Into The Light Workshop Feb 20th

2nd time for Cathy and her friend Heather..we used acrylic paint for this workshop and the students had a choice of canvas size...

We use a very interesting technique to the the background,, Joyce was with me for the 6th time..

2nd time for June who travels from London by train and stays with her brother locally...she chose the tall chunky canvas.

Lin also chose the tall canvas...

Heather's background had loads going on straight away!

lovely bold trees from Sarah..about halfway through here..

most chose to add the snow floating down...it really changes the feel of the painting as soon as it goes on!

Sarah's finished painting.

Cathy's painting

and added the twinkling stars at the end rather than snow..

quite an enchanted woodland feel to Heather's painting

June's painting,

Joyce's painting

lovely results Ladies-well done !!

Blackpool Break

We got away for a few days last Monday--back to one of our most favourite places--Blackpool.. As always we had a brilliant deal off Wowcher and stayed at the www.brionihotelblackpool.co.uk for the 3 nights-just £75 for the two of us B+B . Lovely hotel--further North than we usually stay, but spotless clean, great food and hosts.

Lovely view from our room, and we were treated to a beautiful sunset for 2 of the evenings!

I always check out Trip Adviser before booking rooms or food when we are away--and had found this very close to the hotel £9.95 for 4 courses  -you cant go wrong ! http://www.curryqueenindian.com/ 

Just could not fault the food at all..plenty of it and so tasty. I had the mixed starter--and it was huge--had no chance of eating it all ! We missed out the soup course as well! The staff were lovely, and very helpful..one even showed me how to fold the fancy napkins on the table..not sure I would remember how to do it now mind!

We are not very adventurous when it comes to Indian food though, opting for chicken tikka or chicken balti..

the pilau rice was beautiful and not bright yellow as it usually is..

chicken balti... huge chunks of chicken in it.. I only managed to eat about half of my meal..and didn't want any breakfast the net morning as I still felt full!

We went for a drive around the area and found the John Ditchfield Glassform studios  www.glasform.com

Some amazing pieces of glass on display--and we were able to watch some glass being blown too..

There are loads of glass sculptures all around the place, in the field outside and in the huge studio/workshop.

Love this-Olympic torch!!

Beautiful sunset again on the Wednesday night--watched it for ages while getting ready to go and see our favourite show of all The Funny Girls...Another bargain off Groupon--2 tickets to see The Funny Girls along with a 2 course meal with a glass of bubbly for just £27

the food was lovely--pate ,toast and salad for starters

a glass of wine or three in between...

Then a lamb shank in red wine and rosemary sauce with spicy wedges,peas and Cali..

Zoe the compare was hilarious as usual...it was a tiny audience,,,would you believe just the 8 of us in that huge theatre!! But the show was done as if it was packed.. the time of year and the weather was to blame I think! But we felt quite privileged to  be sat watching our own private performance LOL..

Some we have seen before--including The River Dance..which is breathtaking to watch...

There was a lot of new stuff too-- all very entertaining--and something we go and see each time we go to Blackpool.

A grand finale....

The lovely Zoe... will look forward to going again sometime this year.

Poppy Field Workshop

Its always fun working with newbies--and there were 7 of them in the Poppy Field workshop on the 13th Feb. Mary in the centre front had been just once before...  Everyone enjoyed working with the bashing and tickling brushes, and the paintings quickly took shape. Quite a few different things to learn in this workshop, sky, grasses, barley, poppies, corn flowers and daisies..All very simple to do-when you are shown how! As you can see the paintings all turned out beautifully..

Yesterday Workshop

What beautiful results we had in the ''Yesterday'' Workshop on 6th Feb.. apologies for not putting it on before--had done it but forgot to publish it!

Its amazing how different the pictures can be using the different colours...

Pat and Chris used the oranges and reds,

The tree can be a little scary to do sometimes, but well worth doing to add a bit of interest!

Joy and friend Karen-first time for Karen who was a little nervous, and looking forward to seeing them both again + Karen's mum for the Summer Day workshop next month!