We went to a lovely wedding in Cardiff this weekend as my friend got married, it was a beautiful sunny day and Tom was very well behaved in the car as it was quite a journey, so we were very pleased. Took my camera took loads of photos, but because I was behind the camera, there was none of me! Typical! So hopefully we will get a few from the professional photographer.

Toms training went well on Saturday although he didn’t want to go through the tunnel at first and I ended up crawling up some of it so he could see me as there was a bend in it. Nick took some film of Tom going around the agility course so ill have to put it on the computer to see what its like and perhaps take some stills for his page. When we are both better at it I might put some film up….. : ) Seeing as though its his third session he’s not doing to bad and his barking was less than last week which is good news!

Toms Training Update….
An update on Toms training, he’s doing OK and getting better at training classes every Saturday. A really lovely couple from training have suggested we walk our dogs together to get Tom used to being with other dogs. We took a beautiful walk along a bird and nature trail here in Wales on Bank Holiday Monday and it was fairly successful. Tom did an awful lot of barking at the start, but gradually calmed down and walked along the path with Meg the other collie who ignored Tom all the way which was great. He would then walk for a while and then suddenly notice her and start barking again. We are hoping that along with his training and these extra walks we can really help Tom with his recovery.

Toms other problem is that he barks at people who visit our cottage. We had an old  friend to the cottage yesterday and was very good with Tom andwas sucessful at doing some obedience routines with Tom. We have found Tom is OK when people are sitting but as soon as they start to stand up Tom barks. So armed with treats our friend gave Tom lots of commands..as he does lots of amazing things now from training and it was great to see another person work with him and it really helped. By the time our friend left Tom wasn’t barking at all. Now of course if someone came in again today he would bark so it will be a long process but we are working with him in all our spare time.

Nick has been experimenting with different pastel papers this year and thinks he has finally found the best paper for him. This portrait has been completed on Sennelier paper, a big thanks to our friend Diane for giving us a sample to try. He doesn’t work on Velour any longer as he felt it wasn’t allowing him to progress and take his portraits to the next level.  He has recently been using the Clairefontaine Pastelmat which he found to be a very good support, but a little smooth.  This Sennelier paper allows him to achieve the balance between soft and sharp detailed techniques that he has been looking for. I think the choice of materials an artist uses is a very personal one and what works well for one artist may not be the best for another. Its always good to experiment.

The client has the original paintings at home in the UK (I added photos of these a while ago and they are on our main website), he also had prints of the paintings, these are hanging in the clients office at his villa in Menorca and also on his Yacht. I will hopefully be adding all these photos to the website soon as I’m slowly but surely completing the updates needed.

The photos below show the prints hanging on his Yacht.