Home again!

Well we are starting to get back to normal again after our painting holiday at St Audries.

All the washing is done and everything packed away again!

I have to get back into the swing of things soon, I have a talk and demo at Ledbury Art Society on Tuesday and a full class next Saturday.

Must say I am looking forward to meeting my ladies again plus one of their husbands as well for the Poppy Field painting!!

I have spent 30 mins updating the latest paintings onto http://www.protectmywork.com/

and I have some time left then to try and understand the new computer!!! Ive lost loads of photos on there somewhere-very frustrating when I have so much to update here on my blog--things may be a little muddled for a while cos I will post the pictures on as I find them, so they may not be in order!

Off We Go-- To St Audries Bay

We are still packing everything ready for the off to St Audries Bay! There is so much to remember-the list gets longer each hour!

I should have stopped at home while Bill fetched my friend from Stafford who is house/pet sitting but decided to go along for the ride last night instead!

There is no rush to get there though-as long as we arrive in time for the lovely 3 course meal this evening!

I will have internet access while I am away so I will keep you all posted with whats happening at St Audries Bay!

Childrens Encaustic Parties

After an inquiry today after a mum who I met at the weekend, I am able to announce that I will be available for childrens encaustic art birthday parties.

The children will be supervised and shown how to create beautiful melted wax pictures.
I will also supply a frame for the birthday child to put his/her favorite picture in.
They will be able to make some postcard size pics and also 1 A4 size.
If you are interested in having an encaustic party please get in touch with me.

Bluebell Woods

This is the latest in my ''almost monochrome collection.
It measures 70 cm x 50cm and is painted in acrylic paint and encaustic wax.
It has had 3 coats of artists quality varnish to protect it.
The price is £120 including P+P in Uk
If you are outside Uk please get in touch
PLEASE BE AWARE THAT ALL MY WORK IS LOGGED AT http://www.protectmywork.com/

From Small Acorns

After announcing at the beginning of August that I will be holding an exhibition of my students work, I have given a lot of thought as to what it should be called and

I have decided to call the exhibition ''From Small Acorns'' As from the old saying'' From little acorns mighty oaks grow'' which is exactly what I see happening with my students when they come to me.

They walk in the door the first time and are usualy a bag of nerves and convinced they will fail to produce a decent painting---- they leave full of confidence and pleased as punch with what they have achieved--its the best part of this job.

I will be having a children's section as well as the adults. If there is any wall space left I will maybe hang a few of my own!!

If I have not already contacted you about putting your paintings into the exhibition, please get in touch-- via the telephone preferably.

There is no charge for putting the paintings in the exhibition and if you want to sell them you are free to do so--after all one of my students Catherine has sold 4 out of the 5 paintings that she has done in my classes--the last one for £180. She said she had priced it high because she didn't want to sell it!!
Its a good reflection on my teaching though and Im as pleased as punch for her!!

The way the year is going it will soon be here!!

Paper Boy

When we came out of Saturdays class this is what we saw outside--Cheek-a--boo the shropshire star paper -pony! He was waiting while his owner popped the paper through the letter box-isnt he cute?

Next Job

The next job is to sort out the dining room-lots of stuff has been dumped in there from the kitchen--we are sorting it out bit by bit--Freecycle is great-the double glazing is going to a new home in the morning, and my daughters old bike has gone to a new home instead of going to the tip.
Bill has knocked out the old dining room door and is going to plaster board it tomorrow, then it will be cleared ready to tile the floor.

Exhibition

In December I am holding my 2nd solo exhibition at Leominster Library this year,

along side it will be my students work produced in the classes-everyone is looking forward to it and it will be interesting for people to see the difference in everyones work-even when produced in the same class!!

Here is Penny, one of the many students who will be putting all of her work done with me in class into the exhibition.

New Class 3rd Nov

''Snowy Day''

This is the subject of the Saturday 3rd November class.

It is suited to all abilities--even if you have never painted before -you can paint this picture.

Please get in touch through the website to book

www.paintingmyway.co.uk

Flooding

These are a few of the photos we took when in town yesterday.They are all of the area around the famous Ludford Bridge. They have been testing the bridge today to see if it is still sound after the freak weather we have had. In the first picture you can see how the water was banking up before it came under the bridge---you wouldnt belive the smell and the noise that was coming from the water.

Our hearts go out to all those affected by the terrible floods of the past few days.

Sparkys done it again!

I swear the cat knows when we have a little extra money--without fail he gets into a scrape and needs the vet!

Today we got back to find him very sore on the back end and blood all over the spare bed.

He has been fighting again with something.

He will have to go to the vets again tomorrow for anti-biotics and pain-killers.

He is feeling very sorry for his self at the moment!

Amazing!!!

This is a an amazing story--3 weeks ago Bill cleaned out our 4 ft tropical fish tank using the syphon as usual to clean all the muck from around the gravel and plants.It is pumped into a plastic dustbin and we slide it across the room and out of the patio doors on a plastic bag.Then it stays on the patio and Bill uses it to water the patio tubs.

Because the weather has been so bad of late, it has just stood there-- when Bill looked at throwing it away on Friday, he saw a movement in the water, and realised that there were 4 baby fish in there.He caught them and they lived in a coffee jar until he bought a special net so they could be returned to the tropical fish tank without being eaten by the big fish!

They are baby sword tails and they should need warmish water to survive! To think they have been out there in the rain etc for 3 weeks and survived is amazing!

They must have been hiding in the plants and been sucked up when he cleaned the tank!

Busy Weekend Again!"

This is the subject of this Saturdays Class. I have 5 people coming to it so far.

Its one of the most popular painting classes that I do

It is a busy weekend--my daughter is moving home on Saturday--we wont be much use to her cos I wont be free until 3ish but my son Jim will be on hand with a big van to help her move the big stuff.
Then we are going out in the evening to wet the babies head-Lyndsey and Darren and little Holly are coming all the way down from Sunderland on Saturday.
Cant have too much to drink cos we are on the craft market on Sunday!!!!!!!


The childrens class is almost fully booked, just 2 places left--the local paper is coming to take some more pics at the class on Saturday--after we came back on Wednesday night and found that the local paper had dug up an ancient pic of me with short hair(YUK) and 2 stone heavier for a otherwise brilliant review of me and my demos at the WI's in Mondays paper.

I am working on some other ideas at the moment-re the kids classes-I have a lot of enquires about other dates for the classes-will keep you posted via email for those interested.

Meet Gertie!

This is our latest caravan Gertie. She is a little younger than Bessie, and came with a much bigger awning, thus giving us more storage space-essentual when we go off for the 2 and 3 day craft fairs.She has the all important wine glass cabinet with stained glass doors and is really immaculate inside and out.I just know that me and Bill will have a lot of fun in her!

Frames

I have been asked several times in classes lately about getting the paintings framed when they are dry.
I have been to see Dave The Frame-- the chap who does my mounts and frames and he has agreed to frame the box canvas at a special rate for my students.
The frames will cost just £10.
I have left 2 paintings with him today and Bill can pick them up in the morning while I am doing the class.
He will also give me some samples of the different frames that can be used on the canvas so people can see which they prefer.

The class is only a small one tomorrow because one of my ladies has gone into hospital and her friend usualy had a lift to the class with her, so we will see Pauline and Irene in the near future.
I wish Irene a speedy recovery.

Encaustic work

Examples of some of the paintings created using the melted wax today on the craft fair. They are all for sale at £5 each including P+P

please get in touch if you would like to purchase one of them. They all come unmounted and unframed and is the latest affordable way of collecting my art.

Wild life In The Garden

We decided that the small pond that we had let go 'wild' had got a little too wild and the 4 fish that we had put in earlier in the year hadnt been seen since! So Bill started to pull some of the reeds that had taken over when the little frog appeared out of the water.!He seemed very quiet concidering what was happening and hung around til Bill had finished! You wouldnt belive how much stuff was in the pond-the fish will be much happier now they have room to swim more freely!

I was tempted to move the fish and put them into our big pond, but the fish in there are getting so big I think they had better stay where they are!

Unfinished

This is my latest in my monochrome collection.It is called ''unfinished ''because that is what it is!

I usualy add detail of bluebells or foxgloves in melted wax to make them 'almost monchrome' but after painting one at the Three Counties Show and adding bluebells, deciding I prefered foxgloves and painting over the bluebells-then of course someone wanted one with the bluebells in it!

So I had to paint one all over again!

This gives you your own input to the finished painting-let me know which you prefer and I will add them for you-you can even have the choice of what kind of varnish you have on the finished piece! I have both satin and gloss-the choice is yours!

The price is £120 including P+P to the UK if you are outside UK please get in touch.

Sparrows

Its a little hard to see but these 3 little baby sparrows were looking so sorry for themselves today! It was pouring with rain all day. They just sat there in the bird table huddled up together waiting for mum and dad to bring then food!

I didnt wake up til 1pm and then if Bill hadnt bought me a cup of coffee into the bedroom I think I would have been there all day!

The past couple of weeks have been so hectic it has caught up with me I suppose.

I have nothing to do now until next Saturday when I have a full class--- so I can have a nice rest!

The festival craft markets have been cancelled due to the bad weather.

The painting knives will be here tomorrow , and I have got the new landscape and large oval brushes ready for the students who ordered them at the last class-they are a a bargain at just £1 each

work in progress

You can see the 3 basic stages that went into my latest work-yet to be named-any ideas for a name please email as usual! The flowers are irises.

It will not be dry in time to take to shobdon, we will be setting up there tomorrow, but it should be dry enough to take to the craft fairs next week!The forcast is not great but we will be in the dry in the marquee.There are lots of busloads of people booked to come to it the organisers have told us , so whatever the weather it should prove to be busy!