Big Poppy

We had a lovely time with 4 ladies on Saturday. 3 of them were friends who meet up to do creative things together...They have done various painting workshops together before but never used acrylic and melted wax..Judith chose the lovely browns and beiges for her painting..

Sue has been to me once before to paint Summer Day--which is completely different to this one!

Sue chose to do the bright reds with a touch of yellow,

Jackie chose some lovely purple,lilac and blue for her painting,,

Once we had done all of the acrylic painting we dried them off with hairdryers in order to add the melted wax ..

The ladies used a wide range of colours for the wax middles...

I love the colours used by Heather,,the wine colour works lovely with the purples..

Lovely results from everyone...

Winter Wonderland Workshop

It was lovely to see Zac and his Dad again after a few years--Zac has grown up so much since we saw him last! He enjoyed using the different brushes and techniques and had a lovely atmospheric painting quite quickly!

Jon (above) and Carol (below) were in the area on holiday from London... both were first time students, and were soon at ease with the materials and both seemed to find it quite easy!

Carol managed to make her pond look really deep...

Richard went for more purple shades in his painting, but its not showing much in the photo for some reason!

2nd time with me for Caroline, she bought along her hubby Arthur

Arthur is adding the final details here,

The students have the option right at the end to add a touch of glitter to the painting,,, its a very subtle glitter that just gives the effect of frost, Zac added some to the snow and then just a touch to his moon...

I love how he put the moon peeping out from behind the clouds..

Lovely results everyone!

Grasses Workshop April 9th

Ken came along for the first time to paint with Amanda who has been once before to paint Serenity a few weeks ago..there were a few nerves to start with-that is completely normal! Ken soon got the hang of blending the paints, and had a lovely atmospheric sky pretty quickly..

Amanda achieved the most subtle results , so soft-and quite hard to do I find myself when using acrylics!

Janet has painted before and seemed to find the acrylic paint quite easy to handle..

Her friend Lindsey has only done a little painting before but again seemed to find the process quite easy too.

First time painting for Christine..no poppies for her as they wouldn't match the room where she wants to hang it,,instead she painted lots of lovely daisies--very pretty!

Jenny painted Cats In Trees a while back with me the first time, and this time around wanted to add some flowers to her painting that would match her bed linen , she bought along a pillow case so she could copy some onto her painting...they turned out very good too!

Some very happy artists!

April 2nd Workshop ''Summer Day''

Now and again we get a request to travel to a new venue to do a workshop-so when Lorna who had been to a workshop in Ludlow once before , asked us if we would travel to Michaelchurch to do a workshop for her family and friends , we said yes of course! She organised a room for us and we set off at 8am on Saturday...one or two of them have been to me in Ludlow before... I gave them the choice of using the usual Summer Day colours or using the Monochrome version..

John has only used watercolours before...but loved the way the oils moved around ..

Gemma also chose the monochrome shades..first time painting for her too...

Everyone was amazed at how quickly the painting came together,,,,

lots of lovely texture in the waves..

''I know I won't be able to paint''she said..... how wrong was she then!

Julie had to go into work at last minute and didn't get to the class until we had all stopped for dinner at 12.30pm.... but I went through the painting again for her step by step and to every ones amazement she caught up with the others in just 30 mins.. she now has the nickname-" Catch-up" ..

Lovely subtle tones here...

Adding the poppies is the easiest bit of this painting...

Lorna organised the workshop, and was painting for the second time with me!

nearly finished!

Well done everyone... wonderful paintings from you all-- will look forward to seeing you all again in the future!

Latest Commission

One of the reasons I'm behind with my blog is the latest commission I have been working on...its a big one!                       2 Canvas each 40in x 12in to hang above each other on the wall.. What the camera does not pick up is the soft metallic gold paint I have used on the birch trees.                                                                                                                             The light catches it beautifully.. Nicki who commissioned it also asked me to include some foxgloves--which again do not show up in the photo... but do look very effective in 'real life' ..As I usually do with a commission I had been sending Nicki photos of each stage so she could tell me if she liked it or wanted anything changing..                                                          When it was finished Bill gave the artwork 3 coats of varnish to protect it and it was ready to deliver to Nicki..... now as you know we have had some awful experiences with couriers-with canvas and paint arriving here damaged, so Bill said ''we will deliver them to Nicki and you will know they have arrived safely with no damage to them.''.               So today we had a 180 mile round trip to Macclesfield  to personally deliver them!     It was worth it to see her happy face when she saw them for the first time in the flesh!        Plus we got to have a lovely steak at the pub over the road and a mooch around Newcastle Under Lyme on the way home! Nicki said she will send me a photo of them in situ in her living room so will look forward to receiving that!

Summer Day Workshop March 26th

We had great fun in this workshop ..out of the 12 students one-Joy had been 9 times before and Karen once-- all the others were first time students-though you would never know to look at the finished paintings would you?     The top photo is of Alistair and Leanne, Jill and Kim..    Everyone tackled it in their own way-bashing and tickling the sky,some more subtle than others...but that is the beauty of this painting-there are so many ways to make it your own!

So many variations--some chose a more turquoise sea, some green bushes and some brown bushes..      Everyone managed to use the knife to create the waves very quickly--the knife is the hardest thing you will ever do in one of my workshops--but as long as you keep it level and don't go up and down with it you will be fine!         I think everyone was amazed at their results as usual, pretty much everyone walks in saying ''I can't paint'' but they all realise pretty quick that they can!