Happy New Year !!!!

I would like to take this opportunity to wish all my readers, customers and student friends the warmest well wishes for the New Year.

'We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called "Opportunity" and its first chapter is New Year's Day.' Edith Lovejoy Pierce

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.

Lowell Speers - Seascape DVD

I have a seascape project on DVD that I've been eager to paint. Last weekend I enjoyed painting along with Lowell Speers and learned some new tricks into the process too. Now my task is to adapt the composition so it's a suitable painting project for my students. I will go ahead and paint it all over again on a much larger canvas, incorporating some slightly different brushes to ensure we get good results. I particularly like the way Lowell puts together his foreground wave and the method he uses for the wave foam is new to me. Very clever indeed. His clouds are added using a different technique too so it was really interesting to learn new ways for the sky as well. If you too would like to try Lowell's seascape project from the comfort of your own home, the DVD is available HERE at just £9.50 incl delivery. If you'd like a more 'hands-on' tuition, keep an eye on my class timetable as it will feature as a new class subject pretty soon.

Art Group

I decided to take my sketch pad along to (a very cold) art group session today. I had an unfinished sketch that I started last year and I felt in the mood to work some more on it. Plus, the pad and the pencils fitted neatly into my handbag, which was more than convenient. As I started to blend the graphite with my fingers I immediately wished I had brought my pastel belnding stumps along as my fingers were too big an area to get into the smaller nooks and crannies. (No innuendo's necessary.) Alison, sat opposite, handed me a cotton bud and it was the perfect tool to polish and soften. Throught the meeting we often get up and walk around to see what everyone else is doing. Quite a few ladies passed remark about my project today, wondering who the live model might be. (I wish.) As I've been working on this fella I've considered it an exercise in lights, darks, blending and shape, but one lady has made me view this pose in a completely different light now. When Diane saw my project her first words were 'I wonder what he's looking at?' And the rest of the table came up with several suggestions. Now I can't look at him without wondering the very same thing. Any ideas?