Mellow Moods Workshop

They came from far and wide yesterday to paint with me! Yorkshire,London, Liverpool, West Midlands and Wales just to name a few!

We did a black acrylic base painting followed by an oil wash and detail... Judith came along for the first time with Terry--both have been having a dabble with watercolours at home but this was a first with acrylics and oils for them--and they loved it!

Terry getting on well with the underpainting...

Lorna came along with Kathleen for the first time, Lorna's daughter Trudy has been once before--but both Lorna and Kathleen were pretty convinced they would not paint anything worth hanging on the wall! How lovely it  was to see them settling down and the nerves disappearing--

Its always amazing how different every ones paintings turn out--a real mix of subtle and more colourful--Trudy went for the subtle effect and beautiful it was too!

Kathleen found it so much easier than she expected....

Bali came along with friends Helen ,Deb and Kate..and her painting will be going back to London! She had a lovely delicate touch when doing her trees...

Helen has been before,but never done sponging before!

Dawn was painting her 6th painting with me and received her Artist Brooch, as did her friend Ali who also travelled down from Liverpool...dawn painted on oil painting paper as she wants to frame her finished painting and take it to her holiday home..

Ali chose to do just one bold tree--but it worked as well as doing more...

Brilliant results for Deb,,

Kate adding some more detail to her trees before going on to add the oil wash,,,

Well done everyone-- lovely paintings-you should all be very proud of yourselves!

It sounds like we may be going to Trudy,Lorna and Kathleen's part of the world to do a workshop-- they may have a room in mind already! Will look forward to it very much!

Oriental Dawn-Cancelled

Unfortunately I have to cancel this Saturdays workshop due to my health. I have managed to fit everyone except one who I'm waiting to hear back from in to other workshops..
I had to cancel today's market as well..just one of those things..hopefully I will be back 100% for next week!
I have made a start on next years workshops, you can find them directly under the 2014 workshop dates..I will be adding more dates shortly as soon as I have the dates of the shows etc that I have to work around!
Take a look at the website   workshops coming up!

Kinver Art Group

We met Pat and some of her fellow artists when we did Kinver Show back in the summer..we arranged at the show that we would go and do a demo for them..the day arrived yesterday--and what a great day we had---a laugh a minute with the members as I went through both paintings step  by step..above you can see them having a close look at The Waterfall.

A couple of members  had  tried oils years ago but most of them were used to using acrylics and watercolours-so it was a real eye-opener for them..everyone was pretty amazed at the results I got so quickly., and they promised they wouldn't go into the art shops and ask for 'bashing' and 'tickling'  brushes!!

The winners of the raffle were Trisha on the left who chose Summer Day--Trisha made the most beautiful cake for the coffee break-pear and blackberry sponge that was to die for--and some chocolate tarts--it would  have been rude not to try them..and Pam won The Waterfall painting.. all of the members were left wanting to have a go at oils-and we will look forward to meeting them in future workshops!

The Waterfall Workshop

Apologies for the delay getting my blog done...we had some beautiful results in The Waterfall workshop on August 30th..

Gorgeous colours...

and wonderful atmospheric scenes..

everyone was amazed at how quickly the paintings came together..and just how different they all turned out even though they all used the same colours!

nearly finished...

love the touch of purple...

well done ladies--lovely results and will look forward to seeing you again !

Poppies Workshop

Today's class subject "Poppies" gives a lot of scope to be very individual..painted using oils on a black canvas--you can be as bold or as subtle as you like! There is no right or wrong with it..Jill was painting with me for the 2nd time,I love her beautiful bold poppies! Today's students really did come from far and wide miles and miles were travelled to come and paint with..Jill was one of the most local ones along with Sandra!

Adrienne was painting with me for the first time--the poppies are coming along nicely here! Quite local--Kidderminster!

Ann has a 2 hour journey from Bristol to paint with me--love how she had the poppies disappearing into the distance-first time on a black canvas for her!

Sandra is another local lady--first time painting since school--she made a cracking job of her painting! Looking forward to seeing here again in class..

It was lovely to see Irene again after a break--she has been busy with work--but emailed to say she had to have another  ''painting fix'' as it had been too long! She has quite a journey from Newcastle Under Lyme so travels down the night before and stays at the local Travel lodge.

I managed to catch the camera shy Karen-who came down from Mansfield again--this time she bought along Rosie for the first time....looks like the daisies are going in here..

Rosie's first time painting--and she really enjoyed it-and what a great job she made of it too...

I should have got some close up photos at the end--but the time just went somehow--we had some wonderful extras added to all the paintings-as well as the poppies we had daisies and cornflowers as well as bees,dragonflies,butterflies-even a snail or two.. I think the highlight of the day was my Bill taking a call from someone called ''John'' who claimed to be from Microsoft and who said I had something wrong with my computer--it was quite funny because during lunch we had been laughing about taking calls from scammers-and some of the things we did when they rang--anyway Bill had him going for what seemed an age--we were all creased with laughter as Bill shook the swear box on the table and told 'John ' that the computer was now making a funny noise--then the screen went blank--funny enough 'John ' hung up the phone--maybe it was the sound of 8 ladies sniggering in the background that did it!

Abby's Hen Party

We went over to Stourbridge on Saturday to do Abby's painting hen party--she didn't have a clue what was going to happen and the girls had been pulling her leg for ages and winding her up--telling her she had to do a sky dive among other things--it must have been a relief to find it was a painting workshop! She was blindfolded and lead into the room....

Jaye had organised the party and chose the subject-and as Abby loves bunnies we added some to the finished painting...

Everyone was a bit sceptical as to whether they could paint a picture...but as you can see from the finished results everyone did really well...

Lop eared  rabbits!

We used some pretty metallic paints to add detail at the end--it does not show up well in the photos but in 'real' life looked stunning!

the fact that the grasses turned into big beautiful flowers in the end didn't matter one bit!

Abby's Nan did this lovely one---bright and bold!

Amazing how different they all turned out--we had loads of laughs all day long!

We used twinkly glitter paint to add stars at the end--and left the girls with some varnish so they can give all the pictures a coat to bring out the colours and protect the paintings...

the metallic red paint looked stunning on this one...

love the grasses this one..

metallic purple for these grasses looked great too,

beautiful dramatic sky...

nearing the end now...

what a great spread of food the girls put on.....

love the willy shaped dishes..

Abby's mum, about to do the bunnies..

The happy artists,,all enjoyed their day-some beautiful results from them all--hope they didn't have very sore heads the next day--they were all going out for a drink after the workshop!