Sunflowers Workshop Nov 6th

 We had a lovely time in class today--a lovely bright and cheerful subject--Sunflowers
.Lyndsey and Maureen have been before-but Amanda , Christina, Tony, Martin and  Maysoon were all newbies.
It was so interesting to see how everyone tackled the subject-when everyone stood back and took a look at what they had done-they were all quite surprised at the differences in their paintings.
We had lots of laughs during class about lots of things--mainly nothing to do with art-but chickens!
The time flew by quickly--and Tony got finished in time to go and watch the rugby on TV-so he had his photo taken before the group photo! We will see him for the Birch Trees in Dec.
Christina runs a beautiful B+B in nearby Clunton called Bush farm  take a look at her website www.bushfarmbandb.co.uk
she has free range chickens and geese and you can also take your horse on holiday with you to her farm--all the details are on the website.
Christina's painting is going to Bristol tomorrow to her daughter as a birthday present--Bill made a box for her to take it in safely--her family don't know she has been to the workshop today-so will be stunned when they see her painting---she is booked into another 3 workshops-both acrylic and oils.
Amanda has painted in watercolours before--and she loved the way you could keep changing things--something you cant do with watercolour.
All in all a great day--great fun and great results.

Birch Tree Video on Youtube

Well Im about finished for the day--uploaded some of my popular Birch Tree pics onto Youtube.

Something went wrong with the titles and they ar appearing on the wrong paintings or some reason--but it will have to do for now!
Will change it tomorrow maybe!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jspiYBSsq8k&feature=channel

Oriental Dawn

I had a lovely time today with Tina (left) and Wendy (right) today. Tina was bought a gift voucher for the class by her sister for her birthday earlier in the year, but because of the floods couldnt make it to the class! So it was second time lucky for her today!

Both ladies were kept very amused during the class's by Jake the parrot who didnt shut up all day--although he is in another room he is quite loud and so comical-"Merry Christmas" "I love Bill/Di/ Sparky" "Daft Bugger" "Your Nuts""hello Carl--shut the door"" Coughs, sneezes-says oh dear -its a bugger innit" Etc Etc ."shut up" to poor Paddy (other parrot) whenever he opens his beak to say anything! never a dull moment with them!

The Party!

We had a lovely time on Wednesday evening at mums 70th birthday party.! Poor mum didnt have clue about the extra people who were there, she thought it was just going to be us children, partners and grandchildren!

The rest of the relatives were all in on the secret and everyone was seated when she walked in! There were some tears of joy from her, when she came round the corner and spotted everyone.

We all had a beautiful meal at The Queens, can highly reccommend the sirloin steak with herb butter.

There was another surprise when they bought out her birthday cake-again she had a few tears!

The cake tasted lovely and everyone enjoyed themselves chatting after.

Class date for Stormy Skies--Nov 8th

This is another of my class subjects that has proved popular over the past year in my Painting My Way classes.

Stormy Skies is always popular as it always gives great results every time.

You will use a variety of brushes as well as the painting knife-something that when mastered will lead you to many fantastic results!

If you would like to join this class please get in touch via the website

www.paintingmyway.co.uk

it is suitable for all abilities form very first time onwards.

Birch Trees

I was asked today if I did my monochrome birch tree paintings in any other colour--the lady in question wanted a brown and beige combination--to match her living room-- I had some canvas with me so made a start while still at the festival,I will be working on them some more tomorrow while I'm there, so she will be able to see the work progressing. I have logged the first stages onto

http://www.protectmywork.com/ a copyright protection website.

I will log every stage after as we go.Its making an interesting change from black and white!

Hope Bagot

We had a great day at Hope Bagot yesterday-although it didnt stop raining all day!

There was a constant stream of people through the door of the vilage hall where we were.

The children all loved having a go at the encaustic art and some beautiful paintings were produced during the day.

Lydham WI

We had a late night tonight-we were over at Lydham WI to do a demo.By the time we got the car packed with everything it was 6.30pm and we were running slightly late.I like to get to the venue and get set up before the members have their meeting, as its distracting for them to have me and Bill carrying things backwards and forwards.We arrived at just turned 7 pm and were set up for 7.30pm.
While the members did their bits and pieces I judged the competion which was "A Piece of Art " there were some beautiful pictures to choose from and it was difficult to chose 1st,2nd and 3rd.

Then at 8pm it was my turn--I will post the pictures tomorrow of what I painted.

We met some lovely people there ,and as usual the food afterwards was just superb.So after chatting with everyone and by the time the car was packed up again it was late getting back.
Checked emails and Ive got a possible commissiion to do, so good night!

LIttle Bird

We have a lodger at the moment--Sparky Cat bought in this little baby robin last night- he hadn't harmed him at all.
Previously he had bought in a dead one and after he bought in this one he bought in another dead one.We don't think he has had them out of the nest-they were all fully feathered and almost fledged so we think they had fell out of the nest.
We put this one into a tissue lined bowl and covered him over-fully expecting to find him dead from shock this morning.
However he was very much alive and kicking and wanting some breakfast went we went downstairs this morning!
He accepted some moist bread from the tweezers very well, but we decided he needed more natural food and Bill dug up some worms and cut them up for him---YUUUUUKKKKKK
not a good experience feeding wiggly cut up worms to a baby bird!!!
It is gross-but baby bird loves them, he ate 2 largish ones and is sleeping like a baby now! He should be able to fly and fend for himself quite soon, so hope we can keep him going till he is strong enough!

Longest Summer Day

Ive had a very enjoyable day creating my latest work."Longest Summer Day" has been so called for obvious reasons-the canvas is a massive 5ft tall and just 1 ft wide.
Its been very interesting painting on a canvas this size, though it must be said its a little awkward to avoid getting paint everywhere-including on the kitchen ceiling!
Its now hanging in the bathroom drying.The sides are all painted and staple free so it does not require framing.
There is a bit more detail than is showing up in the photo-Ive lost some of the detail at the sides when I cropped it for the websites, so if you want a close up of any partsof the painting please get in touch via my website www.paintingmyway.co.uk
or www.dianetheartist.com
The price of this painting is £180 and that includes P+P in UK. If you are outside the UK please get in touch.

Latest Poppy

Ive finaly finished the ''Red Poppy'', I have added the wax centres to all of the 4 canvas and they have had their first coat of varnish.
The colour is absolutly vibrant now they have had the varnish, you can see all the different shades of reds clearly.
The only problem with painting the red poppies is getting decent photos of them-they tend to come out orangey rather than red!
I am very please with the effect of the lava rock paint that I used just outside of the wax cenres-it looks just like pollen-very effective.You can see me adding the melted wax with my special tool in th photo.
They will get another coat of varnish today and the final one tomorrow.

Sundays Craft Fair

After the awful weather on Saturday and during the night we were not sure whether we would be going to do the Craft market or not until we woke up and saw what the weather looked like on Sunday morning.
After losing an hour's sleep with the clocks going on the last thing we wanted was to start unloading and getting soaked!
However the morning was bright and the sky was blue, so we decided to chance it.I'm so glad we did.
We had a lovely day, several of my students called by to see us for a chat too which was lovely.
One of them ,Kay took the opportunity to book up for another 2 classes.
Chris and Pauline who had attended yesterdays class,also booked up for May too.
It stayed lovely and sunny all day, there was a steady stream of visitors to Ludlow,and some locals were mooching too.
All in all we had a good day, we seem to get quicker setting up the stall-we were done by 9am.Its been as late as 10.30 sometimes but we have got it off to a fine art now!
We know how many paintings we can fit on the stands and roughly where they will go.
I like to have all the class subjects together so I can explain to potentual students the sort of thing they will be able to paint when they come to class.Then all the other paintings, that I dont teach can be displayed together.It works very well, but I leave the hanging of them to Bill-he gets them up nice and straight--unlike me!

Im In House And Home Ideas Magazine!!!

I had some great news this morning.One of my artworks is featured in April 2008 Interior Design magazine "House and Home Ideas"
"Get A Wobble On" is described as --- 80s REVIVAL: Fab for a geometric scheme.
The painting is part of my Manic series which has proved to be very popular.

Thanks to Ros who runs the Affordable British Art site that was featured in there.

The site is great for anyone looking to buy affordable art, its very easy to navigate and easy for someone like me who is not the most computer literate of people to put paintings on to sell.