Sales...

While we were away on holiday last week I sold 2 paintings off the affordable british art website. The one above " Acacia Sunset" is 5ft wide x 1ft deep... not very good for sending by courier as its very likely to get smashed in half en-route.. The last one this size I sold was going to France...so my ever patient hubby bought wood to make a box for it..It worked well but was expensive to do..£50 just for the wood!  So Bill suggested we deliver the paintings rather than risk sending them. After checking it out on line I was able to find 2 nights B+B in Weston Super Mare, which is nearby the destination of the paintings for about the same as it would cost me to send them so we are having a mini-break in Weston ! I always include a little pressie to say thanks to the purchasers, and you can see the difference in size of those  in the above photo.. The miniatures really do look tiny up against the Acacia Sunset!

Tranquil Evening is also going along to Shepton Mallet.. We are looking forward to meeting Ange on Thursday morning when we drop the paintings off... then we are off to Glastonbury for a meeting with Steven,, so killing 2 birds with one stone..
Then in June we will also be hand delivering 3 paintings--this time to Looe in Cornwall.  Also by coincidence to another Ange !!!  This Ange is a collector of my work, having bought and commissioned quite a few paintings off me in previous years,, We are on holiday in nearby Bude , and it made sense to take the paintings with us as again one of them if a big 3ft x 3ft and its always a bit nerve racking sending them via courier -no matter how well you pack them! It will also be lovely to meet with the lovely lady who has bought so much of my art work!

GRRRRRRRRR

I have had a shitty sort of week this last week...I have waited for 3 huge canvas to arrive so I can start the biggest commission ever--9 ft by 4ft 6in --they failed t arrive as promised and I'm still waiting.... then I had a delivery of paint by DPD couriers--I now have a purple and pink driveway and wheelie bin...

looks like it had been dropped--and not enough packing around the bottles..

Add caption

Then another delivery -again by DPD some huge canvas screens --with a hole all the way through the packing and screens--

its just beyond a bloody joke...

I will defiantly never ever use DPD for delivering any of my paintings....looks like they play football with the parcels...I just hope it isn't them bringing my big canvas...

Festival At The Edge

Had a busy few days getting ready to do the Festival At The Edge...we had a wonderful time there last year,,meeting up with friends we had not seen for ages...

Lovely atmosphere in the evening....

Deb made a great job of her Summer Day painting--I will be running small workshops while I am there all weekend ..

With luck we won't need too have the sides on the awning and gazebo this year! We had a huge thunder storm on the Friday night last year--which is quite something to behold when you are in a caravan LOL...Hopefully we wont get a repeat of that this year!!

41 Club Workshop

Well Monday evening was a first for me--we have had loads of all ladies workshops but never an all male one! Tim who organised the evening has been with his family to several workshops in the past, and is a member of the 41 club in Bridgnorth..they do a different thing every month--and this month it was a painting workshop!

They had a choice of colours,,,

One or two of the chaps had painted before but it was a first time experience for most of them...

It was great fun and we had lots of laughs with them!

It was amazing how quickly they started getting ideas of their own--the one on the right ended with a castle and a lighthouse and was somewhere in Scotland!

Tim wanted his to represent an African scene..

I think everyone managed to create some lovely paintings with nobody struggling at all to do so...

Everyone enjoyed looking at every ones else's paintings--and chatting about them!

Well done everyone---brilliant results!

Big Red Poppy Workshop Oct 20th

What a great workshop we had yesterday doing the Big Red Poppy picture! A completely new technique for everyone using new materials such as texture paste, clingfilm and melted wax alongside the usual acrylic paint..everyone was quite excited about doing this one! Having tryed it out several times at home so that I could judge the drying times etc I was pleased to find I was exactly right on my timings on the day!  You can see Jenny R and Jenny T applying the texture here..

Derek having fun getting the texture correct ..he really excelled himself in this workshop..

 

busy with the hairdryers here...

I gave students the choice of any colour they wanted in which to create their Poppy...we had some wonderful vibrant colours used besides red.....Teal was popular, purple was used as well and Deb used a beautiful blue...all the colours worked really well...

coming on lovely here

none of the photos are doing the paintings justice--the texture isn't showing up and the beautiful variations in colours are not showing either..

This was the really interesting bit--using the irons to melt the wax to add detail to the centres of the pictures...

the melted wax added texture and colour--the silver wax especially--the difference it made was amazing!

Liz and Derek with their finished paintings

Jenny T, Jenny R and Vikki

Paula, Chris and Christina

Carol and Tina--Tina first time painting--didn't she do well?

Maureen,Deb and Tracey--it was Tracey's first time as well--she made a cracking job!

Pauline and Ali---wow!!!!

Well done everyone! Im reallly looking forward to the next workshop doing this one in Dec--its full with 15 students in it  again!

Button Oak Art Club Workshop

We were back at Button Oak/Pond |Green art club today--it was lovely to see everyone again! We were painting the popular "Serenity"

Some of the members are a bit disabled and find it had to stand for any length of time-so we arrange the easels so they can sit or stand

the painting came together very quickly--a variety of colours were used--dusky lilac,Terre Verte green,prussion blue and grey

Gail organises the workshops for the group-and made us all a lovely lunch--spicy lentil soup, and Olga's daughter had made 2 beautiful cakes--a fruit cake and a carrot cake--we were all well and truly full to brimming when we got up from the table!

its always amazing just how quiet he room goes when everyone is concentrating hard--they were adding the fence posts in the above photo==and all a bit worried they would spoil the painting at this stage! Of course nobody did.....and we had some beautiful results from everyone...they are all keen to have another go--next time maybe using acrylic--the birches seemed to be a popular choice--what this space!