we took the kids to a lovely little place near between New Quay and Aberaeron, had it been sunny and warm it would have been heavenly as the beach was perfect, the cliff, rock pools hills etc etc … just so beautiful. The cottages are painted all colours from deepest reds through the New England pastels to vivid primary colours, the traditional Welsh stone ones looked pretty dull in comparison! it’s a part of the country we have never ventured to but it’s only 3hrs away and that’s in ‘Alan’, our fab old hymer campervan. I did loads of sketching and have plans for some big paintings -although I will add the sunshine I think! I got back to see the high St is chaos again with road works right outside the studio… joy… I will be there tho as I have 2 huge commissions to complete by next fri.

we’re off to Wales for the week from Tues 19th… no doubt it’ll rain so i’m hoping to do lots of drawing and reading… sleeping and drinking!

I have a few spaces left for daytime workshops [m,w f] - let me know! They will be for 2 hrs or more if you likeand cost £7 50 per hr.

day 2 of eve class… going well! ventured into shape , tone , perspective and maybe just maybe introduce colour next time!!

hi I have finally got sorted with a blog - now I am trying to work out what to do. I plan to put all the recent info about work shops and evening classes, new work, news and events, accolades and honours!!! oh and when i’m on my hols of course!

I reopened 3 weeks ago upstairs above the new rather lovely gift shop, ‘More than words’, on Kinver High St- and so far it has been fabulous! visitor numbers are daily more than I used to get in a week and the response has been wonderful. I have lots of new work for sale, originals on canvas and prints and I’m busy working on commissions and new ideas…in fact today I had to muck out the studio as I had completely trashed it after only 3 weeks!!

last night[4th aug] we started a new art class [ECG - Enville community group, but being a trained nurse I now see them as my cardiac group.. and that's not because you are all middle aged and over ...honest]. I was apprehensive as to how i was going to motivate the group as there are 12 and some on holiday -..but I think it went really well, they are all starting with the basics in drawing skills, line, tone, perspective etc and then we’ll advance to the fun stuff and get creative, which they all believe they can’t do.. but we’ll see!!

let me know if anyone would like to join any of the workshops that I will be running from September, they will be mon, wed, fri am, for 2 or 3 hrs at a cost of £7.50 per hour for tuition in groups of 3-4, these will be very much geared towards the type of painting that I do which is all about using my life experiences, memories, thoughts and feelings to create a painting with warmth and humour or sentiment.

meet with friends!