Todays acrylic workshop at the Cloud 9 Gallery produced some amazing pantings!  This time we were painting one of Alex Taylor's photographs taken at Whitby and Alex also joined in and created his first ever painting, which looks fab!  

In Previous classes we hadn't painted a really dramatic sky or water and this photograph worked well with the contrast of textures from a highly textured bright fiery sky to a smooth, tranquil, cool sea.  It ended up being quite challenging and all of our paintings changed dramatically over the course the afternoon!  The results are outstanding!   Well done Alex and Beverley!

This is "Fiery Sky", Acrylic on A4 Canvas.

I am delighted to say that i am introducing two brand new workshops to 2015!  Following on from the popular Introduction to acrylic painting workshops, i am now running an advanced painting workshop for those who would like to develop their skills further with new techniques and more challenging subjects to paint!  I am also offering drawing and shading workshops for those who would like to learn how to draw or would like to develop their own drawing style.  We will be drawing and shading with graphite and coloured pencils and creating a lovely drawing to take home.

To join in with the fun take a look at my workshop page to see how to book!

For years i have been avoiding the dreaded portrait!  They need to be so precise, so accurate and well executed in order to be truly accepted as a representation of that person.  Well i had conflicting feelings when the January challenge was announced by Colored Pencil Magazine and that challenge was to be a portrait!  I fancied the challenge, to really push myself and to see where i could take my art.  Could i take it into the unknown, way out of my comfort zone and produce the elusive portrait?  Well i just had to find out!  


I had to approach this one in a completely different way by using a grid to accurately sketch the face first, this was the daunting bit, even planning out the grid was a challenge in itself never mind sketching as accurately as i possibly could!  One line slightly out of place could jeopardise the whole thing and it was a nervy, tentative start for me!  The rest of it just seemed to come together naturally, i was used to the shading part and everything was in it's place from the sketch!  It was very strange once the eyes were in, i was being observed from the paper itself!


Today i finished my Snow Baby portrait, and i must say i am very pleased with myself!  Maybe i won't be so frightened of the portrait from now on, who knows maybe i'll even do one of myself!