Local Exhibition

There's a local exhibition coming up in a few weeks time. If you are in the area you might like to pop in and have a look. The Friends of St Mary's Church, Capel St Mary are holding their Art Exhibition and Sale from 22nd to 24th October inside the church. With over 40 artists taking part there should be more than 250 paintings to look at and buy. On Friday 22nd at 7.30pm there will be a preview evening. Tickets are £6, the cost to include light refreshments and a glass of wine. Saturday times are 10am - 5pm : Sunday times are 1pm - 5pm. Admittance is free and non-alchoholic refreshments will be available. For further information ring Joan Broyden on 01473 310596.

New Class Dates

Today is a catch-up day and I don't mind the rain when I'm stuck in the office all day long. With several supply orders being delivered today I know I'm not going to miss the delivery man too. Catch-up means website work and consequently I've just updated my class timetable page and added a few more dates and a few more painting's. Accounts are the next thing to be brought up to date, then the phone calls for other sundry bits and bobs. I quite like days like this - although I wouldn't want them too often......it reminds me of my full time office days too much.

Don't say I didn't warn you.......

Earlier this week we had a Pop Art class. From that class, 1 lady wants to return soon to paint another of her grand children, another lady has been asked to paint another one for her daughter and wants to paint both her nieces also, another lady posted her pop art portrait on facebook. The comments being left by family and friends tell me she'd easily be able to pick up a few portrait commissions. One thing I tell Pop Art students.........as soon as you start showing people what you have made EVERYONE will want one. And it's true. And that means there's an opportunity for students to undertake commissions of their own. If you fancy having a go at this really fun a popular painting class, I have one this week on Thursday, and I do have a spare seat available. Guaranteed results. Drop me a line or give me a call on 01473 311938 if you'd like to come along. (Hey, not to mention I have cake............)

My 'other' hobby

I'm at it again. It's been a while since I had a bake up and today was the perfect day for it. With the house to myself all day long I switched on the radio LOUD and had a good look in the cupboards. With eggs beginning to pile up again, first on the menu was 3 large farmhouse fruit cakes, followed by 2 dozen rock buns. Next up, a home made white loaf had the kitchen smelling wonderful combined with 8 pints of rich leek and potato soup. We have quite a lot of apples to use, so they went into 2 family sized apple pies, the rest were stewed up and popped in freezer bags. The customary tray of flap jacks were thrown into the oven, as it was on.....and whie I was on a roll with the pastry I thought I'd do a tray of large cheese scones. Although I sit here with an aching back after nearly 5 hours in the kitchen, it's so rewarding to know the freezer, fridge and cake tins are full of goodies. Aren't Alan and Steffi going to have a nice surprise when they get home?

Experiment for yourselves - and save some money

Many of you know already but for those of you who don't. In all my trials and tests on oils paints I have found pretty much most popular brands are suitable for the wet on wet technique. In today's class I quite happily proved this by using a total of not 1, not 2 but 5 different brands of paint. As I'm not tied into using any specific brands I'm free to use exactly what I want. One thing I will not do is compromise on standard and if it doesn't pass the test it finds itself left on a shelf somewhere in the dark and cobwebby recesses of my studio. With all these brands of paint squirted onto the palette side by side they all looked the same in consistency. You'd never know...... It's far better to pay attention to the actual quality of your painting surface, your base medium and the brushes you use. I really hope, as a tutor, I open up the many options available to students who want to set themselves up at home. Can anyone remember the test I done about 5 years ago? I painted 2 versions of the same painting side by side using identical brushes. Painting number 1 was made with student quality paint. Painting number 2 was made with professional artist paint. To give you a paint price comparison a 37ml tube of cad red student quality paint is £1.99, a 37ml tube of cad red professional artist quality paint is £10.39. 7 colours were used for the painting subject. When the painting was completed and dried I used to take them both along to art classes, explain what I had done, and ask the students to pick out which was the 'dear' one. And not many could. In one class I had another art instructor who studied both paintings, laughed and said 'Ha, it's obvious' and picked the wrong one. So, have fun, experiment, if you like a colour but it's not your usual brand - try it, the chances are in your favour it will probably work for you and mix in with your other paints just fine.

Well and truly bitten by the bug

It's not unusual to try a wet on wet style oil painting lesson and get bitten by the bug. After, all it's exactly what happened to me a few years ago and look where I am now! However, I don't think I've ever had someone book as many painting lessons as my new best friend, Cassie. Basically, she came along for one session and booked up every single class, with private sessions in between. Today was one of her private sessions - and she brought some friends with her too. What a lovely way to paint. You know everyone else in the class - and that's where the banter kicks in. All of my ladies are American and it was lovely hearing the sunny accent again - the last young lady who spoke it here a month ago was Joyce Ortner. Cassie's friends are total newbies to oil painting and were a little sceptical that they could achieve a masterpiece with their current skill sets and knowledge. Of course, anyone who has tried this technique already knows different....as long as you are shown how, explained why and demonstrated the whats, whos and the wheres, it's 100% possible.