in the background trees but as soon as I mentioned painting BIG trees it all went very quiet and no-one wanted to do it! There was a lot of breath holding going on!!!!

Everyone watched as the painting transformed from black and white to a magical green enchanted scene.

After seeing mine everyone decided to ''go green''

I set the paint out onto the palette and said'' right then whos going first then''--silence for a minute and then Jan-bless her said ''Ok then lets get it bloody over with!!!!!'' it cracked everyone up!!

Earlier in the class after we had to use the sponges to apply the background, we all had lots of weird things appear in the paintings. Sharleen and Jan and myself all had strange faces and some animals in theirs, but Jack beat everyone with his 'witch on a broomstick-complete with moon in background!''

All in all a great day-loads of laughs as usual, Jan came home with us to borrow some of my extensive range of art books, I am always happy to help any of my students in any way I can, and as I have built up quite a collection of various art books in one form or another, I am quite happy for them to use them to practise with at home! I have also told them all to ring me if they are not sure about anything--Id rather they do that than make a major mistake at home and be put off painting for good!!!!

All of the students will be joining the SAA, of which I am a PA-- (professional advisor)

The Society for All Artists --- www.saa.co.uk

is a very informative and helpful site -the bi-monthly magazine is full of helpful hints and tips about painting and the regular catalogue is full of bargains.The joining fee fee is soon recouperated when ordering their paints etc at discounted prices-anyone who is going to paint on a regular basis would be well advised to join this society--everything is P+P free too.

Bills Christmas Cakes

Its that time of year again--Bills Christmas cake time!

As you can see from the bottom pic, Bill has already made 2 cakes yesterday- they are all wrapped up in greaseproof paper, ready for the first feeding of brandy in a couple of weeks time!The smell of brandy soaked fruit fills the house, and the clock is being watched very carefully while the latest cakes are baked very slowly in the oven! The latest will be cooked at 11.30 pm tonight, so hope we stay awake til then!

Sparky AGAIN!!!

I swear this cat knows when I sell a painting-without fail he goes out and comes back injured in some way! we should have our own personal parking space at the vets!
The day before yesterday he came in with 2 mice , within an hour of each other,and let them go so Bill could have go a catching them--Sparky thinks that Bill enjoys mousing as much as he does!! Then he walks in around the living room door holding up one leg.Couldnt find any obvious injury on him, no cuts, or swellings, so kept him in and took him to vets yesterday. Another jab for him, keep him quiet(easier said than done) and fingers crossed he will be ok!
He looks so sweet in this pic-you would never belive what a monster he is sometimes!

Good Idea Bill !!!

I always clean the brushes out in the garage sink after a class/one 2 one etc.

It has been getting a little cluttered up out there lately cos Im not the most tidiest of people, and the brushes have been hanging around on the draining board til they have dryed out completely.

Bill has said for a while that we need something to put the brushes into straight away after they have been cleaned, then they can dry out thougherly, then they are ready to put into the individual boxes for the classes.

Simple but effective, he knocked up this storage unit for the brushes this afternoon while I was doing the one 2 one with Penny!

I can put the brushes straight into there as soon as they have been cleaned in the odourless turps and cleaned in the brush cleaning soap and dryed , and they are ready to put into the boxes for the classes. So much easier -thanks Bill xxx

I have just replaced all the scriptliner brushes that we use in the classes with new ones and the old ones I will keep for when we do acrylic classes. The new brushes are also available for sale for just £3.50p including P+P

I also have a new stock of painting knives that will be on sale for just £4.50p including P+P-they sell out as fast as I get them in-once people see just what can be done with them , they all want one!!!

BIG HUGS FOR SHARLEEN AND CO !!!!!!

Loads and loads of great big hugs for Sharleen -one of my students, who has designed and printed the invites for the private viewing and the posters for the ''From Small Acorns'' exhibition.

Me and Bill would have been days sorting that out! We still are not the most computer literate of folk, the computer is a necersary evil as far as Im concerned!

Sharleen has made a fantastic job of doing the invites and posters and we are chuffed to bits with the result!

YOU ARE A STAR!!!!!!!

Also a great big thanks to Penny who is going to supply some of the cheese for the ''private viewing'' She is so enthusiastic about the whole thing--she cant wait to get her paintings on display to the general public!!!

Its great when all the ideas come together, it literaly started out as a small acorns sort of thing and has grown and grown to be this great big oak tree!!!

Kenchester Tea rooms

We had a busy day yesterday, first we went over the Hereford to hang the paintings at Kenchester Water Gardens Tea Rooms. They certainly brightened the place up.! We just had to sample some of the beautiful home made cakes that were on the counter along with a cup of coffee!

Karen who runs the tea rooms has started doing a carvery on a Sunday with a choice of meats and 7 veg's.

Im sure we will be popping by shortly to try it out!

After we had finished there we went to the other side of Hereford to The Wyvale Garden Centre where we will doing demonstrations and craft fairs in the near future.

Its a massive place and they were in the process of putting out the christmas decorations. It promises to be a great venue to be at.

Some of the Beautiful Scenery At Kenchester

Here is some of the beautiful scenery surrounding the KenchesterTea Rooms, Hereford where I have some of my work hanging. Some of the fish in the pond are over 2 ft long!

Try This Out!!!

I have tryed this out and called Bill to try it out too--It is most weird try it yourself and see!!!!
www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,22535838-5012895,00.html

Another Good Day!

We had a trip to Hereford today to stock up with some big canvas, as usual on the way home we stopped for a coffee at Kenchester Water Gardens.

We usualy end up buying a new fish or two for the aquarium, so after having a browse and ending up with 10 neon tetra,2 femail fighting fish,1 male guppy, 1 male swordtail and 5 rosy barbs--well we have got a very big 4ft tank that was starting to look a bit bare, we went into the tea rooms for a drink.

It has recently changed hands, so we were chatting with the staff and as usual I asked if I could leave some of my flyers with the other bits and pieces they have on their windowsill. They said yes and then asked if I had any paintings they could hang in the cafe!!

The walls were rather bare so we quickly worked out how many we could put up and we are going back tomorrow to hang them. I will take along my camera and take some photos of how it looks before and after! Got to get cracking and print some labels for them now.

Great Start

I have had a great start to the week. A new gallery opening on the south coast has asked if they can have some of my work for their gallery. Fire In The Sky will be hanging alongside some very prestigeous artists work--

Henderson Cisz, Jean Picton and Duncan Macgregor will all have work hanging there, so Im with very good company!!!

.

Chris the owner of the gallery, has also bought the 2 paintings that I painted to raise money for The British Heart Foundation. He is hoping to raise even more money for the charity by selling them in the gallery.

A Very Surprised Hen!!

Emma hadn't a clue what was going to happen on her 'hen day' I met her and her friends in the room today and informed her that she was going to spend the afternoon ironing and polishing!!!!

When she realised that I meant doing the encaustic art-ironing on the wax and polishing it after she breathed a sigh of relief! She thought she was going to do a housekeeping course!!!

I had another surprise up my sleeve for her though! She was going to paint a 5 minute oil painting too!!!! ''Have you got a photo copier'' she asked when I showed her the picture like the one she would produce in that time!!!

Nobody belived it was possible to do.

I set up my canvas next to hers on the easel and we went though it step by step and she produced a painting in around 5 mins! She was chuffed to bits with it !!

Hen Party Fun!

Here are some of the results of todays hen party ! We had some really beautiful results,Emma' the hen 'soon got the hang of the special tool and produced the lovely flowers picture.

We had all sorts of weird and wonderful things appear in the wax!

It was hard to get everyone away from the table to have some of the nibbles I had supplied!!! They were really engrossed in doing the encaustic art!