First Gel Press Post

Gel Press Blog

Hi everyone,

just announcing first post on the Gel Press Blog showing some of my sketches done on Gel Press prints via a short video I did on Youtube

Hope you enjoy what you see.

Please feel free to leave me a comment below.

Bx

HAPPY MOTHERS DAY!

A beautiful March day!

Inspired by the sunshine and the spring flowers poking their heads up went into the kitchen where the stove is burning, for a quick play with some Brusho (studio is a bit chilly at the moment) .

Of course finishing both these pieces from lines of William Wordsworth's "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" seemed appropriate.

I love the spring and the knowledge that the dark grey days are almost at an end I can go out more to sketch.

Sunny today with a touch of frost and perfect for a brisk fresh walk around the lake with Arty, before a lovely Beef roast dinner from our local farmer.....

He gets so excited when he sees us both get our wellies on and knows that its "round the lake time".

Of course he is dead to the world now this afternoon!

Thats it for now!

See you soon with some Gel Press updates!
Bix x

Bixxy Nash - Creative Designer

Today I can officially announce that I am to be part of a team for an American based company called Gel Press as a Creative Designer amongst others with the same role. The great thing is that we all use similar tools but we produce very different work.  So this really is art that YOU create and will always be unique.

Its all exciting! 


So my Gel plate printing in the last couple of years has paid off and I hope now to move forward with the craft and develop many more techniques and already my head is swimming with inspiration and ideas. 

This is the facebook page for Gel Press Junkies so pop over there every so often to see what has been created by the team and other members. 

Recent work

So join me on my journey and please feel free to comment at anytime and I will endeavour to answer your questions.

These past few weeks has seen me busy with a miriad of things including the building of a new website and updating some old footage of videos etc.

Qatar

I also joined a group on Facebook called Everyday in February which is a sketching group.  

Peru

A new years resolution of "i must do more sketching in more creative ways" has resulted in my getting the above job on the team, by giving me the confidence to "go for it".  

This has been great for me as I also used gel printed papers that were in my "what do i do with these" box and sketched over them.  The theme this month was world travel and we given a different country per day to visit.  Here are some of mine on the Printed papers.
I selected each sheet based on the coloring of the scene that I had in mind or maybe just the national colours of the country from their flag.  I then worked round that. 

Sweden

  I used Micron tip pens to do the drawing and Tombow pens (brush felt tip style pens) for alot of the bright bits and watercolour in the lighter areas where the paint could take.

Oman

Of course you really could go mad and do collage and decoupage ontop using stamps of the countries and other souvenirs and memorabilia.


This is definately something I will be doing for my travel journals and will update you on these when I start.

So will all this going on....the holiday bookings are still coming in and I am looking forward to this season.

If anyone is interested in a Gel Press workshop please mail me on info@francepaintingholiday and I can give you some more information

I will end it here and be back in a few days with more.....

Abientot
Bix x

Our 2016 Season - Come join us  

Brochure

If you would like to find out more about us either click on the online Brochure on the right or visit us on our website. 

These will be our tutors this year and we also run our standard art holidays.  This leaves you free to paint when and what you want with the added bonuses of being taken out locally to visit our lovely towns and villages. Any queries can be covered by me if you need some one to one tutoring.  All this and the benefits of ensuite accommodation and full board.  

If you are a tutor and would like to bring your own group, please call and we can discuss the details.  Discounts will be available to 5+ people

Open access to the studio and materials also available

In addition to the above I will also be holding a Craft week to incorporate making unusual christmas decorations and other gifts and a Printing week, to include Gel Prints, watercolour batik, collagraph, decoupage and monoprinting.  Please email me at info@francepaintingholiday if you are interested.

Examples of my work are below: 

Two of these designs have been chosen to be used on fabric for clothes designs.  Take a look here

Thats it for today....two days in a row!!!!  Lets see when I next post.  

Bx

Nearly February 2016....where is time going?

Winter Solstice

Ok, I think you guys have got it....I am not the best at updating this blog, but with every New Year comes new intentions and this is one of them. New Years resolution..no 1 More updates!

But I do post alot on my FB page and the France Painting Holiday page too






This I did for United by Art FB page as a challenge and received 4th place out of 50+ entries which I have to say I was chuffed with. Good start to the new year! 




No 2 New Years resolution was to get more into sketching as I would love to own a "beautiful" sketch book.  So as a christmas present to myself I signed onto two online sketching courses with Craftsy and have found them to be one of the best things I have done.  These are the two that I have gone for.


Firstly, Travel Sketching in Mixed Media with Mark Taro Holmes, as he is a fantastic sketcher and one of the founders of Urban Sketching I believe and Travel Sketching really covers the type that I want to be doing. He also has a lovely relaxed and natural way of teaching
Travel-sketching-in-mixed-media

And then Perspective Sketchers with Stephanie Bower as again she is a stunning sketcher, architecture being her "thing" and her lessons in really seeing what you are looking at are great. 
Perspective-for-sketchers



This is pretty much my tool kit when I go out.  Dont normally need more other than kitchen roll and extra water maybe in case my water reservoir brush runs out.  Which incidentally has never happened!

Plein air kit!

Items from left to right are:- small paintbox (these are not necessarily the colours that I am using as I change them regularly), white gel pen, Waterreservoir brush, fountain pen, cut down flat brush, fine permanent pen, mechanical pencil and refills, brush pens in different tones.

So since joining I have done more than I normally do at this time of year.  The trick will be to keep going on a regular basis as practice makes perfect! And I am longing for the weather to improve so that I can go out and do more plein air. Here are a few from last week!

French shutters                        Coupling in Bressuire                Amailloux Church                     

Oh and little idea I played with today incorporating quick sketch with brayered paint left over from a gel plate run!!!

I think it works..do you?


I will leave it there for today and continue again in February!!! Oh is that tomorrow....Handy!  

Bx
PS and Arty is still with us and thriving!  x

Stephie Butlers portrait workshop 2015

Well what an amazing week that was!  Apart from watching Stephie doing her wonderful demos the weather was beyond belief!  By Tuesday we hit 42 degrees but working in the coolness of the Studio during some of the hottest times was lovely. But even there we needed some airing!

The above paintings are some of the demonstrations that Stephie did for the group and she also found time to do some large cat studies aswell to demonstrate that her techniques work well for wildlife too!

Inbetween time we popped out and visited a couple of places early in the morning when the air was nice and cool and it was comfortable to walk around.  A nice photo opportunity for everyone and then back for a well deserved lunch.

Aut Fouee - Parthenay

St Loup Chateau

Le Chapeau Rouge St Loup

To see all the photos from that week please visit our Facebook page by clicking here

If you are interested in one of our workshops either tutored or just to come here for an art holiday please contact us through the website or email me on bixnash1@yahoo.co.uk

See you again soon

Bx

Oh and here is one that I did on Sunday following everyone departure!

June 2015

Keiko Tanabes Demonstration paintings at Bandouille 2015

Bandouille                                 Chateau de Tennessus                      Parthenay                                    

With Keikos workshop now complete here are a few of her lovely paintings she created in that week.

Alot of hard work was done successfully by all the students and we all had a wonderful time.

Thouars Market

We are looking forward to Keikos 2nds week with us later in August.

This wonderful painting of Thouars Market was gifted to us by Keiko and will look wonderful on our wall at Bandouille.

Chiche

This was painted in our small village of Chiche and was chosen for the shadows and the way the road goes gently down the hill!   The students were givin the choice of where to paint and some chose this position and other chose other locations in the village.

All our guests had some wonderful results during their stay with us and here are some of the results

Paintings done in june 2015 in Keiko Tanabes Group

To see more paintings from this week please visit our Facebook Page by clicking here

Also if you are interested in coming to one of our workshops in 2016 please send an enquiry to bixnash1@yahoo.co.uk or go through our contact page on our website www.francepaintingholiday.com