Glass Fusion Workshop

Me and my Bill spent a very enjoyable afternoon in Leominster at http://www.exemplar-glass.co.uk/#/classes/4556882167  it was an early birthday pressie for Bill and it made a lovely change for me to be on the other side of instruction! I was a bit nervous to say the least but the lovely Jane who runs the workshops soon put us at ease with a lovely cup of coffee and shortbread's. She explained all the different techniques and things that can be done with glass and the photo above shows some of them...

first thing we did was some glass cutting...not as easy as it looks! I tyred a basic little tree to start with....

This is Bills--we had to cut the glass then stick it back onto another piece leaving a small gap so we could fill it with a glass powder to fill in the gaps.....when its fired in the kiln it will change colour..

LOL I struggled to get my glass stuck onto the base glass--couldn't get it very even at all...so I used a stencil to add leaves on top....not a brilliant job but it was my first time!

the glass powder will change colour when its been fired--it may turn out a little bit abstract !

I wanted to do a version of my signature painting "Summer Day as my big piece..it was lovely picking out pieces of glass and arranging them onto a triptych of plain glass,,,,I cut out cloud shapes out of paper to mask them for the sky, then used the glass powder to put colour around them, then I used chunky pieces of turquoise ,blue glass and white  to create the sea, !

Bills pieces in the kiln ready for firing.....he was really creative and imaginative and found the whole session very relaxing....

I used some  glass crystals for the beach, and more chunky glass for the foliage in the foreground.There were some very thin strips of glass that made great grasses and a few red crystals of red made some poppies..the end result may be a bit abstract but I don't mind--it will be recognisable as a Summer Day picture with a bit of luck!

A closer look at the bottom of the picture....we cant wait for Jane to ring and say the pieces are ready to pick up...they will have to be fired and cooled down for a few days then we will pop over and collect them... for anyone wanting to do something different I would recommend Jane's workshops highly--it was great fun to do and the time just flew by so quickly it was unreal.....many thanks Jane xx

Mellow Moods at Eardisley

First of all I would like to thank Sue Amos who did all the hard work organising this painting workshop--she collected the deposits and sent them to me, organised the room, and generally had everything sorted.Most were members of the local craft group and only 2 had painted before so they were all quite excited about it! We had 12 ladies and one man-Alan had dabbled with oils previously....and Verginia has been to several classes with me...

as always it was very interesting to see how everyone tackled the painting--and right from the word go everyone had put their own mark on their painting and were making decisions for themselves

making sure the acrylic paint is dry with the hairdryers before adding the oil colour

the pictures all changed again when the oil colour was added--we had beautiful results and everyone seemed very chuffed with their results--- we have a lot of the ladies coming over to Ludlow in August to paint the Summer Day painting and Sue rang today to say she had another lady coming and she was going to try and get another workshop organised at Eardisley later in the year, so that will be something to look forward to..

We had a good mix of paintings -some were quite delicate while others were bold and bright-there is no wrong or right--just what people feel on the day!

Lovely results!

Hard to believe these are first timers!

Brilliant-

Reeds in the Breeze Workshop April 7th

Sarah was back for the second time and she brought along her friend Suzy with her...

quite a funny story as to how Leslie came to be in class---last week I had to go to Hereford hospital for an MRI scan as my specialist is trying to rule out things as he thinks I'm too young to have polymyalgia...as I was lay there a ladies voice said "your the lady from Ludlow who paints aren't you?" The nurse recognised me from doing a demo at Dilywn  WI a few years ago! Martin the chap who was actually doing the demo was interested and we ended up chatting about the classes--he said it was his wedding anniversary at the weekend and he would go and check his wifes diary, see if she was free (she is a nurse ) and book her in as a surprise.. when we were setting up in the room we heard squealing and looked up to see Lesley being bought into the room with hubby's hands over her eyes....when she opened then she said OMG but I cant paint! I assured her she would be able to  do it no probs and she soon got chatting to another  lady who was painting for the first time-Suzy---to say they were both a bit nervous was a bit of an understatement! I still dont know how Leslies hubby got her past my A board and van without her seeing where she was going or what she was going to do......

14 year old Lydia came along with her mum Helen for the 2nd time, she was a confident artist and followed my directions very carefully..

Jenny chose to use the duck egg blue for her painting, and she made a beautiful job of it--she has been quite a few times now and she has gone from strength to strength--I'm very proud of her because she hasn't had an easy time of it bless her ...

Suzy was a brilliant laugh--we were creased at a few things several times...we have the same sense of humour--wicked! You wouldn't believe that she had never painted before--she was quite subtle with her colours and wanted to make the flowers at the end have impact.. she also had some amazing glasses with spotlights on each side,,everyone wanted a pair!

Melanie was another first timer, she got a bit lost and was  a bit late for the class  although she arrived in Ludlow 2 hours early!  Anyway she eventually found the right church after trying 2 others--the information centre were very helpful and gave her a map to show her the way...but for some reason she parked the car about a mile away from our venue and ran there! I hadn't realised until she asked what time we finished in the room so she could go and fetch the car! I was really worried she would get a parking ticket as I couldn't make out where exactly the car was so Bill took her in the van to fetch it at lunchtime!!! She was a real good sport and we all had a laugh about her being blonde...it was good to meet someone as bad as me to be honest..since Ive been on the steroids Ive had a proper treacle brain!

you could cut the concentration with a knife at times.....

the girls with their paintings--we had loads of laughs all day--and everyone really enjoyed it--everyone wants to come again-and we will look forward to seeing them all very much!

Lovely paintings ladies

great work,,,,,Suzy's painting is looking a bit washed out on this photo---I have managed to bring out the detail a bit more on the photo below....

lovely picture Suzy...

We even have tea towels with a painting theme on them now LOL

Part 4 of our hols..

Just realised I hadn't put the rest of our photos on here.....we travelled from Inverbervie Montrose down to Grasmere in the Lake District to meet up with my very  pregnant daughter Becki and her partner Wayne!

The rooms at the Grasmere Red Lion were lovely with huge super king size beds

It didn't feel so high up but looking out of the windows it was !!!

Wayne and Becki

Wayne...

One well travelled bump!

Well went on the Ullswater Steamers as the weather was so good.... the whole trip was brilliant -in fact the whole 9 days was just perfect--we didn't need a coat...our holiday luck was with us once again!

got some brilliant photos to work from,...

and Wayne got some brilliant photos! David Baily eat your heart out!

my lovely Becki

private joke!

The Grasmere Red Lion Hotel...will be back!

Poppies Workshop March 31st

We had 2 cancellations  for  workshops due to the fuel crisis---Derek and his wife Liz had a long way to travel and couldn't get any fuel where they lived in Gloucester ..so it was quite understandable they were worried about making the journey..we are seeing them fairly soon for another workshop though..The workshop today was in oils on a black canvas and is as near to an abstract that you will get in one of my classes....Vikki is starting to do the background grasses here..

hard at it...everyone is concentrating hard here..

Tim had a long drive  in the morning from Banbury in Oxfordshire..his wife sat and watched the painting progress..

Bev said she had tryed some painting at home and couldn't get back into it and needed a little tuition again to get her back into it......it didn't take long until she was back on top form...

Maureen is always good and walks away from her painting, sits down and just waits to see if she needs to do anymore to her painting, rather than fiddling with it! It takes a lot of self control to do that.....

Christina is taking a photo of her progress so far here--always a good move to remind you how you have got to that stage....

Debbie had asked if she could do her painting using some brown shades so it would match up with her previous (1st) painting she did with me Reeds In The Breeze last October..I hadn't thought of introducing browns into the picture before but after trying it found it worked really well and added a lot of depth to the painting..it will be a colour option when we do it next time in class!  Debbie made a beautiful job of the picture---it would be soo easy to over do it with too many poppies-and she managed to introduce just the right amount to balance it...

Bev decided to do these lovely blue daises rather than poppies..they are just stunning and worked so  well with her background.

Tim was very rave when it came to doing a butterfly---I chose silver to do mine--but he decided to use the bright red--and made a cracking job of his ! We did all crack up at Christina's butterfly and I know she wont mind me saying that her first attempt looked more like a snail than a butterfly! We soon had it sorted and she had the most beautiful flutterby in no  time!

Debbie, Bev and Vikkie with their masterpieces

The Artists!

Christina, Maureen and Tim with their lovely paintings! I have re arranged a couple of classes later in the year so that Bev and her family can attend,including her mum who is comng from South Africa.. see my website www.paintingmyway.co.uk for more details