News and Autumn Colours

Hello,

It's been a while as things have been crazy busy over the last few weeks with the webinar, which was a great success and for anyone that wasn't able to join us I will post the link to the recorded version as soon as it is available for anyone that did join us thank you so much for making it fun and asking lots of great questions and I must say a huge thank you to Dave and Giorgio from the School of Xcellence for a great webinar.

I have just announced the first two dates for my Creative Nature workshops which will take place in April in Somerset, I will be covering many different aspects of getting creative with your subject and awakening your more creative side. The workshops will take place on Saturday 26th April and Sunday 27th April (both days are exactly the same) and the day costs just £80 per person with a maximum of 6 people per day. This price includes a full days tuition plus lunch, teas, coffees and biscuits. For more details or to book your place here's the link, I'm hoping to announce the dates for autumn soon.

Workshops

In other news the Christmas craft market season has started! Unfortunately due to other commitments the dates are limited this year, but as some of you know I do these markets with my mum and we combine our talents to create some truly unique gifts made with love perfect for that special someone many of which are only available through the craft markets. So here are the dates for the remaining markets this year:

Friday 29th November

Lady's Pamper Night, High Littleton Church Hall, 

High Littleton, BS39 6HF, 8pm - 11pm

Saturday 30th November

Warminster Civic Centre, BA12 8LB

Warminster, 10am — 5pm

Saturday 7th December

Bath Guildhall, BA1 5AW

Bath 10am - 4pm

Sunday 8th December

Salisbury Guildhall, SP1 1JH

Salisbury, 10am — 4pm

I now have just a handful of 2014 Borneo calendars left in stock and once they're gone they're gone, I will be taking them to the craft markets but they will also remain available through the shop on my website as are the last remaining packs of Christmas Cards featuring dormice. I do have a few small and large gifts sets available through my shop as well. 

I have also added three brand new canvas sets to my shop, these are sets of three full wrap high quality 10 x 10 inch canvases featuring either British wildlife in sepia, poppies or frogs from Borneo. Each set is made to order and costs just £130 which includes courier service and I will have the British wildlife and poppy sets at the craft markets, so here they are:

I'm looking to add more sets in the coming months along with different sizes, as soon as these are available I will let you know. There are going to be some big changes over the coming months with a complete re-vamp of this blog and website and the way that prints will be available. I'm working on this now and hoping to launch it all in the New Year with other exciting news for 2014. 

Everything is still going very well in Transylvania with the research, footage is coming in thick and fast and I am busy going through it all and putting together another article for my Explorers Journal. You can keep up to date my clicking on the link to the left of this page. So that's about it for news at the moment, I have started a brand new project which will be kept under wraps for now but what I will say is that it is based right here in Somerset! 

Despite being crazy busy, I have managed a couple of outings with my camera to capture some wonderful autumn colours, so I will leave you with just a couple of images to wet your appetite and will post more very soon including fungi and the odd bird. Whatever you get up to in the coming weeks, have fun, stay safe and hope to see you at one of the craft markets.  

Liquid Gold - A lone leaf drifting along among the golden reflections 

Green to Rusty - the changing colours of the leaves

The Mighty Oak - Taken through the branches and leaves of an ancient oak tree

The Colours of Autumn - Acer tree with beautiful red colours to encompass autumn

Artistic Autumn - variety of colours in just one tree

The Colour Gold - Sun lighting up the beautiful golden yellow colours of the leaves

Roses, Austria & An Update

Hello, I hope everyone is ok and not too fed up with the good old British weather!

I will start with a bit of an update, Focus On Imaging went very well with both seminars being very well attended and received with plenty of great questions and here is me in action!

The good news is that for anyone that wasn't able to make it, I will be giving a free webinar on Thursday 4th April at 4pm UK time which is based on the very seminar I gave at Focus with a slight twist in that I will be talking about the importance of not missing an opportunity, how to use a starburst filter creatively and why concentrating on just one subject at a time really can pay off. If you wish to join me for this seminar just click on the link below and follow the instructions to register.

Webinar

With one thing and another I have not been able to get out and about much with my camera, but this doesn't mean I haven't been taking photos! I was given some beautiful red velvety roses which had the most wonderful textured petals, so armed with my misting spray I decided to re-awaken my creative side and here are just a couple of the images from that shoot:

At the beginning of the year I actually took off for a couple of weeks to Germany and Austria for a bit of a break in the mountains, I of course took my camera and managed to get some shots I'm very happy with, so here are just two of the mountains both in black and white and one of a line of very snowy trees.

If you want to see more from that trip including sunrises, sunsets and even some birds just pop over to either my website or Flickr page. I've had to hit the ground running since being back getting ready for Focus and also a certain forth coming wedding. In amongst all this I have also been starting to plan for Romania and a couple of other smaller projects which are in the planning stages as you read this as well as some exciting bits and bobs which I hope to bring you more news in the coming weeks. I hope to get two more posts in before the wedding and honeymoon, the first of which will be dedicated to that very beautiful flower the snowdrop and then one last one before I switch off for a few weeks with all the latest news etc. 

Don't forget you can keep up to date with little snippets via Twitter or my Facebook page as well as regular postings of photos from both the archives and my latest work.

Well, that's it for now, don't forget to register for the webinar and keep a look out for my snowdrop post in a few days time. Just before I go, if anyone is in the area I will be at the Easter Craft Fair at Upton Country Park in Poole this Sunday and Monday (31st March & 1st April) with loads of great offers and the launch of a brand new product! 

Take care and stay warm!