Winters Walk

Between work commitments and illness we were down to just the one student yesterday..so Chris came to the house to paint Winters Walk..Only her 2nd painting--she came along to the Serenity workshop a few weeks ago and loved it so much she booked into another 3 workshops!

We had a visitor at lunchtime--Simon-one of my students kindly picked up a set of veg cutting tools from Kidderminster for me after I saw his impressive veg on Twitter LOL...he gave us a demo and Chris was so impressed she was going to call by on her way home to pick some up for herself!

She loved painting using he acrylic and oils...and can be seen here adding some clear glitter to the snow to make it look really frosty!

Well done Chris--will look forward to seeing you in the ''Into The Light'' workshop next month!

Think we need a bit more practise with the potato cutter! But they made lovely crisps..

The carrot spiral cutter was great...can be used for all sorts,,,

The tomato cutter was very easy to use,,,and the potato spiral tool worked well...the kids will love the curly chips! I'm so lucky to meet such lovely people through the workshops,,thanks again Simon...will have fun practising with all the tools in the future!

Sunflowers Workshop

This was the first time I have run the Sunflower workshop for about 3 years..I was a bit nervous for once, hoping I would get everything in the right order! I had a run through at home to jog my memory! Linda made a cracking job of her painting..

Beverly got on great painting her sunflowers...

Jeanne was bought a gift voucher from her son...first time painting in oils for her but she loved it...and said she may add some embroidery to it at at later date...would love to see the end results of that!

Angela and Sue (below)  buy each other gift vouchers for birthdays and Christmas..

the paintings looked a little odd for a while but soon came together once the sunflowers started going in!

Dawn was working on oil painting canvas paper instead of the box canvas everyone else was using...she wants to take her paintings to her holiday home abroad, and it will be easier and cheaper to transport on the canvas paper and get framed when she gets there!

I love seeing how people use their pallet's---Sue made full use of hers ...not much space left on it!

and this was Jeanne's,,

The photo does not show the detail..but they were all brilliant-- very individual..lots of scope to do your own style with this subject-- will be painting it again next year... I have already got bookings coming in for next year...see the dates underneath this years dates on the website!www.paintingmyway.co.uk

Blackpool Break

We had a lovely 4 night break in Blackpool last week,,,a bargain price too--just £78 Wowcher deal  for both of us for 4 nights B+B ...the reviews on Tripadvisor were all brilliant-except for someone complaining that there was orange squash on the table instead of fresh orange! Our room was large--and spotless clean--had 2 double beds and a single one in it! Lovely huge shower all newly refurbished-couldn't fault it!

It doesn't take us long to make the place untidy! The weather forecast had been awful so we packed loads of cold weather clothes--and didn't need any of them in the end! It rained a couple of nights but not when we were out and about--it was lovely and sunny!

I used £7 worth of Tesco vouchers in exchange for 2 tickets to the Tower circus-- we went last year and it was brilliant, but quite expensive--so this was a real bargain! Some fantastic acts-- no animals, breath-taking trapeze acts etc...well worth a visit!

Bill admiring the view of the pier..

Most of the scaffolding is down from round the tower now..

As we had a such a good deal with the digs and circus I thought we could splash out on a visit to see Michael Jacksons Thriller show that was on for just  5 days in the Grand Theatre --it was good but didn't feel it was worth the £60 compared to all the other things we did..

We don't normally have fish and chips-- but fancied some as we walked back down the prom...they looked OK but didn't taste great--the fish was thin and a bit greasy--as were the chips-so we ended up leaving most of it...

The breakfast at the LLanryn Guest house was lovely-- no complaints at all..Choice of cereals, toast and a full English--not a trace of grease to be found...

View from the Tower

If you do nothing else when you go to Blackpool, you must take a visit to The Funny Girls Show-- we laughed all night !!! Zoe and her 'girls are just brilliant! 7pm -12pm and only £12.50 each what great value!

There are so many different bits to it-always different!

Their version of Abba lol

We were crying at The Sound Of Music!!

PMSL at this!

Brulee was our 'waitress' for the night

Even Amy Whinhouse made an appearance!

This act hanging on the ribbons made my eyes water at times...

amazing!

The finale...well done ladies--we will be back to see you again next year!  And we came back to some wonderful news about my son Jim...he is in remmission with just a few residual cells left--they have also found a perfect match bone marrow donor ! He is having another weeks chemo to clear up the cells left and seeing the specialists in Birmingham later today to sort out the donation.Its by no means going to be a walk in the park for him but things are looking far more hopeful than they were..somewhere out there is a selfless lady who made the desion to be a donor--I thank her with all my heart for that xxx

Stormy Poppies Workshop

Sorry Im so late getting the blog done--went off for a break in Blackpool after the workshop! Above is Robi who decided to use some different colours as she has painted this one before! She also added a little fence, which worked well too!

First time for Gosia  who is already a brilliant artist and paints people and animals-she loved the experience working with oils..

The other 4 ladies Teresa,Julie, Lyndsey and Sarah

4th time for Teresa

First time for Julie who came along with Lyndsey

Umpteenth time for Lyndsey LOL

2nd time for Sarah,,, lovely results from them all and will look forward to seeing them all again!