Birch Tree Workshop Mon 25th June

We had a workshop yesterday Mon June 25th especially for a group from  the Birmingham New Testament Church of God..as they were coming in a minibus we had decided that an oil painting would be out of the question as they wouldn't get them home without getting paint everywhere! So they had a vote on which painting to do when they arrived at our venue!    Mavis --above soon got in the swing of things..

Stevon organised the trip over to paint with me after we met last year on Ludlow  market...none of the 12 had ever painted before and had no real idea of what they would be doing..one or two thought they would have a still life bowl of fruit to paint from what they said!

Rev Rhonda making a start on her small background trees...everyone was surprised at how different the paintings turned out right from the start....

Dulcia was quite a dab hand at doing the small trees..

Richard proved to be quite a natural..

having great fun here...

l

everyone watching carefully at what to do next...

careful not to get freckles Stevon!!!!

the ladies soon got the hang of it...

Maureens painting turned out quite subtle...

Francella was very brave and ended up putting quite a big tree in her foreground...she made a lovely job..

Lorretta seemed to find the painting quite easy...

Rossetta , lovely trees..

Russell was quite bold with her paint...

Bernice whispered to me that she was 83 years old bless her--what a good sport she was--mind you they all were!

May did very well....she thickened up her dark tree after and it had real character!

the ladies -hard at work--completely engrossed in what they were doing!

Brilliant results--you wouldn't think they were all first timers!

Fantastic results...

Didn't they do well? Well done everyone--we will look forward to seeing you all again!

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!

50 Shades Of Grey Workshop June 16th

Well a new subject for today 50 Shades Of Grey is an apt name for this one as there was every shade of Grey you could imagine in each painting...We had a mix of new students and some who had been loads of times so a good interesting mix! Judy -above was a first timer..she made a beautiful job of her painting-it was quite subtle and soft..

Tony came along and bought along his daughter Carol who has been 3 times before and his sister Jan who was painting for the first time--I think all the first timers were really nervous-as is completely normal when trying anything new.. but they all settled down to it really quickly and the nerves vanished..

Bev felt she was out of practise a little today--its been a while since she has been to a class...she found the blending quite hard to do,,,but made a cracking job of it in the end...really atmospheric!

Doreen always comes along with |Bev-- Doreen tends to over blend if anything but the acrylic is very forgiving and she was able to go back over and add some  more shading to the places she had over done slightly..

Sometimes things happen by accident--and it was a happy accident for Tony and Maureen---they had lovely hills appear in the background without trying--Tony's painting is above-he could have a sit down while waiting for the others to catch up and stick their hills in!

Maureen's painting above-looking wonderful already--great hills without trying!

We used a variety of metallic paints to add sparkle and colour to the paintings--here you can see Doreen's,,,the blue and violet looks very nice..

Keith was another first time student--he soon got used to the strokes he needed to do and quickly had a dramatic painting happening...his background hills happened by accident too and just needed the edges tidying up to look perfect!

Maureen goes home after most workshops and paints the subject again in different colours--she shows us on her camera what she has done since the last time--she is a very competent artist now..

sometimes we get strange , funny things appear in the paint--and in Judy's today we spotted several--the best being ET complete with his bike in the centre of this piece of her picture--behind there seems to be somebody on a donkey--but no doubt some of you will see other things as well..the last time I put something like this on Facebook there were all sorts of  things being spotted in there--!

Carol's painting turned out quite dramatic....its still at the calm stage here..

Jan settled down to her painting really quickly---you would never have known it was her first time

The metallic paint used in the foreground does not show up well in the photos--neither does the beautiful red poppies added to Jan and Carol's paintings....it really set the pictures off!

Maureen was the only one brave enough to add a tree---but Maureen is a bit of an expert when it comes to trees...

shame this one came out a bit blurred!