Chloe-Babes 18th Birthday

 

It was lovely to have everyone together for my niece Chloe's 18th birthday last night....my lovely daughter Becki and her partner Wayne above...we had so many laughs with them both......

me and Bill -we had a busy day making a birthday cake and decorating it....

 

Birthday Girl   -Chloe-Babe...where have the years gone to? I cant believe its so long ago I used to look after her when her mum went to work!

 

Chloe's reaction when she opened her pressie off us....a weekend away at a lovely hotel...I had wrapped up one of the hotels business cards and tied it to a balloon for her...me and Bill have booked into the same hotel for  September 2012 so we will  have the reviews of Chloe and her boyfriend James by then!

waiting for our meals...

a great choice of meals--and everyones was just beautiful--we had steak and ale pie with blue cheese pastry crust---loads of it as well! And proper home made chips too......

Becki is the only person I know who cant go cross eyed! Here she is trying--we were all creased at her!

a lovely pic of my mum,Chloe and Becki

My brother Andrew,Chloe, sis in law Jan and Nat a Tat..

Chloe's niece Katy admiring the birthday cake....

well we can highly recommend the Boyne Arms pub in  Burwarton for meals--there were over 20 of us and all the meals came out together all cooked to perfection---

Emerald Woods Workshop

Rod was along way from home today--Clacton -On Sea in Essex...his wife booked him in as a surprise after meeting us in July on the market! He has never painted before but soon got the hang of it! Emerald Woods is a good painting to start with---its acrylic and very forgiving--if there are any bits you done like you can easily dry the paint and go over it again-until you are happy with it! You get lots of practise doing trees--and its always interesting to see how much the students improve with each row of trees we put in!

Jan had a gift voucher for Christmas to use...along with her friend June ..Jan liked the pond on one of the paintings I had already done as an example---it was heart-shaped and she made a lovely job of painting hers..amazing just how different everyone interprets what i show them when I do each section...

June was a tad nervous to begin with as she had never painted anything other than a wall before in her life,however she soon settled down to it and actually seemed to find it really easy-and surprised herself!

it was lovely to see everyone making their own decisions on where to place things and what colours to use etc after just a short time without any prompting from me....it never fails to amaze me--and is the one part of the job I really enjoy..

nearly finished...

Rods painting took on a really enchanted look--and he got the hang of doing the really fine branches very well

There is the option of leaving the painting monochrome or using oils to add some colour...Jan was the only one in the group who wanted to add some colour--and then only a slight hint of colour--the other 2 just used white oil paint to add a beautiful shimmer to the water.

The end results--everyone went away happy and with beautiful paintings----Rods wife came back to pick him up and I heard her and their daughter in laws reaction to it outside!!!! WOW !!!!!

Bishops Castle Michaelmas Fair day 2

Hannah and Abby with their beautiful encaustic art paintings they did this morning at Bishops Castle....Ive had a lovely email tonight from Abby telling me how much she enjoyed it and she cant wait to come to paint in one of my workshops...I cant wait to see her again....and maybe she will be bringing Aunty Suzanne with her as well!

some of the wonderful old steamers on  display..

there is nothing quite like the sight and smell of the old steam engines--although I didn't get to see them at all this time as I was busy in the marquee!

I got some lovely photos again today on the way to the show...

Bill reversed the van back to the gate so I could take a photo of these lovely little jersey calves...aren't they little beauties?

triple trouble!

sooooo cute!

the view from the showground as we were leaving--some stunning clouds......that's it now for the big shows--we are still doing the usual Wednesday and  some Sundays...I'm going to be busy with the usual Saturday workshops and I have some extra ones to do as well as a few extra ones and some more demos as well.It will be Christmas before we know it--cant believe how quickly the year is flying by!

Bishops Castle Michaelmas Fair--Day One

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A good omen on the way to Bishops Castle Michaelmas Fair early this morning--a beautiful rainbow right above Bishops Castle!

Bishops Castle Michaelmas Fair

We are really looking forward to this weekends show at Bishops Castle--The Michaelmas fair is always a busy show--there is loads to see and do for all the family. Check out the link below! We will be in the craft marquee as usual.I will have a large display of paintings for sale and I will be demonstrating in oils,acrylics and encaustic wax. Members of the public will be able to have a go at the encaustic wax as well...and councillor Bavastock has promised to come along and demonstrate how to do it as well!  Karen got well and truely hooked on it when we met up at Onslow Steam rally last month.  Karen is looking forward to having her own kit of encaustic iron etc in return for a donation for another fellow student Doreens local charity!  Doreen had seen on Facebook some of the people enjoying having a go (including karen) and offered a complete kit as she no longer uses it.....very kind of her--and Karen cant wait for it!  We are meeting a train in Ludlow station to collect the kit off Doreen as she is en-route on her holiday! www.michaelmasfair.org.uk

2012 Workshops

Ive made a start on next years workshop dates---I will add some more to them shortly....as usual nothing is set in stone and I am willing to change any of the subjects if there is one you want to do but cant make the date Ive set it for--as long as Ive not got anyone booked in already of course. Take a look at the website and see if any of them takes your fancy!   www.paintingmyway.co.uk

What A Day !!!!!

Bev has been to quite a few workshops in the past--but when she knew her cousin Marianne was coming to stay she booked them both onto the Mystical Moon class today.She didn't say a word to Marianne until they walked through the door--shock,scared and dis-belief all showed in her face when Bev broke the news! But she was a great student who did what I had shown in my demonstration of each part of the painting....Bryan was also a first timer as well--he had seen me on the market and checked out the website. Chris has been once before--we met her after I did a demo for her WI in Wales.

We had lots of laughs in class as usual--the moon caused a lot of them....its a very hard thing to do--paint a circle--and the moons usually get bigger and bigger as they try and correct it... but today's were not to bad...and they didn't grow huge as they can sometimes! We had fun deciding which finish they were going to have on the moon and we all decided to use the opalescence one which catches the light beautifully.

Bryan decided to use the blue paint with just a hint of mauve as well-while all of the rest of us did the grey version.

Marianne adding her special effect paint to her moon.

Bev finishing off her moon....my batteries were failing fast at this point so I didn't get anymore photos until we had finished  as I was worried I wouldn't have enough to take the end results!

the photo really doesn't do the paintings justice.....they were all stunning.well done everyone!

we had a very early start today--I had the chance of a market stall at last minute, so Bill said he  could manage that on his own while I did the workshop by myself! So that's what happened....I helped Bill set up early this morning and then joined Bill at 3pm after finishing the workshop and clearing off home to get changed into something smarter than my painting clothes! Many thanks to Bev and Marianne for helping me clear the room and load the car after the class-it was a great help! Bill had been quite busy and sold some of the small paintings ,greetings cards etc and I think he was trying to tell me he was knackered -when Paula who sells scarfs and wraps parked her car ready to load Bill jumped in the back for a quick lie down!

We arrived home at 6pm -Bill opened the front room door to say hello to the birds--and I heard him shout--"Wheres Jake--his cage is wide open" I almost had a heart attack...and feared that he had been pinched! Then we heard a little voice from down the bottom of the room "You What" "come on" and there was Jake on the display cabinet!  He must have been out all day--I gave them both a grape at 6.45 am and couldn't have closed the cage properly. Judging by the little piles of poops on the carpet he had sat on the cage door for a while before going walk-about! It makes me go cold thinking about what could have happened...all he has done all night is call Sparky cat---if Sparky had come in to the room while he was out I'm not sure what would have happened...and if Jake had flown onto Paddy's cage he could have had his toes bitten off.I had also left the front door open when i got back from the class-while I fetched the boxes out of the car and went and got changed...didn't check on the birds just shouted hello to them while running round like a blue arsed fly to get ready to go down to Bill.He could easily have got outside.....I will be more careful in future that's for sure!We are on the Food Festival again tomorrow--this time in our gazebo outside the college..hopefully the weather wont be too bad....

Jake is one lucky little parrot!

Pip---Poorly Parrot!

My daughter Becki has a lovely little bird like our Jake---her name is Pip and she is 34 years old.I had a phone call from Becky on Thursday evening....Pip has been broody lately and had tryed to lay an egg--it appeared to be stuck 3/4 of the way out :-(  We went round to see if we could help...poor Pip was losing blood and waddling round with the egg dangling--it looked like there was a bit of membrane stopping it from coming out. One of my students is a vet in Wales--so she gave us some great advise -but it didn't work...so I was on phone to our vet at 7.30aam in morning and down there with Pip at 8.30am! Thee vet quickly removed the egg and explained that the membrane was in fact Pips Ovum-or 'womb'  and it had prolapsed.She put it back in and said it might stay in or not.So we kept an eye on her and it was back out by 11am.So back down the vets we go--this time the vet wouldn't put it back but advised us to take her to a proper avian vet as they have all the proper monitoring equipment to keep her safe while she had an operation to stitch it back in for her.So off we went to Telford with Pip in her travelling cage-she seemed quite happy-still  losing a lot of blood bless her.Anyway the vet was expecting her after our vet sent through all her file--and she went straight into have her op when we arrived.I was worried sick about her--but an hour later she came out -on her perch and looking great! The vet was really pleased with her-and hopefully she should be OK now. Pip didn't have a very good diet for 32 years--and that is the reason she has the trouble--she had a mainly sunflower seed diet which is really bad for them and she lacked calcium as well.Becky has had her on a much better diet for the 2 years she has had her but some damage has already been done.Their bones can become almost like glass if they don't have the right food and extra calcium..and Pips bones are weak..however fingers  crossed she wont have the problem again.She is back to normal today--on bottom of cage ripping up her newspaper and making a nice old mess for her mum and dad to clean up!

Congratulations to my brother Andrew for coming 2nd in the local Woodpecker Rally today.
He was navigating for Roger Chilman...I expect there will be some sore heads in the moring after all the celebrating!

Winter Wonderand Workshop Sept 3rd

We had everything set up on time today--the room was full-I was expecting 9 students...I told everyone to get their brushes at the ready when Hilary said "I don't seem to have an easel or anything!" A quick head count--and I realised that we had 10 students instead of 9! Not sure how that happened but I hadn't got Debra in my book! Anyway we soon had another canvas prepared and we always take along a few extra boxes of brushes so we weren't too late starting in the end!

Howard is sat back contemplating his sky so far...everyone enjoyed using the bashing and tickling brushes-and were amazed at just how different every ones paintings were right from the start! Working on the black canvas is great fun and is a great confidence builder...

we met Vanessa and her mum at Welland show and they travelled quite a way to be with us today..mum went out to explore Ludlow while we were painting and ended up at The Ludlow Food Centre where she had a lovely time by the sounds of it.

We met Roy when I did the demo for the Doddington Friendship Club a few weeks ago.He made a great job of his painting--the angle of the snow wasn't quite right at first but was easily sorted and Roy was much happier  when after a few strokes of the brush his snow wasn't quite so steep!

We met Hilary at Llanidloes a while back when I did the demo there for the WI--she bought along hubby Howard with her.We will be seeing the pair of them for the Birch tree workshop--either in Ludlow or Llandidloes!

Julie came along with Lewis-her 12 year old nephew---you would never believe she was a first timer...she seemed  very confident

We welcomed back Margarita again--her 6th time-and she received her artist brooch today.She has tried,oils,acrylics, acrylic and oil, white canvas and now black ones--and says she has loved all of them!

Nicky had a gift voucher as a pressie--her painting tuned out really soft and had a slightly out of focus feel to it..very pretty!

Debra adding the final snow before putting in the trees and fences.

Norma made a lovely job-she followed my directions to the letter..and her finished painting had quite a mystical feel to it.

12 year old Lewis was very bold with his brushes..he got the hang of the tickling brush really quickly and .we had a cracking tree from him at the end--real character!

The Happy Artists with their finished masterpieces!

Always interesting to see just how different the artists interpret each step of the painting..

Lovely results everyone!