A Welcome Break

After a hectic weekend doing Tenbury Applefest and Ludlow Book and Craft fair it was lovely to get away yesterday up to North Yorkshire for a 3 night break..We are staying at  The Black Swan in Masham. We have a lovely, huge room, superking sized bed, oak floors and underfloor heating.. The breakfast was just beautiful this morning, kept us going until late afternoon! The weather turned out bright and sunny as well though it sounds like we will be getting some rain tomorrow, not that it will bother us much!

 

The autumn colours are all around us now..I just love these ferns we spotted on the way home from Harrogate and Rippon where we spent the day...some inspiratition is ever I saw it!

Beautiful scene...I will have many more photos before we leave that I can use as a base for paintings ...just need the time to do them!

Winters Walk Workshop Oct 5th

James's first time painting with me--he came along with his Mum Anne , who was doing her 6th painting and received her painting brooch I give all my students for achieving 6 works of art! He did very well and followed my instructions well.

Anne is very confident and has never really found any of the paintings hard to do..today was no exception and her snowy path soon happened!

Zaz came along with his Dad Richard and Nan  Peggy,,he really found his forte...he is brilliant at painting trees with loads of character!

Richard's use of colour was lovely and bold--it works really well--

We had some fun with Peggy--now and again we get a student who finds it hard to do certain brush strokes..and for Peggy it was doing the horizontal strokes for the snowy path...they kept creeping uphill--we could see why-she was following the direction of the path up round the bend all the time--we got there in the end--but we all had a chuckle with her-bless her! There are a few things we do in the workshops that can be a challenge to do--and a lot of people will really have to concentrate to get the brush going at the correct angle--but we always get there in the end!

Tracey had a gift voucher to use and came along with her friend Helen,

Lovely big bold trees---the knife was used afterwards to give the trees lots of texture..

This was Jacks 2nd painting--his first painting was shown to an artist friend of his who remarked "it looks like you have been painting for years" what a compliment! I wonder what he will think about this one!

The end results! Well Done !

Richard ,Zac and Peggy with their masterpieces....unfortunately the other photos I took of the other students have vanished off my camera!

Buttons and Beads

Well its been a while since I started playing with buttons and beads alongside the paintings!

I love the different colours and shapes you can get..

and its great fun creating the 'flowers'

I have got some bouquets finished now..

buttonholes made with buttons are great fun to--I will be making some to match all the bouquets...

I love searching out things I can use,

buttons of all shapes and sizes...

Vintage buttons are so beautiful,,,but involve quite a lot of work...they have to be washed and dried,sorted into colours and shapes..

I use vintage materials too, this hand made croqueted tablecloth had a few stains on it , but I was able to rescue some of the individual 'flowers; to use..

reminds me of sweets in a shop--these are just a small number of my buttons!

As well as button bouquets I will be creating other items--this is my first button bling Christmas tree--the photos don't do it justice..its bling at its finest!

buttons and jewels abound!!

One of my latest creations..a huge Button Butterfly suitable for a little girls room maybe?

And I'm really chuffed with my pink Christmas tree

I am working on a new website for the button side of the business--will post here when its up and running!In the meantime if there is anything you would like creating in buttons please contact me via my usual website www.paintingmyway.co.uk

Changes....

We decided to sell the large aquarium that we had in the hall recently..having bought a beautiful unique sideboard from Ikea when we were away on holiday last week! We delivered the tank and cupboard to the new owners last night and Bill was able to get on and finish the laminate flooring that was not done under the tank!

I fell in love with the sideboard as soon as I spotted it--and knew it was just perfect for the space...it had been decorated especially for the showroom and is the only one like it!

The abstract painting I did in class last Saturday goes perfectly with the theme..and the lava lamp was bought out of storage to sit on there too...

I added my lovely collection of of coloured candle holders on top too..love the warm glow that was given off by it all..much nicer than the cold blue light of the aquarium really...so I'm a very happy bunny now its finished!

New Abstract Workshop--results!

I  decided that we would have a trial run on small canvas today before the main event! Using transparent paints in the main,.everyone had great fun deciding what they wanted on their main painting! Not every idea was taken to the bigger scale but it was very interesting to see what worked and what was changed.

Rob used swirls and lines in his first painting,,

Dawn used more opaque colours--I wasn't sure if it would work as well--but it did--very well...the title of this one was "Love is Complicated"

Jenny's first painting reminded us all of a spider web and a seashell...

Irene was doing her painting for her daughter-she had a cushion with the colours to match the room it was to be hung in and a request that it used the swirls pattern and not the lines!

Terry used the swirls to start with on the practise piece..but decided to use another idea on the main canvas!

WOW--you can see how the paintings developed here-all so different-you couldn't predict it at all!

Loved Dawns painting--bold colours-its hard to see the detail in any of the photos--she used the wiping out tool to go back to the black canvas in places..

I'm sure that Irene's daughter will love this painting..I should have taken a photo of the cushion that was used as a base for the painting...its just a perfect match!

Jenny's painting was really vibrant--the hexagon shape lends itself to the abstract subject-she had the lines weaving in and out perfectly!

Robs painting looked brilliant-he painted it to look like the solar system-which it did! Terry used some dry brush techniques that made the finished painting look like embossed velvet-the colours and texture just don't show up on here...all in all a brilliant day --everyone really enjoyed it--we all joked that we don't know what a phycharists would make of the different paintings,,but all agreed it was great fun and very interesting to do--I will be setting another date for April 2014 for this subject..we will do a small painting on a canvas 10in x 8in to start so you can get a feel for the paints,canvas and what sort of end result you want! It really was great fun and I will look forward to doing this one again !

Durham Break

We had a lovely short break in Durham from Sunday -Wednesday..We were able to go and see our lovely little grandaughters  Hollie and Lucie who live nearby. They are growing up so quickly..

They loved their pressies we took them..looking forward to seeing them down here in Oct..

We went to the Beamish Museum on the Monday--the weather was beautiful...perfect for looking around! Its much bigger than expected though-good job there are regular trams and buses to take you to each section! You really need all day to go round here, so much going on!

So much to see and do there..

making bread..

This reminded me of my Granny Sankeys back bedroom...she had a bed just like this one--complete with the pot under the bed!

the 'smalls' or should that be the 'larges' lol drying by the fire!

the old privvie

loved the little porky pigs sunbathing in the sty's

On the way home we stopped by at The Angel Of The North--we have been by it many times with no time to stop so it was great to be able to go up close to it and see it...

We were not very impressed with our accommodation--at The Bay Horse, Brandon ---the carpet was filthy, the springs had gone in the sofa and the wall lights didn't work--also the electric sockets didn't work...glad we didn't pay the full price for it....but left appropriate review on Tripadvisor..shame it had great potential..

k