Why You Should Book A Brilliant Art Course At Writers' Holiday in Fishguard

Sunset on Fishguard, inspiring aspiring artists at Fishguard Bay Hotel on the course run by Susan Alison at Writers' Holiday. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

Problems
1 What to do when you have already been on umpteen writer's courses, poetry writing, novel writing, short story writing and songwriting? 
2 What if you can't draw or paint, except for painting by numbers? 
3 What if your partner wants to do a writing course and you don't?

Fishguard Bay Hotel through trees, at night. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

Answer
The course I took at Writers' Holiday in Fishguard, Wales, only a long weekend in spring, started with dinner on Friday night at the hotel, ending with a packed lunch and a free lift down to the nearby Fishguard and Goodwick station. Over the four sessions on Saturday, and two on Sunday morning, we learned to draw and paint:
1 Light and shade to show distance and perspective, through the day,
2 Light and shadows, a landscape, 
3 Animals from dogs to horses, 
4 The human face proportions, and 
5 The human body proportions.

Here I am in the art room, wearing my waterproof apron, showing my painting. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

Susan adapts her course to suit you.
Last year on a longer course I asked to do a caricature, without a sitter (everybody else was busy painting) I wanted a self-portrait. Susan found me a mirror. If I had thought in advance I could have emailed her in advance (which I did about one animal I wanted to draw, and I could have packed my own paints, or sizes of paper - such as miniatures or blank greetings cards.

Surely you can get all this from books, and from buying an online course? Yes, they are all good. But it's a great help to have somebody showing you what you can add to enhance your picture.

What did I learn?
Fill an empty sky with flying birds.
Put a bird on a branch.
Put a bird on a rooftop.
If you are the sort who likes the tragic and mournful, draw cemetery scenes.
If you are into motivation, draw lone characters trudging uphill through snow, with sunlight to guide them on their way to distant cities or buildings with lights.
If you like to uplift add couples at tables, put dancers in doorways and windows, or postman delivering parcels.

You may say, that's all cliché stuff. Every Christmas card does that. Every painting from medieval times does that. Or you might think - but of course - why didn't I think of that? Why did I not think of that when I started my sketch, my painting?

Susan starts you straight away with painting a background. It's so tedious to start with a sketch and not have painting until later, just as I gave up piano as a child when my first hal a dozen lessons were just playing scales and I never played a tune. Susan gets you painting straight away. Then we go back to sketching with a soft pencil before painting, and trying three or more versions of everything until we have a favourite, the one which looks exactly right.

Having a teacher on hand is such a help for all the practical stuff. I am painting and Susan comes over to advise me to change brushes. She says I'll get more control with a brush with shorter bristles. One big surprise is how much you can do with a huge brush, even fine work and parallel lines and curves.

There is so much to learn. As with everything else, getting started is one hurdle to overcome, Practising what you have learned is another. Having a finished product to take away is the 'icing on the cake'.

Painting by Angela Lansbury, reading for mounting. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

Lessons Learned
What other mistakes did I make and learn from, besides using a different brush? Try your mount first.

Oops. Mount cuts in half bird and building. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

Susan was very generous. She donated to everybody a mount and a backing board to take home your best picture, or all your pictures, with the best sandwiched in the middle, or as the flat base in a flat hard-sided suitcase, or in a briefcase. (Artists often have a dedicated bag which they carry themselves to guard against loss.)

If you are in a car, better still. But don't put your wedding table plan with the decoration you have drawn at the top and border, on a car seat. Somebody in your family will sit on it.

I had forgotten to take a kitchen roll holder for protecting paper. I usually try to remember to pack either a cardboard support from the inside of a toilet roll, or a long box for coffee capsules. I would use them to roll up a painting or certificate at a speaking contest. You end up with a curved piece of paper, unless it's just a ten-minute journey home.

Mounts
To go back to what I learned during the course. When I came to add the mount to my picture, I found it covered the outside inch or so at the edge of my painting.

The mount hid my signature. I had to cover the first signature with tree roots.

I then added a second signature further into the painting. I didn't want my signature conspicuously in the middle, in case I decided to display the painting without the mount. So I tried putting my signature inconspicuously on a boat, or a signboard, or the side of a building.

The picture overlapped the mount right or left. I tried moving the mount around, right or left, up or down. One way it obscured a window showing figures dancing. In fact, the mount hid an entire building!

The moral is, select your paper size, frame, and mount, before you start. I seem to remember that last year on another of Susan's course (a longer course lasting over a week) she taught us this at the beginning. Somehow I had forgotten. I should make myself a painter's checklist.

After several courses, or art school training, or being a professional artist like Susan, you will automatically do this.

So, if you want to start doing art, or would like a refresher, or a holiday with like-minded artists and aspiring artists, check below.

Answer
Go on an art course to learn how to illustrate book covers and illustrate your own books and DIY Christmas and birthday cards and gift cards.

I looked at Susan Alison's Facebook page showing a painting by another artist.

I wrote: That is brilliant. 

Yes, the trick is to add human interest to every landscape picture. A tiny person dwarfed by menacing or protective trees. Plus the determination of the protagonist, continuing their journey, through the sunrise and the sunset, despite the lonely trek, nothing to help, except nature, the shade from the trees, the light from the sun, but still continuing dauntlessly.

Susan Alison
Susan is an all-round artist but specialises in dogs and humorous pictures of her dog on cards, mats and all sorts of gifts you can buy for yourself and others.

Sunshine on Pagodas, painted at Writers' Holiday, Wales, 2018. Painting and Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

Angela Lansbury
I specialise in caricatures - funny faces, not always a likeness, but usually a likeness, not necessarily flattering, on the first attempt. If you don't like the first drawing, and you have invited me to dinner, I will do one or two more, in between courses. One person I drew, complete with all his wrinkles, looked at my first version and said, "It doesn't look like me ..." However, he conceded, "On the other hand, it looks just like my father!"

Speaker at lectern, caricature and photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

You might like to click on each of these links in turn:

To contact Susan Alison, look at all her work, maybe buy a card or other item or get interested in a painting course:
https://www.facebook.com/susanalisonart/posts/

To contact Writers' Holiday and /or book an art course:
I could give you all the details but better that you go straight to their page and read all the facts and can sign up if you are interested.
www.writersholiday.net

To contact Angela Lansbury:
http://www.lulu.com/gb/en/shop/angela-lansbury/quick-quotations/paperback/product-21259011.html
https://www.amazon.com/Angela-Lansbury/e/B001K82R2A
Use Facebook, Linked-in, What's Ap. NB, there are thirteen people called Angela Lansbury including the actress. You will recognize my websites and my blogs and books on Amazon and Lulu my picture, the word Singapore, the word Toastmasters or the name of one of my books, such as: Quick Quotations, Who Said What When, Wedding Speeches.
I have many more posts on painting, photography, writing, Wales, learning Welsh, hotels, food, restaurants. See more posts in this blog and others on blogger. Please follow me on Facebook and Twitter.

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.

Students Need Jobs, Teachers need jobs, Schools need teachers. How to work and permits at home and overseas.

You speak English. Can you teach English? At what level?  At what level are you either qualified, competent, and confident? What about your family, friends and colleagues and those you teach or advise?

Problem
The problem for students is how to get money. Should it be from the bank of Mum and Dad/ The problem for Mum and Dad is when can I stop paying.

Answer
The newspapers today, May 18 2017, report that a judge in Spain has told a woman who was demanding parental support that she should go and find work to support herself. Your first move when finding a job is to take any job, whatever the hours and pay.

That way you network, find out from somebody if another company pays better, if a friend of theirs is leaving a job which you could take.

You might find that at your new place of employment you find another job. You might even be upgraded at the interview. I went for a job as a simple typist in an advertising agency. At the interview I was immediately offered a higher ranking, higher paid job as secretary / Personal Assistant to the late author Eric Webster (who wrote How To Win The Business Battle). I worked for him until he died.

When I left university I found it hard to find a job in teaching in London. Luckily, there was an agency, alas, now gone, called Graduate Girls. They could not find me a job teaching, However, they found me a series of temporary jobs.

Agency Jobs
The last work from the agency was in publishing, at Marshall Cavendish in London, working on editing articles in part works, shortening and simplifying science article adapted from an adult artwork to one suitable for German seven year olds.

I had to find, or reposition and expand any German scientists and inventors, instead of making the English one the focus of the article with the German as the footnote. Articles on WWII had to be changed so Germany was - well, you get the idea. An interesting challenge.

The other hurdle was trying to understand articles on relativity, the engine of motor cars, a suspension bridge, or a sewing machine, and then simplifying the language and concepts so that they could be understood by small children. I was taken on for two days and this extended for weeks.

The work at this company only ended when I went into hospital to give birth.

Home Tutor
Some weeks later I switched to teaching English conversation as a home tutor. My first pupil was a Japanese lady.

American students needing money to finance their period studying famously go to work in McDonalds.

When I was in America, I did not take a job because I did not have a work permit. The same happened when I went to Singapore.

Then a miracle happened. I was talking a lady at a dinner party and her husband joined us and told me he worked as a teacher of English to foreign students in a school for adults. I said that I didn't have a work permit and he told me that the school would get one for me. He said he knew a teacher was leaving, so phone up.

Having a British accent was a great advantage. Not that it was necessary. Several teachers at that school and others spoke with Australian, New Zealand, American or other accents.

When I told a Singaporean friend that I was teaching English, she introduced me to her old school. I went to run a course in the local school. My English, with an authentic English accent, and perfect grammar, was way ahead of the local teachers who spoke Singlish.

I have taught English in Singapore for many years and I am active in Toastmasters International. I have met hundreds of people, including several who gave excellent slide shows on English grammar, but inevitably had one or two mistakes of their own. I hesitated to tell them, fearing they would be upset with themselves and crestfallen or angry and resentful towards me. But people who go to Toastmasters International are there to improve and are grateful for the free proofreading and instruction. Most were delighted that I was able to correct their slides.

I have also worked at translating packing for a beauty company, and on websites. If you speak English, you will be in demand in the countries as a teacher.

You can buy textbooks and workbooks for various levels in big bookshops. Some of the workbooks have answers at the back.

Tips
My tips are:
1 Children and Adults, take a first job, any job.
Encourage your children to take any job, just to network. The same applies to you. It gives you the confidence to say you are in work. You can find your way around town on the bus or train network, or drive in rush hour. You get in the habit of going to bed by midnight and being up in time for breakfast.

The determination to get a better job will overcome your fear of approaching an agency or potential employer. Perks may include free meals. You will have friends who are working, rather than friends who are unemployed.

You will have a little money to get better clothes, text books.  Your new colleagues, or employer, may advise you on suitable clothing, cheap clothing, smart clothing and shoes.

Your new boss may be willing to give you a reference. If your boss leaves to work for another company, he may find you a better job at the new company. The same goes for colleagues.

The same goes for the Personnel manager. Even if he is not allowed to recruit you, he might hand you a newspaper containing an ad placed by the new company (whose name he can't mention). You apply for three jobs. Lo and behold, one is your ex boss!

2 Go into any and every employment agency.
Even if they have nothing available or you are totally unsuitable they may be able to direct you to an agency or a company which might employ you.

3 If you don't have a work permit, tell the agency / employer.
Ask the boss how to get one. (If they can't help, speak to other teachers in the staff room or even on the stairwell. Swap phone numbers and phone them for advice.)

In Singapore I was amazed by how soon the boss got me a work permit. I did not need a teaching qualification. All I needed was a university degree and to speak English as a native language. My fellow teachers included a gym teacher, an art teacher, a science teacher. After a year or two teaching English, they were pretty good at it. They were also good at the reassurance they offered routinely to pupils and therefore automatically offered me.

The school had been paid money in advance by twenty pupils and needed a teacher. All my school did was give me twenty Singapore dollars from petty cash for the taxi trip to and from the government office supplying work permits and send me off with a letter on school headed notepaper.

In one minute the school head had dictated a one line letter to the agency on headed notepaper. It said simply, "We have a class starting today, thirty pupils learning English, and this teacher needs a work permit."

The government office was empty. I was called forward straight away. The whole process took ten minutes.

The interviewer could tell the moment that I opened my mouth that I was well qualified! ("Speak better than local, lah? Correct." That's Singlish from a Chinese speaker, direct translation from Chinese, all present tense and no present continuous, in common with German and other languages. "You are teaching English, isn't it?" That would be an Indian, perfect present continuous until you reach the last two words, asking a question, where the verbs don't match.)

The official was bored. He was not hostile and suspicious, which I had feared. He was pleased to see me and happy to chat.

His job was routine. All he needed to do was fill out the form with my name and address, the school address, and passport details. He stapled on the school's letter. I was downstairs and looking for a taxi.

Then I was back in a school, signing receipts for a pile of textbooks to teach my class. I had no idea what to teach. Never mind. The school did not want me interfering with their plans. I started with lesson one on page one.

Was I nervous. Yes. I walked into a class. The pupils crept in anxiously. The pupils were more nervous than I was. English was so difficult for them! I was too busy reassuring them to worry about what they thought of me.

Ask the dictionary, a friend, a teacher, the internet
 The pupils weren't interested in me. Their problem was, 'Please, Miss, what is a subjunctive?" If you don't know the answer, look confident, tell a pupil to open their dictionary (or the answer at the back of the workbook) and read the definition to the class. Ask who understands. Out of twenty, one person does. Ask them to explain to the others.

No time to correct homework? Get the pupils to swap books and correct each other's work. You don't know the answers on day one, but you do by day ten.

If you don't know, ask the internet. The same applies in any job. I went into an Apple Store for a one to one lesson. The teacher kept going into the store room at the back. I was worried. Did I smell bad? Did he hate teaching? Eventually I had the courage to ask why he had gone to the back room. He said that Apple had their own FAQ for teachers which was better than what we would find on the internet.

The same applies to other jobs. Firstly, you can sneak off to the toilet, or in the break, look up the answers on the internet. Secondly, in addition to public forums, every profession has forums for those in the business.

Electricians, Plumbers, White Goods Repairs
Your electrician can go back to his van, ostensibly for tools. He can look up the website of the brand he is installing. Another website is a forum for others in his business telling him answer to problems.

Primary School Teachers
Teachers in the USA have all sorts of free material to share with their colleagues, pupils and fellow teachers worldwide. Arts, crafts, science and seasonal activities. Everything from how to make a Valentine's Day card, Mother's day card, or Christmas Card, with templates showing folds and pop-ups, to how to explain the life cycle of a snail, frog, robin, or oak tree, with pictures, animations and a checklist for a field tip.

What if you fail and get the sack? Never mind. Immediately apply for ten more jobs. You now have much more experience than you did in your first job.

You might even fail twice. But it's highly likely that by the time you get to your third job you will be teaching other newcomers how to succeed.

Author
Angela Lansbury