No rest this Sunday

It has been a busy day - this moring I took photos of all my small paintings for my website - I do that out of doors in a shady spot. Owing to the fact we haven't had a great deal of sun here lately, I knew I could get this tedious job safely completed with an hour! The weather has been horrendous, rain, more rain and then more rain!!! Nearly forgot about the wind, it was like Autumn!
I took my bar stool out of the studio and put the painting on the seat, resting against the chairback, as straight as I could get it. My camera was on it's tripod and I had it set to click on timer delay! Great, all set - five, four, three, two, one - click goes the camera - BLOW goes my painting right on it's front - I had many photos of the back of the chair, which I duly deleted! So it took a little longer than anticipated!
This afternoon I headed down to the local church hall with my homebaking to help with the coffee/tea afternoon raising funds for our local Arts and Crafts Trail. We worked in conjunction with Scottish Open Gardens, once everyone had viewed the gardens, they then headed to us for refreshments! It was pretty hectic but great fun.
Since coming home I have spent my time updating my website with the photos I took this morning- I have been trying to do this for months! It's done  - fab-u-lous! http://www.margaretsmilligan.co.uk/

The Outdoor Life

My lovely friend Annie from Boulder sent me a beautiful gift of a pochade box! See the photo - isn't it just gorgeous? I have filled it all ready for use! The rain has been hammering down all day, no let up and the forecast isn't looking too good either! I am baking tomorrow - we have an open garden event in town on Sunday, we will be serving teas  - all in aid of our Arts and Crafts Trail fund! I hope for everyone's sake that the rain has stopped by then!

Life Drawing

Yesterday was spent life drawing for 6 hours! Exhausting but exhilerating! This was the first all day workshop I'd organised. Since March 2011 I've ran 2 evenings a week, in blocks of 6-8 weeks. No tutoring, the artist just get stuck in! We have a great band of models - we are really lucky in this little rural part of South Scotland
I tried producing larger pieces of work yesterday but found it really difficult - I am too used to my sketchbook and water soluble pens!

The top sketch was done yesterday in 2 minutes, the middle is from our last evening session in May, a 20 mins pose. The bottom sketch took 30 mins