September 30th:  I have to tell you about a student of mine, James.  James has been painting landscapes with me for quite a while now and his standard is supreme.  His visits are really refreshing and he practically walks throught the studio door asking arty questions and continues all the way through the lesson.  Sometimes we'll go off at a tangent though and talk can quickly progress to Mario Brothers.  James is a youngster, as you can guess, and a very quick learner.  His parents recently asked if I would teach portraiture to him.  And I wasn't quite sure to be honest .........  Although portraiture has some similarities to wet on wet oil painting, there are also some vast differences too.  It's a different mind set in a portrait class and my demo technique is unlike the Bob Ross / Bill Alexander style landscapes.  How would he cope with this ?

Well - there was only one way to find out and the process is not only testing me, it's testing him too.  If he will allow me, I'll show you his painting when it's finished.  But all I'll say is, his first portrait is better than my first portrait.   Well done James, you're a little star.

September 28th:  If Carlsberg could sort out a perfect day off, they come up trumps today.........Probably.  As I take my lunch break in the cool of the house, after sunning in the garden most of the morning, it's lovely to have that sun back for a while.  The chickens have been running around and I've left them asleep under the hedge, hopefully dreaming of the eggs they are going to lay shortly.  The cats have been asleep either on my lap or at my feet at the bottom of my recliner, the fish have been plopping about and all is good with the world.  I don't even feel guilty for not lifting a finger in the house, studio or garden.  Actually, I do a bit, I might just have to bake some cakes this evening.  Bliss.  Right, I'm off for an afternoon nap on my sun recliner again.

September 26th:  I've had a wonderful weekend with students old and new, near and far, classes both group and private.  It's been bitter sweet though.  Ben makes for a lively (errrr ...... cheeky) class member.  He leaves us halfway through a class and goes his own way.  Well, he doesn't literally leave the class, he just takes his painting to new levels.  Adding a castle to his 'Peaceful Evening' with bats hanging from a tree and swooping around the castle he made a really beautiful version.  That was the 'sweet'.

The 'bitter' ......... I am 99% certain I have just had my last class/meet with my really talented student and friend, Cassie.  Cassie's time has almost come to an end here in the UK and she leaves for the states next month.  It's been great visiting her and her friends on the US Airforce Base.  We ended on a high note as Cassie created a beautiful version of  'Venetia'  which she managed to complete in one session instead of two.  She hopes to return to this neck of the woods in the future to visit the city for real ..... I am certain if she were here a bit longer we would have visited this place together.

Still - there's talk of a meet up in the States for classes.  I'd be more than happy to do that anytime.

September 23rd:  I've had a lovely (sunny) morning in my studio working on a portrait.  I used it as a demo piece while teaching earlier this week.  However, in order for me to be at the same stage as my students, I had a couple of hour's work to do on the clothing details. 

This little cherub is my friend's baby, Aaliyah.  I had promised her a portrait as a baby gift.  We complete stage 2 next week - that's when the facial colours go on.  It was a shame I had to stop at the clothing stage, I was well into this project . 

---

September 23rd:  The class timetable has been updated to include the recent new painting subjects - the snow scene with the little church and the balloon ride painting.  There's both week days and weekends available for both of these subjects.  If you'd like to come along and try your hand at these oil paintings, do give me a call or drop me a line.

September 21st:  I've spent a little time in the studio this afternoon, prepping a few canvases.  I've re-cycled a few scraped canvases by painting them black.  They will do as my demo when I teach a black canvas subject tomorrow afternoon.  I've also prepped a few canvases in various sizes ready for portraiture.  I like to give my portrait students an option of canvas size.  

Now I need to select my own portrait subject, suitable as a demo for tomorrow morning's portrait class.  All I will say is .......... thank heavens for facebook.

September 20th:  Yesterday I decided to drive home from the office via the backroads.  There's an incredible amount of yellow about at the moment, which is very uplifting.  It won't be so uplifting when the brightly coloured leaves have dropped and we're down to the bare trunks and branches though.  Still, Spring is only 6 months away.

I managed to fill a brown bin full of clippings, to avoid damp leaves gathering on the patio and falling in the fish pond.  The grape vines are trimmed right back, they're the worse culprits.  The honey suckle has been cut back to the ground too.  I'm terrible when I get a pair of secateurs in my hand.  Nothing's safe.  

September 17th:  Rip Van Winkle from Capel here.  My new bed arrived 2 days ago.  Now I'm normally up and about by 6am or earlier.  But .....  Friday morning - I overslept by 1 and a half hours.  This morning I overslept by 4 hours.  I haven't slept in like that for over 10 years.  I'm not quite sure whether it's the bed; it could have been the G&T's or the lovely meal - or even staying awake most of the night enjoying the Pink Floyd programmes playing  on BBC4.  Who knows, we'll see what happens tomorrow morning.

September 13th:  Today we painted from a photo.  I showed my student how I would tackle the subject, but there are several ways to do this, especially if you don't necessarily want to finish it in one sitting.  I can tell you the balloon took almost as long as the rest of the composition, but it was well worth it to get the flash of colour in the painting.   I'm thinking about making something like this a painting subject, although I would make alterations to the actual balloon to make it suitable for a beginner.  I'll pop a larger image on the class subject gallery page.  

PS:  Sorry - no sign of those photos just yet .........

September 11th:  As I walked into today's class I saw something in the corner of the room that totally got my attention.  So much so that I got full permission from the class organisers to 'give it a try' before I left.  I can now tick something off my list of 'fun things to do'.  I make no apologies in leaving you all hanging and as soon as I get a photo I'll show you what I got up to (not once, but twice) during and after class.  :)

September 10th:  I've just updated the class timetable page and there's a new painting subject added - Snowy Sunday.  It's a re-vamp of a very old painting subject (no longer featured in my class subjects gallery) and a combi of elements from another painting subject.  It's been ages since I painted snow so this was fun to do.

6th September:  This morning I woke up feeling a little funny.  I had a dream, a very vivid dream.  So vivid it felt real and I'm still getting flashbacks.  Nice ones.  The dream was probably prompted by an email telling me that more dates are being added to Roger Water's tour of 'The Wall'.  I dreamt that I had tickets to go and see another show.  Whilst watching the show, to get a better view, I stood in an empty aisle near the stage.  It turned out this aisle was empty for a reason, the reason being it was used as access by Roger Waters.  So there was I, dancing in the aisle when all of a sudden, from behind, I felt someone's hands on my hips,  joining me in the dance - which isn't unusual at gigs.  Their hand linked into mine and took me towards the stage.  It was Roger Waters,  (I know you're laughing).  So he sang and we danced (not that you can really dance to any of the music from The Wall) and we whispered and chatted and I had a wonderful night and he's a very lovely and funny man.   Well, in my dreams anyway.  Don't be surprised if he is the next portrait to feature here  ;)     Ahhhhhh, I'm frantically hoping that jelly beans and rose wine will induce another dream of this calibre 'cos that's what I was eating/drinking just before I went to bed.

Spookily, I've just found out it's his birthday today ..........
YOU ....... YES YOU ........ HAPPY BIRTHDAY LADDIE   

---

4th September:  I didn't want to get out of bed this morning - I really didn't.  I flicked the alarm on snooze a couple of times but in the end I had to drag myself out.  Feeling very motivated yesterday by the changes to my bedroom, I decided to bin the old bed linen, pillows, quilt and treat myself to new.  Proper new.  Gone is the synthetic, replaced by luxurious feather and down quilts and pillows.  With new bedding too I had a wonderful night's sleep ............ until the alarm went off.   

But duty calls, I had neglected my studio yesterday and I need to give it a quick sweep and wipe down and get set up for today's class.

Unless I work on my new design straight after the class, it's just not going to get done this week.  Mmmmmm - I feel like laying on my bed and reading this afternoon rather than painting all day long.

3rd September:  A slight change of plans today.  My carpets are being fitted earlier than originally anticipated.  I've already cleared out 2 rooms and I'll do the 3rd room after breakfast.  Like my dad, I'm a huge fan of Magnolia, with every wall in the house  painted a fresh rich cream, it really is a blank canvas for decor and accessories.  By the end of today all my internal carpets will be cream also and I am so looking forward to saying goodbye to the coloured flooring.  It'll make the remaining rooms look bigger and brighter and I can go to town on the coloured accessories.  Now that the first major stage of my bedroom makeover is arranged I have just one more job to do before I can crack on - order the bed of my dreams while the £150 discount is still on offer .......

2nd September:  Yesterday I was called into the office, so after the morning class I quickly wrapped my brushes in clingfilm and dashed out.  Now, my office is only a couple of miles up the road, but on my way I had to pass 2 Apps.  Not iPhone apps - but eating Apps.  In the short distance there were 2 boxes/baskets of cooking apples at the bottom of various driveways with notices to help yourselves.

So on my way back, I did just that.  With enough home grown freebies to make a couple of chunky apple pies, you can guess what we will be tucking into this weekend.  Custard or ice cream, sir?

Actually, while the oven's on it's gotta be time for some fruit cake too, the eggs are building up again.  I wonder what age a chicken stops laying?  Anyone know?