Paper, Pictures, Automata & other fanciful things

New things

2010-05-15T11:06:00.000-07:00

Just a wee note - i've put some things into my Etsy shop which I haven't done for ages. There's a suede Elizabethan inspired collar and some brooches of varying price.

I'm hoping to do this a bit more often in future - as often as time will allow. I had hoped to pull off a sculptured brooch of my own making (it was to be a a feather) but the materials I used just weren't hard enough and the poor thing crumbled. I'll keep trying though because I like the idea...and well, I want a feather brooch.

Otherwise things are coming along well - setbacks are now lessening as I struggle onwards with the paintings. I'm finally finding paper really quite wonderful to work on - now that the horror of 'no mistakes' has revised many of my working habits.

I hope you're all well x

Changes in my store

2010-02-23T22:16:00.000-08:00

If you hadn't read the news on my other blog, then my Etsy store is reopened with a difference! Hurray!

From now on i'm primarily selling download-able, print-your-own toys through there. And my prints are sold via my Society6 store.

As a celebration of this change of direction, i'm offering Mr Mystical Cowboy for free. Just click this link

All you need to construct him is some small scissors (or a scalpel), a few small brads and either a small hole punch or be very patient with your small scissors!

The jumping jacks in my shop are packaged with instructions, I just haven't got round to it with this fella.

New Year, New Post

2010-01-04T00:32:00.000-08:00

A very happy 2010 to you all - A New Years Post is over here on the new blog.

New Prints

2009-11-19T14:10:00.000-08:00

I've now opened a Society 6 store to deal with prints which I cannot manage myself.
The first 2 prints are Fox Confessor and The Flora and Fauna of Intoxication.

The store is here.
Details on why, and various ephemera are now given on my new blog.

Unusual gift

2009-10-08T15:20:00.000-07:00

I had previously forgotten all about the fact that I said i'd copy posts from my new blog to this one...I said it, and it was recorded publicly and then I didn't bother...Fairly typical then.

I remembered tonight, so here's a link to the post about the very unusual gift I was given

A couple a' things

2009-08-11T14:12:00.000-07:00

Well first of all i've been a busy wee bee. I've redesigned my website and blog and relocated the whole shebang over here: http://www.littlerobot.org.uk/

The new blog is powered by typepad and makes my life a lot easier. You can go directly over there by clicking here. Go check it out, I have posted a new painting!

I will keep posting here and redirecting your kind attentions there for a while :)

Better Image

2009-07-31T02:13:00.000-07:00

I managed to piecemeal scan in the fox today. My scanner is really annoyingly doing a faint red line across everything now - so I have just bought a new one. Hopefully to arrive in the next few days. Thank goodness, so sick of cloning that line out.

If you click the image you'll get to see a much larger version.

It's called 'The fox confessor', after the Neko Case song. I was only just introduced to her by a good freind and am now obsessively smitten. She happens to be playing in Glasgow in September, and I may have to go.

The painting was made under the influence of her and also Kate Bush's 'Aerial' album (Also from the same freind - I scoffed when they said it was her best album, how wrong was I?)

And relax

2009-07-30T06:57:00.000-07:00

This is pretty much finished apart from the usual set of glazes which go over the top - deepening shadows, bringing out highlights etc. But before I do that the varnish needs to dry. And while that's happening, i'll put the undercoat down for another one and go for a walk.

It's sunny out, i'm thinking i'll make the dinner tonight, something proper. Here's some shots. Taken in daylight but i'm still not happy with them, the camera seems to oversaturate everything. I may need a new one. But you can get the general impression.

there's a little glare from the varnish which makes the shadows seem a bit washy...

I'm going to try, somehow to get a scan. I'm not sure how. In any case I am very happy with the direction it's going in.

RE: Comments in last post - *Apparently* our summer is coming back in August? I heard a weather lady say it....It's got a few days left then ;)

Make one up

2009-07-29T16:18:00.000-07:00

Seems like it’s been a long time since I last posted. I’ve been off work for 2 weeks mainly for the purpose of producing some work. Actually, I was meant to finish some work, but that’s not really how it works. I do have something to finish

I haven’t touched it though – it is swallowing all of my time with endless glazes, so I needed to move onto the next one and let that rest for a bit.

I won’t give too much away, but it’s another fox.

I built a new frame from olde clock parts for it and it looks lovely and beaten up. And hopefully it will be finished in the next day or so – I’ll post high quality photos (hahahah!) if it is.

Meawhile, outside the summer continues, in an offy/onny kind of way. You can be walking in a balmy sticky heat one minute and then be in a wintery gale the next. It makes dressing very difficult. Generally you end up wet in any case. Can't complain though, everything is growing like wild-fire. The rose bush clinging to the front wall is bowing under the weight of all the blooms.

And I have to put up with this lazy little blighter. Look at him, I haven't seen a days work out of him for months.

Covered in carbon

2009-06-21T07:45:00.001-07:00

The painting is getting better - layers of oil - lovely.

Another drawing.

Sneak a peek

2009-06-17T14:17:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure why I always take premature, badly lit photos of what i'm working on - I should probably just wait till i'm finished, but i'm a blabber mouth. I like rabbiting on and constant analysis :)

The angle is squinty, I couldn't be bothered trying to prop it up properly (I've been going running recently and whatever tolerance I once had for late night photographs is completely gone)

There are many things wrong with it, and there's loads more to go. Lots of bees and butterflies, and several beautiful flowers I found pictures of will be painted around the base.

I will say about this piece that it's been reworked so many times you can see raised lines in the paint of old leaves, ex-flowers, null & void petals. But now I feel like I have a base to work with, rather than a big mess which I can't seem to pull together :)

A bit more

2009-06-13T14:57:00.000-07:00

Another drawing. This a more detailed part of the very large painting I have on-hold just now...She is one of the people riding their animals through the forest...I realised part way through that i'd seen an arrangement similar to this before here

Quick Update

2009-06-13T00:20:00.000-07:00

Hello there! Thanks all for the feedback on the last post. I appear to be gradually getting the hang of larger painting. Progress is slow but i'm getting used to the pace, it's not ready to show even progress shots yet but soon hopefully.

I got a wee bit tired of working on the same thing yesterday so I started drawing. I was always, really, a better drawer than a painter, but I abandoned it as a final medium when I was forced out of it by my art college teacher.

It is often seen, or certainly it was there, as a secondary art form. I never saw it that way then but I was a little brainwashed afterwards. In any case, since I can't possibly hope to produce a body of paintings in time for September, so my plan is to produce as many drawings as I can...I hope some will make it into paint eventually.

Soft Force

It's all the little things

2009-05-30T00:59:00.000-07:00

So, it turns out (following on from my last post) that going bigger with a painting is a bit more complex than just making a bigger picture and filling in the gaps. It is a different kind of discipline altogether. I thought i'd post about some of the issues/solutions i've found so that maybe some of you other painters will be able to avoid my mistakes, or be kind enough to offer me some handy tips?

The first thing, which should have been obvious but which I overlooked is - need more paint.

Also, I knew that when you go larger you have to step away a lot, but I hadn't really factored it in as a habit. So I was kinda hit in the face with this fact, after lovingly painting the shadows and contours of a leaf for half the day and stepping back from it only to realise it did not work at all in terms of its surroundings. It is frustrating, after previously being able to work on something solidly to have to break your concentration to stand up periodically *

On that same note, painting with small brushes and building up shadows with tiny cross-hatched strokes wasn't working out either. I have now repainted over my original base and started to do very rough shapes of light and shade, not really caring about the details so much. I'll have to care about them later of course, but details to begin with were just terrible idea, especially when I had to paint over them all and felt awful that i'd invested so much time in them.

I realised I need quality bigger brushes as well. I have a lot of very good tiny brushes and one or two dejected larger brushes. So since I had some money burning a hole in my pocket - and since I was feeling frustrated with progress - I went to the art store and bought the most expensive paint brush i've ever owned. A large, flat, part-sable brush which is absolutely beautiful and worth it's weight in gold.

It holds paint better, it is incredibly soft and it never really disturbs the paint beneath even if that's still drying, it paints in even consistent strokes, there's never any unfortunate globules or bubbles going on. The lesson learned here is that although a bad workman might blame his tools, a good workman doesn't use bad tools.

On that same point - I always wondered why I had such a hard time replicating colours exactly. It never occured to me that it might be another case of bad tools

The palette on the right is the one i've used since....well many years...I think it is aluminium or something and crusted with old paint that is fused to the metal now. The one on the left is one I picked up along with the brush. The crucial difference is that the new one is white and the sections are flat bottomed. I'm not sure why I didn't click on to this earlier, but now it seems obvious that having a palette which is a reflective material and has no flat surfaces is not really a very good idea.

Thanks all for excellent suggestions and comments on last post by the way. Every day i've been trying to study something, and I may try some life-drawing classes if I can find some which happen in the evening. Hope you all have a great weekend, i'm off to the hairdressers today (I'm frightened of them so wish me luck!). And also, it is stunningly hot here again, so i'll be doing a lot of walking around...I can barely wait.

If any of you have any tips for me about painting large then I would greatly appreciate hearing them!

*I managed a nifty solution to checking from a distance which doesn't involve standing up and breaking your concentration. I always have a mirror handy in any case (for checking a painting in reverse) and if you hold it at arms length you can check the painting from a distance much more easily (depending on the size of your image you could also position one behind you so that you could just turn round and check it)

Sketches & Methods & Thoughts on things

2009-05-24T01:00:00.000-07:00

Hello there! It's another sunny day here, which is great but I always seem be snowed under with some project or other when it's sunny. Lots has been happening. First of all I started on a monster of a painting (for me). I cannot finish it right now however as I was asked to submit some work to an exhibition whose theme (no matter how I try to rationalise it) has nothing whatsover in common with the piece.

Here's some sketches from that on-hold piece:

I don't like to leave a piece once its started as I go off-the-boil very easily and never pick it up again. Given that I put a lot of effort into planning it and getting the finished drawing i'll be a bit pissed off if that happens.

But in any case, the theme of the new show is 'Birds and Bees' apparently. This is, I believe, primarily because the main artist is Mark Rowney and he produces a lot of work involving birds and bees. Actually, he also makes some astonishing leather work around this as well which you can buy at his Etsy shop here.

When I saw his work, and some pictures of the size of it, I went into a slight panic. My work is, as a rule, very small. This is very gradually changing as I gain confidence, and also as I bring my impatience under control. Even so, I felt that now would be a good time to go bigger still. Enough that you could see my work without having to squint :)

The first flat layer of paint. Cobbled-together frames will again feature heavily. I also managed to get hold of 2 beautifully carved Black Forest frames.

Anyway, I've been thinking about how my work has changed and this is in large part because of this gain in confidence, particularly in handling colours and also in the Acrylic inks I use. I was an artist in college who dropped everything and worked in digital mediums for years. It's only the last few years that I came back to working with paint. And I was not confident at all. If I look at the early paintings I produced it is all monochromatic, incredibly simple, highly illustrative.

I still love them for their simplicity, however as I gained confidence in using colour I wanted to expand beyond these kinds of images. Not only that but my drawing skills were very cramped. I was not confident beyond drawing the face and shoulders. My figures are always disembodied, as though I only really notice people's faces (Some self-observation comfirmed I pay no attention to people's bodies whatsover).

So ultimately i'm trying to observe people more, try things out which I would originally have been too worried about e.g. getting larger & losing the symmetry I rely on so heavily. I don't want to go too far out, there are things which are in my work for a reason and these are right, the rest is there because of anxiety and i'd like to see if I can get the necessary skills to overcome that.

So many of these issues can be easily solved by paying more attention, sketching more often, and crucially being willing to produce shit. Hopefully not too much shit, there's not enough hours in the day for that :)

Anyway, I hope to post some progress soon....and thanks all for your great comments and being a really supportive bunch x

Out in the open

2009-04-22T14:24:00.000-07:00

The painting from the last post was in preperation for a very last minute group exhibition I tagged along with. The reason I wasn't saying much was that the lovely and talented Rima Staines is taking part, and the gallery owner thought we'd keep it'd be fun to keep it a secret till the last minute...Alas, he was invited out to tea and tortured for information :) (that last bit is sadly a fib). Unfortunately I couldn't make it along, too short notice, but it's a pleasure to be sitting beside her work...Especially given how fabulous her latest piece is!

Thanks all so much for the kind comments about the piece - I love it - it's brought about a whole ream of imaginings. Hot house flowers, thick petals, feathers dusty with pollen, giant red suns. Maybe it's the weather, the strange and unusual light and warmth. I feel tropical. Ridiculous of course, I think the temperature is about 7 degrees or similar...But what a winter it was. Any light is a blessing.

I just have a couple of things to report. The indiefixx Free Art project print (below) is now available for anyone to print to their hearts content here!

And I was given a lovely interview for The Sister Project here.

Somewhat furtive

2009-04-19T12:58:00.000-07:00

Well amazingly I haven't been completely slacking off recently. Although the weather has been sickeningly beautiful and i've spent an hour here or there sitting on the front porch listening to a relay of chirrups as the birds run around.

This is the stream that runs beside the house...There's no easy way across but you can get yourself down past the little waterfalls and sort of hunker....hunkering's only fun for 30 minutes though.

Front porch bit where I tend to sun worship

Then this morning, a walk which was meant to be half an hour went on for 2 hours and involved me sinking into a mossy pit with my Converse on...It was a very squelchy walk home, and unfortunately the shoes are ruined for good, although I always think bashed up shoes look better, the smell can be off-putting.

In any case I had a very last minute bit of painting to do for something...I went through several stages of 'Oh this is awful, I am terrible, what the heck am I doing' this time because it was very last minute and because what began life as a small study had to become a real finished thing....I also went wildy off-track with my usual composition..

This was a very definite 'what on earth am I doing' moment...I was presumably channeling the cover of some Funkadelic album here.

Some agonising took place, and some adoration of Henri Rousseau

Mexican Relics? I liked the old beat up clock door I was using as a frame, but in actual fact my biggest problem became my ambition to fill this much space...As it turns out I can probably paint a flower a day, half a bird or 2 butterflies. So I had to cut the length of the frame down, lose some of the painting i'd already done, but at least I managed to finish it.

A bad shot, night time, 30 minutes ago. I'm happy actually with where this went, it's quite different in composition to my usual preference, but I do like the direction. Being under pressure is unpleasant in many ways because if i'd had the chance i'd have doubled the length of this piece, but then I probably would never have done anything like this without it....So all in all, a good thing.

Leisure

2009-04-05T09:44:00.000-07:00

Being leisurely isn't something which works for me. I get cranky and uptight if I have to relax. Massages occasionally make me spasm. Anyway, with all that in mind i've been relaxing the last few weeks - spontaneously. I went for a walk by the stream and sat reading the paper today - presumably i'll have to pay for all this with horrible feelings of guilt sometime in the future. But not today anyway. Also, it's spring. Actual spring, with sunshine and bees and birds - it's such a blessed relief after a seemingly endless winter that it's a sacrilege not to go outside.

I wasn't entirely absent from the studio, but it was incredibly ambling.

Drank tea, sniffed incense

Sketched some bits.

Cleaned up the little altar. Sorely neglected these days.

Started on a small study for a future painting.

So that's it really - I am hoping the larger bird painting will start next weekend, it's easter so I have a longer break from work.

Hope you're all enjoying the start of spring x

Not much doing

2009-03-22T04:00:00.000-07:00

The last few weeks haven't been particularly frantic on the art front. I've mostly been fixing up furniture, painting some silhouettes on plates to brighten up the kitchen and general housey stuff.

Also, i've been trying to get a good fox print. The trouble with paintings on dark backgrounds which have gloss varnishes is that all of the flaws and bits of dust show up in the scan. So there was nothing for it but to cut the fox and all of the branches of the tree from the background...It's not that bad considering....I can sit on the very long train journey to work and do it slowly. It is tedious though, it's so far taken 4 hours and i'm only half done.

Hopefully it'll be worth it eh?

Also, I was very kindly asked if I would submit something to the indiefixx 'Feed your soul' Free Art Project. If you haven't heard of it yet, it's a really nice little project whereby each month several artists submit a piece of art especially for the project which is free for people to download and print for themselves. Go here to find out more!

Here's a small peek at the piece i'm submitting - it's a digital collage - heck i'm on the computer cutting for so many hours I might as well get some art from it :)

Hope you all have an excellent weekend...

EDIT:
Oh yes, and I forgot - the fox flowers have added to even more collages. There's now a print available in the shop using them - It is in a limited amount since i'm doing some gold highlights over it, and it takes a bit of time.

Things that have gone

2009-03-07T11:33:00.001-08:00

I kept meaning over the last few weeks to post about the death of John Martyn. He's one of my, and many other people's, all time favourite musicians. There were a few times when I could have gone to see him live but I never did. I regret it now.

I was put off because in later years his performances were patchy and sometimes excruciating to watch - at least that's what some of my freinds told me - and I didn't want to watch it. Now I wish, at least i'd gone....a lesson for next time.

Some classics:

Leaving

2009-03-03T15:04:00.000-08:00

I packed all of my pieces up to go to Berlin tonight..It took me so long to make them, and now they're going. I feel quite....hesitant. I managed to get some pretty rubbish photos before they went...I wish i'd remembered the camera batteries at the weekend....Another win for absent-mindedness.

The big puppet

Although the pictures aren't great, I think it's essential to see the frames...The toad painting's frame is made up of several different parts of frames...they work quite well. Take a pediment from a clock and the front - and maybe snaffle a few finials.

Wee update

2009-03-01T10:06:00.000-08:00

I am writing this currently with a very persistent cat wedged between me and the laptop. His entire head is obscuring most of the view, so i'll try my best.

Here's the full version of the Intoxicated painting I posted about last week. I have wrangled honestly. This is just a scan but once I remember to buy batteries for the camera tomorrow (what a dolt!) i'll take a photo of it in it's frame! Which is made up of several different clock frame parts and i'm completely in love with!

So, the clue's in the name. It's a still life of an opium poppy, aminita muscaria (the fly agaric mushrooms), a cocaine plant and a tobacco plant. As well as the king of intoxication, the colorado river toad...I am not sure how realistic the toad looks. I could only find vaguely trippy photos of them....

Anyway, they are meant to be sent tomorrow but now I have to get photos tomorrow night. Also, I finished the big blue faced puppet...Finally!

Hope you're all having an excellent weekend.

Progress

2009-02-20T14:26:00.000-08:00

For a group show i'm taking part in I was asked to do one piece on the theme of intoxication. I decided to stick with a similar colour scheme as the fox and took the week off work to do it....I picked a simple idea and thought it'd be fairly straightforward...which was a bit daft in hindsight.

It has taken this week every day from morning till gone midnight to get 80% through and i'm still not happy...It needs more work, and perhaps the entire background needs to be darker. I'm at that hating everything stage which I just need to work through...I have yet to go over it with oils so I am hoping they will add the depth which I think it's lacking at the moment.

Here's some sneaky peeks anyway

I'm going to keep going tonight and perhaps tomorrow give my eyes a break and do something else.

Hope you all have an excellent weekend!
x

Fox Scan

2009-02-16T09:00:00.000-08:00

I was able to scan in the fox today. It still needs some touching up - the only problem with oils and glossy glazes is that tiny particles show up in the scanner against very dark backgrounds like this.

Clicking the image will show you a much larger version

I'm not 100% sure what this looks like on a regular screen as i'm on my elderly laptop. It may be a bit dark - I can change that later though.

One thing I was going to mention is that I will be outsourcing the printing of the paper theatres in the near future (not the dolls yet), it will no longer be on the etching paper which is incredibly expensive, but rather on thick 350gsm satin or matt card - one or the other. It'll bring the cost of the theatres right down. I'm wondering what people think about that idea?

Thanks

2009-02-15T15:24:00.000-08:00

This is a really quick post to say thanks for everyone's lovely comments about the fox, it really does mean a lot to get feedback. He's pretty much dried now so he'll be scanned and photographed as soon as time (and battery charging) permits.

Meanwhile I am having a bugger of a time trying to get frames I like for my paintings. I have so far tried to bid on around 10 different frames on eBay only to watch in horror as their price soared to some ridiculous level....What happened to the good old days when we found bits and pieces in our attic and sold them at the car boot for £10?

Once upon a time, you bought old things in order to save money..Of course not in the case of fine antiques, but it was possible to buy something second hand at a reasonable price - not anymore. Old things are now 'vintage' and with that label you might as well double the price.

So i'm having to resort to clock cases. Even they seem to be selling for very high prices at the moment.

Picking through the stash of old clock parts i've managed to fashion a new frame for the next painting and have made 2 new frames with the help of my scroll saw...It's not fine sawing honestly but it has a rustic feel to it - hopefully I can swing it.

It's not a bad thing to make do and mend in fairness.

Also, a quick note about a new book released this month by Norma Toraya aka CrankBunny - It's called Paper Puppet Palooza and is full of great paper engineering projects. I was priveleged to have 'The Heart Revealed' featured in the gallery pages along with some other artists I love like The Pin Pals.

Liquin Love

2009-02-01T11:29:00.000-08:00

As much as I love Ponoko, until they get a manufacturer in Europe I simply can't afford the postage costs to here, particularly as I tend to order large cuts. Without them however I am reduced to sweating and cursing with a handheld fret saw...The blades break often, my back hurts, the air turns a shade of blue. So I gave it up and bought an electric scroll saw....

I almost took my eye out with it to begin with because the instructions on the machine are wrong.....seriously, it has a picture showing you to turn a key in a given direction to tighten or loosen the blade, I was trying to loosen it to change to another blade but was unknowingly tightening it...I couldn't figure out why it was having trouble turning the key when there was suddenly a sound like a gun shot and a piece of blade went whizzing past my face. I was rather shook up after this, and started sawing with some trepidation....

Anyway, things went better after that and I managed to saw out some wiggly shapes without cutting off any fingers.

It's by no means perfect and it's no laser cut, but it's a start!

Other than that I sat down to paint the fox taking plenty of breaks to look at it and drink tea.

Robin claims (after seeing many foxes on the hill) that my fox is essentially our cat with a kind of foxy coat. Foxes are much more angular in real life - I've looked at plenty of photos but still haven't seen one close up...So my fox is quite warm and round. This is still just acrylics so the hair is a little sharpish close up.

My magic ability to take 100% blurred photos helps to soften the effect though.

Addition of foliage and flowers

And finally the first coat of liquin. My favourite substance. It smells unusual and painterly, and it gives rich depth on the first coat. It's pure magic and it means I can work oil glazes over the top once it's dried. I know many of you like it aswell!

The top of the bush.

I noticed that some of the little rituals around painting are beginning to take a strong hold recently. I don't start without a hot cup of tea beside me. I have to have some kind of incense or candle burning (my favourite incense shop: Simply Incense ) and I listen to comedy (Hitchikers guide to the galaxy radio series).... I suppose you start with something and your work goes well and then you rely on it? Anyone else have this kind of thing?

A beautiful incense which i'm lighting a lot at the moment is this one:

Karin Perfumed Prince

Burns Night

2009-01-25T02:47:00.000-08:00

Tonight is Burns night and generally speaking me and Robin always do something for it. Either some 'Neeps and Tatties' or some Whisky (Ok, always Whisky - Neeps are optional) and reciting/listening to a bit of Burns. It's a weird thing because neither of us is Scottish but we've done this since long before we moved here - I don't know why and can't even remember when we started.

Being English makes reciting Burns a bit of an embarrasement, so listening to recitals is better. You either need to be scottish or be able to pull of a damn good accent to read it. I have tried out my scottish accent on people here and i'm told I sound like an english person doing a really bad scottish accent.

Neeps and Tatties are just swedes and potatoes mashed up with plenty of butter and salt. Haggis is the usual (some might say neccesary) food to go with them, but being a vegetarian is a cruel thing on Burns night. Instead I have to resort to Vegetarian Haggis (It does exist!) or maybe load up on dessert. Speaking of which, a lovely scottish dessert (normally made in the summer but what the hey):

Cranachan with raspberries

Ingredients
250ml/½ pint fresh double cream
1 tbsp thick heather honey.
1 generous tbsp of Talisker whisky
1 heaped tbsp of toasted oatmeal
2 punnets rasberries

Method
1. Whisk the cream together with the honey and whisky.
2. Fold in the toasted oatmeal.
3. Pile on top of fresh raspberries and serve.

So that's probably what we'll be doing tonight. My favourite poem by Robbie is currently 'To a Louse' which is about robbie sitting in church and watching a louse weedling around in a fine lady's bonnet, it's a hilarious poem when you eventually fathom what it's saying. It gets all philosophical in the last verse

"O wad some Power the gift tae gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us!
It wad frae mony a blunder free us,
An foolish notion"

Amen to that!

Wee progressions

2009-01-24T08:47:00.000-08:00

I finally finished off the sailor automaton...Sometimes I spend a lot of time faffing in the final 10% of a piece. I spent a lifetime doing the gold titling, the final set of varnish, the covering of the silver screws in his joints. I no way should I have faffed for so long. He doesn't look that much different but in person he's a lot smarter looking.

I started a painting of a fox last week to sit inside the front of a clock i'd ripped off, no shots yet but here's the sketch for it

I think the painting itself has a long way to go, fur is the devil itself ot get right and since the painting is quite large it is doubly problematic for me....I think a coating of oil over the acrylic is the only way to do it properly, we'll see!

Meantime i've been researchig for the next big theatre I want to make and in my studies i've come across some of the oddest stories...Since it's nearly Burns night i'll be literary and relate to you this odd tale called the Red Barn....Bear in mind this is a true story.

In 1826 in Suffolk, England a young woman named Maria Marten (the daughter of a mole catcher) got romantically involved with a local well-to-do rogue called William Corder. Maria had had lovers before including William's older brother whom she'd had a child by. In any case Maria became pregnant with William's child and wanted them to marry while Corder wanted the relationship to remain a secret.

Eventually Corder relented and told Maria to meet him in the Red Barn so that they could elope, she was never seen again. Corder also dissappeared for a time but when he eventually resurfaced he claimed maria was alive and well. He sent letters to her family giving all kinds of reasons why Maria couldn't write back or visit. Her family of course grew suspicious and one night her stepmother had a dream that maria had been murdered and buried in the Red Barn. She told her husband to go and dig in the barn where they found her remains hidden in a sack in a grain bin.

Corder was unbelievably easy to catch, he'd married someone else and was running a women's boarding house, and had all manner of incriminating evidence such as pistols bought on the day of the murder. Clearly not the sharpest tack. He was tried and convicted of her murder. His sentence of course was death - He was hung and his chest was slit open to reveal his muscles - how strange - and then he was displayed for the public to see.

I thought perhaps the story would end there, but actually the oddest part comes next. Corder's body went through all kinds of strange things. Firstly he was dissected as an example for trainee surgeons, then later his skull was examined by phrenologists (His personality was found to be secretive and destructive). The skeleton was then put back together and exhibited as a teaching aid at a hospital while his skin was cured and used to bind an account of the murder (You can still see this book in Moyse's hall museum I think).

The story actually has numerous side-stories and alternative plot lines. For example Maria's step mother was possibly having an affair with Corder (her dream came about only days after Corder married the other womans) and helped to plot the death of Maria. You can read the full details here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Barn_Murder

It's an unbelievable mess of a story with all of the traditional elements at work. A wicked step mother, a murderous bridegroom, an iconic building, dreams and portents.

The theatre itself is not related to the story but since i've been scouring local histories of places around britain it seems like there are hundreds of fantastic tales like this.

Gigantic Jumping Jack

2009-01-04T02:26:00.000-08:00

He's not gigantic but he is larger than the norm. Here's some shots, not the best light.

It isn't finished yet. Due to its size it's quite difficult to get a shot of it hanging long, so he's sitting here beneath a very elderly composer puppet I found in Brighton.

I am not 100% sure about him. Because of the size, as time went on, I started meandering around and trying different things, so he is something of a mish mash.

I've always loved the faces of blue hindu gods. A totally blue man was something i'd toyed with but as I say, I started meandering and the clouds appeared.

I will finish him, but I need a short break from it. The good thing about this kind of meandering is the firm ideas it gives you, so I know what I want to do for the next one. This one and the one following are what I aim to send to a Berlin Gallery for a collective show in April.

Think of this as a teaser for a more exciting title

2008-12-26T07:56:00.000-08:00

Christmas time, whatever else it is (Excuse for last-days-of-rome style drinking) is a time when generally I work on something more substantial. Actually this christmas I didn't do that right away, instead I went on holiday - well I went and stayed with my mum. I saw my nan and family, met up with lovely old freinds, went to a gin and mince pie party, went to a party at a nursing home which was surprisingly ok once I started in on the brandy shots.

Now i'm back home and after 2 days in my pyjamas with this as my view

I got off my arse and started priming some wood. It's for a jumping jack bigger than the usual size. I decided to try a large one after reading about the french courts of olde were they used to make super-sized puppets. It's not gigantic but you can see the size of the parts next to a normal sized jumping jack below.

Also, large puppets seem to be becoming very popular over here... In the last 2 years Britain has been treated to 2 amazing spectacles by french events company Royal De Luxe involving enormous automated puppets. One of them took place this year in Liverpool, I didn't get to see either of them but the photos are stunning. The ones below are taken from 'The Sultan's Elephant' which took place in 2006.

On a much smaller scale, I ended up making a tiger to go with the tamer - no clear photos as yet, the weather is awful here. But you can get the idea

Now I think it's time to get back to view #1 and read some Angela Carter - I got a selection of her journalistic writings for christmas and it makes wicked reading.

Happy holidays!

Movement!

2008-12-08T15:44:00.000-08:00

Here's some shots of the automaton. Various things need doing like covering up joints and cleaning things up and maybe an extra layer of sea etc, but the mechanics are fine.

Well, I should get to bed, i'm up past my bed time on a school night.

Some progress

2008-12-07T04:12:00.000-08:00

My blog title's always seem to be 'Some progress' or similarly vague things. I'll try and have a more enigmatic title next time :) Meanwhile, the commission i've been working on has come on in leaps and bounds and I hope to show some photos of it soon, here's a shot of some of the parts before they were placed in properly:

It's currently hanging in my hallway and making me very amused to turn the handle and watch it go.

Also, a new jumping jack to go with the strong man. He's a lion tamer - without a lion currently, i'm not sure whether to make one to hang above him? I was thinking a tiger and a small whip for him.

Colds and Coal Fires

2008-11-30T10:34:00.000-08:00

Well, I finally succumbed to the nasty cold doing the rounds. I spent most of the past fortnight amazed at how resiliant I was, and of course I must now be bed ridden for my sins. Yesterday was a write-off, today I snuffled around and scanned in 2 of the little paintings I made for the shop - Progress! They are both silhouettes, inspired by the christmas cards. Silhouettes are such a simple concept but you can convey a ton of character in them.

I have also just bought a lovely silhouette from penandpaper - Her work is so incredibly lovely.

Also, this week my beautiful printer broke down, I spent a fruitless evening trying to revive it but it refused. This is why there aren't many prints in the shop - i'm only offering things I already have or dolls/theatres which I can do on my old (but still good) printer. Fortunately I am within the warranty period so an engineer is coming around to fix it this week - hopefully it should be up and running in no time!

So, with my cold I sat infront of our coal fire and stoked it and read about BlueBeard and now i'm watching Return of the Jedi and having a Hot Toddy - it's a traditional scots cure for the cold. I for one would vouch for it over a Lemsip Max. Here's a nice recipe for it:

Ingredients

A wee dram of whisky (Ahem, this is discretional)
1 teaspoon honey
Boiled water
1 slice fresh lemon/lemon squash
1 pinch ground nutmeg (optional)
1 cinnamon stick (optional)
1 clove (optional and needs to be removed along with the cinnamon stick before drinking the hot toddy)

Cooking Directions

1. Put the honey into a mug and disolve in a wee bit of boiled water.
2. Add the whisky depending on your taste. 1 -2 tablespoons is recommended.
3. Top up with more boiled water. Add the cinnamon stick and cloves if used. Leave to stand for about 5 minutes. Remove the cinnamon stick and any cloves used.
4. Add the fresh lemon/lemon squash, stir well, then sprinkle with a pinch of ground nutmeg if used then serve.

Ta Da!

2008-11-23T13:21:00.000-08:00

So, the reason I heart Ponoko so much is that - although the shipping to Europe is expensive, they are working on it and in the meantime they have provided many great offers and deals to us eager makers. And one of these deals meant that I could have a large amount of wooden jumping jacks laser cut.

Woop! As a result of that i've been messing about with decals and so forth in order to produce copies of jumping jacks i've previously made. And here is the result of Monsieur Fleur, the strong man:

The decals work excellently and then I cover the lot in a nice glossy varnish and finally pin it all together using binding posts. It's very sturdy and looks very lovely in the flesh so to speak. The question is really whether to discontinue paper DIY versions? They will remain much cheaper than the wood versions - Even with the great deals at Ponoko each laser cut jumping jack is more expensive than i'd like.

I hope to carry on and make a circus set of jumping jacks - A ringmaster and a clown as well as a lion tamer .... or something like that anyway!

This jumping jack will be listed in the shop shortly!

A quick ol post

2008-11-22T15:05:00.000-08:00

I've managed to do a few things this weekend that are just for stocking up the shop. The christmas cards are listed! And i'm starting some smallish paintings, more affordable than the recent lengthy projects i've been making.

Oooo, also, I recieved a large package from Ponoko, my favourite service - I love them honestly, they really try hard to offer the best service that they can for the small time laser cutter :)

Cards and that

2008-11-18T13:30:00.000-08:00

Well it's christmas (yay!) and I have designed some christmas cards soon to go into the shop.

They aren't printed however! Ta-da! They are cut paper silhouettes mounted on thick coloured cards and they come with matching complimentary coloured envelopes. (I cut them using my amazing craft robo - sometime object of hate or love depening)

I have grainy shots, once I get a good shot they'll be listed. They are quite lovely in person.

There are 2 silhouettes and 3 colour combinations of each. They are mounted on foam pads so they stand out and cast a nice soft shadow. They'd work well in a frame as well!

These are all the combinations. I will be selling them in packs of 6.

Quick Update

2008-11-09T03:11:00.000-08:00

Hi all, I am just dashing in and out again as I make progress on the sailor automaton. It is going well and hopefully i'll have some pictures to show soon enough. Thank you all so much aain for your valuable suggestions, i'm going to post some return comments to the last post shortly, when i've got a wee bit of time.

Meanwhile this is just a notice to say I have listed 'The Sleeper Dreams' paper theatre in the shop...I thought about keeping this, but i've not the room realsitically, especially since I have a whole host of characters waiting to fill the next one.

Thanks so much

2008-11-01T04:35:00.000-07:00

I have to say how happy I am to have recieved every piece of advice, and kind but direct honesty from you guys in the last post. It's true that actually vocalising the issue has helped. Here's a few things i've done since then:

I put together a spread sheet showing the most basic outgoings I need to meet each month, the amount it costs me to create prints and ship them, the amount I make from them, how much tax I pay on them etc to figure out how much I would need to sell to meet my costs.
Collated every months sales this year and after fees/shipping etc figured out what my average earnings were
Read a lot of advice, mainly about cataloging work, writing an artists statement and CV and self marketing and presentation
Thought a lot about which direction I should go in, this is an important point which i'm going to ramble about now

Putting together the spread sheet and figuring how much i'd need to sell especially in today's financial climate was rather sobering. I looked at various options like going part-time in my current job (unrealistic, and I haven't been there long either), contracting (most of the work is in London and runs for 6 months), working part-time in a lower paid job (couldn't afford the bills), moving to a smaller place in town (Lack of studio space and no more great outdoors).

So realistically I need to increase the average amount I make from art enough to make it feasible. I know that if I am making more I can sell more, however the laws of supply and demand don't work that simply. I feel like there are two main options, either try to increase the value of my work by submitting to exhibitions/juried shows/self marketing - the traditional route. Or else commercialise some of my work, I am thinking mainly of the toys (jumping jacks/paper dolls) and theatres. Perhaps even both.

Anyway, before any of that takes place I need to address one major issue, my totally rubbish cataloging of work. I take shoddy & badly lit photos all the time, this is because cataloging for me is secondary, it's something I do in the 5 minutes between finishing a piece and starting another. But it struck me recently that if I were to send a stack of photos of my work as examples, i'm not sure most people could work out what the hell it is I produce. I need some level of consistency as well.

So, I promised myself that whenever there is good light on a weekend and I have work which needs photoraphing I shall set the camera up properly, put a white sheet on the table and take the photographs as well as I can. And as it happens, this weekend there is good light.

These aren't the best shots you'll ever see but thery're the best I can manage at the moment, so that's ok.

These are tiny steps, but it feels good to make them.

In terms of actual art, i'm doing a rather exciting commission at the moment, it is to be a fully moving automaton. Normally with these things I get bogged down by the complexity of the task and can never make it because my tools are minimal. But this time, I stumbled upon a genius solution in a book which made it do-able even for my clumsy hands.

Here's the central mechanism, it looks so simple doesn't it?
That little baby took me all day and lots of glue and nails and pulling it apart and more glue.

Here's the sketch, it'll be put inside another of those old clock cases

Here's the main character, a sinning sailor who's making his way to heaven (hopefully)

When the grass is always more veridian

2008-10-26T01:25:00.000-07:00

I thought i'd have a bit of a natter today about non-process related matters of art. Anyone who knows me in the real world knows I talk a lot about trying to work as an artist full-time.

Realistically, the way I spend money means that it's unlikely to happen any time soon. I'm a fritterer, I don't buy big things but I have more books in my house than I have room for, they are stacked in corners and crushed into cupboards. And because I am in a relatively well paid job and because I like it and the people I just haven't ever gotten to breaking point with working full time.

Generally speaking my thinking is always split into two on anything anyway, so I never really make any big decisions...I'm not a planner by nature, I just drift along, occassionally ranting about how i'd like to be going down the other trouser leg of time.

Every now and then though I get into a really shitty mood. I fume to myself about all kinds of things - one after the other, sometimes all mixed together.

I fume about the world at large. The odds are stacked against artists I rant. Our social and economic institutions are set up to keep us in traditional work patterns for almost our entire lives. Art institutions and grant systems have little interest in work outside of the conceptual mainstream!

Then I move onto my work, it's too nice or not nice enough, it has nothing to say about the world in which we live, it's too derivitive.

Then I move onto myself, I don't take art seriously enough, i'm a terrible planner, I don't organise myself properly, i'm not taking responsibility for my life.

My emotionally mature response to all these feelings is to try to ignore them as much as possible by going out a lot, or getting involved in a really good series of books until it goes away and stops annoying me. I never ever confront them, I never sit down and try to unravel all the tiny whingeing threads. I certainly never get out an excel spread sheet and try to figure out how I might afford to live off art.

I know that making a living from art has all it's own problems. I know that you have to seek out commissions more often, fulfill wholesale orders if you can, attend art fairs and even (gulp) answer emails in a timely fashion, you end up not really doing art for a lot of it.

But the other side is that starting on a Saturday I rush into my bedroom studio and start cutting up pieces of wood as fast as I can, gessoing, preparing, planning, drawing. I also have orders to fill out for prints and packaging and visits to the post office before mid-day. By sunday I may have gotten somewhere with a piece and then on monday I have to put it aside and wait, wait, wait until the next weekend. It's a fevered high pitched way of working which then spirals into this yearly fug of exhaustion and self recrimination.

Which is why, for the first time, i'm trying to consider what it would take to change my life. I don't think at this time I can afford to do it, perhaps not for a long time, but i'm interested in exploring the avenues and seeing in real terms how much i'd have to make and how I might do that. Even if I come out of it with a feeling of acceptance it'll be something - at least I can refer to my spreadsheets when I get into my fug.

Update

2008-10-23T14:04:00.000-07:00

I ended up adding another balloon to the theatre

I've wanted to do a moustachioed balloon since Baron Munchausen.

It continues slowly but surely. It's nice to tinker about rearranging and creating new compositions.

I am listing Monsieur Fleur in the shop tonight. A paper version will be out soon!

Jumping Jack

2008-10-12T11:54:00.000-07:00

Some quick and dirty shots of a new jumping jack - This one will be made into a paper jumping jack - I've never bothered doing that before but people have asked about it so I thought i'd give it a go :)

Scans for the paper version

Photos (bad again!)

Theatre Update 'n some brooches

2008-10-05T06:31:00.000-07:00

It's been another beautiful day and i've been restlessly going out and coming back in again, not doing anything fully. It's my last day off work and I feel like I should get the most out of it - that attitude usually leads me to do nothing of anything.

Anyhoo, I do have some photos of the theatre with balloons
Different position for the fish.
With symmetrical balloon arrangement

Assymetrical! And the fish now looks like he's having some kind of heart attack, sorry about that.

Some close ups, love seeing the 3 dimensions

Since i'm an endless fiddler (I have a funny story about my endless fiddling which almost always ends in disaster, especially where anything health-related is concerned, but maybe i'll leave that till everyone's had their tea) I decided I would make a different scene for the same theatre! I can't do it right now what with constantly bumping in and out of the house, but soon!

Anyway, the last of the silver brooches have been made and will go in the shop today

I think that's all for today!

A sort of aside

2008-10-04T10:28:00.001-07:00

The theatre is almost finished I think. The suggestions for doing an asymmetrical arrangement on the ballons were taken on board and in fact i've done it so that now it's possible to move the balloons up, down, backwards, forwards - wherever you like! There is a third balloon, those things are like catnip. I'll post some pics tomorrow!

Meanwhile I wanted to spraff about Toc Fetch. I recently bought a comic from him, I say comic but it isn't anything like other comics. It's bizarre, almost impenetrable in it's surrealness.

Have a look

Every page is like that, perfectly rendered, and the words +images have an (alarming?) otherworldliness.

Another quick update

2008-10-03T04:41:00.000-07:00

Another set of quick photos. The weather is beautiful today so the light is perfect. Please bear in mind that everything is rigged up with blu tack and gold string but i'm hoping to use invisible wire for the balloons, so it's a bit higgledy looking. Anyway, here it is so far

I liked the wood background of the case but because it had holes in it I decided to cover it over and paint the background in a very dark blue. I am thinking to lower the two side balloons slightly and put one big balloon in the centre dissappearing into the clouds - thoughts anyone?

Other than that I think the background may have some details added, although what i'm not sure what yet :)

I managed to go out for a walk today, it's just beautiful weather here, and bought a marshmallow cake to eat later :)

Quick update with grainy photos

2008-10-01T14:46:00.000-07:00

Thanks for the encouraging responses! It's always the case that photos are taken last thing at night, and hence are all grainy - but today was great, I made (for me) a fair bit of progress, and i'm fairly happy with the direction it's going in, so to heck with it, i'm uploading my terrible last minute pics before I go to bed.

Briefly unsure about removing those front doors. Tried it out with the doors, and I liked something about it...mmmm,

She's not really waving, she's meant to be holding something - which will hopefully be made tomorrow.

Lovely waves

Blindfolded - yes this is the thing you see, she's meant to be asleep, dreaming :)

Natural Theatrical

2008-09-30T12:57:00.000-07:00

So this week I took the week off work to make some progress in that clock case

(Memory refreshing photo)

I wasn't going to do much blogging about it along the way - I find this is occasionally disasterous. Anyway, it's not much of an idea, I ended up doing a design for a woman riding a giant fish - pffft - again. I just need to work through the fish thing :)

Anyway, bizarrely the most decorative part of the case - the doors - have gone! Yes, I took them off to fix the hinges and decided it looks better without them ... Ta dah!

Still needs some kind of front decoration to cover up the nooks and crannies of whatever gets
installed so I cut some bits of ply. I really wish I had better tools and a bigger workshop for this kind of thing - but ye have to make do. So I just cut it on my overcluttered desk and cursed like a navvy.

Some waves, I love doing waves and clouds

Start the fish and construct some wobbly apparatus to try him out in there

There's a ways to go and my back started playing up today - I need to stop now and hope that it's fine tomorrow.

On being late

2008-09-27T11:37:00.000-07:00

I'm always late, permanently. Late getting up, late getting home, late arriving and leaving. I'm also late picking out the person who won the head decoration wotsit - but it's picked, mr random number generator picked number 9, which is Erin! I do not have an email for you so please let me know your address by sending me a mail to lindseycarr@btinternet.com!

Erin sugested this book which i've been eyeing up for a while actually, it's on my next pay cheque!

Just a wee mention of some of the other books sugested. I am a massive fan of Nabakov which Pen and Paper suggested - I'm keen to read about nabakov so "Speak, memory" sounds good, but the obvious jewel is Lolita

The other writer I wanted to rag about is Angela Carter as mentioned by Lady Lavona! I found her recently and am a total convert. She writes brilliant short stories, and the most interesting articles about women i've ever read.

Thanks guys for the book suggestions, you're going to keep me going!

I bought a beautiful but cracked wooden frame recently and filled them with these two poor wee possums.

I made some new brooches. One inside a silver setting, the other just on it's own with a brooch backing.
I tried out this same technique on a wooden plaque with one of my prints

It doesn't come across well in the photos, but you can see the woodgrain coming through, it's a nice effect.

Also, the King For a Day jumping jack is back with me:

The case painting is finished, not much has changed but it's varnish has finally dried and the butterflies are set in the bottom

I think that's it! There'll be updates to the shop over the coming week with all of these.

Another Brooch

2008-09-16T10:59:00.000-07:00

The brooch which I baked with ceramica glaze turned out well! Here it is, and it is also going into the shop shortly.

And here's Patti now (bad grainy photos rule!)

Brooch adventures!

2008-09-14T11:14:00.000-07:00

I can't wait to draw the winner of the headband, already i've seen so many books and writers I love. Nabakov's Lolita is probably my favourite novel, the writing is so beautiful. As well as Angela Carters books - i've just ordered another one by her. And the ones I don't recognise, I can't wait to get stuck in to!

So meanwhile, I have begun some adventures with Lazertran decal transfer papers. I've tried these before and had varying successes putting prints on wood plaques. I'll probably try that again in the future, but since the paper is quite expensive I prefer a more reliable medium to transfer onto. Which is why I started trying it on blank glazed porcelain cabochons.

It's turning out quite well but there's still the inevitable experimentation particularly as regards varnishing them. Oil based varnishes seem to crinkle and destroy the paper. I am having success with water based gloss laquer from Fimo and am just currently waiting for one of them being baked. I coated it in Ceramica clear gloss - it may be a disaster but who knows.

Here's the process I used:

Clean the porcelain with something like white spirits to remove grease.
Print your image onto the Lazertran (Use a settling like plain paper but with high quality and up the brightness otherwise you get bleeding)
Wait about 30mins - 1 hour for the ink to dry
Cut out your print
Soak it in water for about 30 seconds or until the backing starts to peel
Place the decal onto the blank and pull away the backing

Dab off excess water with tissue

Centre it generally where you want it

But look, can you see the annoying crinkles that occur when you put it over a curved edge??

Here's the really magic bit - use a hair dryer on a low setting and gently blow over it and gradually press down the crinkles until....

Once you've marveled at this loveliness, varnish it!

This one was varnished with the Fimo gloss laquer, it is touch dry in about 30 mins and permanent in 24 hours. I did about 4 layers.

Now set it into a nice setting, I have a few of these lovely stirling silver brooch settings

Clearly the best time to do this is when you ought to be doing something else instead, in my case I am meant to be doing a piece for a group exhibition, using an album cover as a base....

So now i'm going to have to set-to-it and do some late-night painting!

The brooches will go up for sale fairly soon, if they're successful i'll hopefully do some more designs.

Autumn Giveaway!

2008-09-10T13:45:00.000-07:00

Ahoy! Since summer has been so mean here, I though i'd be bountiful in time for autumn. I am giving away a wee package including the hat/headband which I made a few weeks back, e.g:

It will fit a head of relatively average female proportions (It appears I have a fairly large head all things considered, so it shouldn't be terribly tight for anyone else)

Along with some autmnulish prints!

So, just leave a comment.....i'd love it if you'd tell me your favourite book or author - my biggest thrill is finiding a new book or author - and i'll pick a name at random on Friday 19th and get in touch with the winner!

One woman's junk is another's gold

2008-09-06T09:07:00.001-07:00

A wee bit of progress to show on the painting in the clock.

Put some liquin varnish over her, lovely smell, and the best thing if you ever want to layer oils (in my opinion anyway :)).

I am just in the process of layering some 3d butterflies in the front bottom of the case. They're not handpainted, just prints on etching paper of previous butterflies i've painted.

Last week I made a bargain bid on eBay for clock parts - it was so ridiculously cheap and there was such a ton of the stuff.

The problem with all of this is that my work space is now about the size of my chair...I can't move without encountering some kind of clock....I need some super storage system.

The gem in all this junk is so far:

Looking a bit tatty, but with a tiny bit of dark paint to cover scuffs, and mainly dark wax and a polisher, we have:

I could hardly believe how beautifully it turned out, I had visions of having to sand everything right back and start again. It didn't take that long. Aside from what I want to use it for I couldn't help thinking, when I put it on the mantlepiece next to my plants, how beautiful it would look if you took off the back panel of wood, replaced it with glass and made a terrarium or something plant pott-ish with it...The dark wood really complements the greens/reds of winter plants.

To give an idea of the size of it, here it is next to the original clock case.

One tiny moment

2008-09-04T13:35:00.000-07:00

Flowers update

2008-09-03T05:43:00.001-07:00

Flowers ahoy

2008-08-30T11:29:00.000-07:00

My back is much better now - ok, it still hurts like hell, I lie in bed like a beetle on it's back rolling around trying to fling myself out, but where I was on monday night was unbearable, and now I am tottering around.

I have help of course

This mainly consists of him leaping in front of my feet and making me grateful to get through the day in one piece.

During back-nightmare I managed to stop painting/sitting up long enough to watch the entire first season of The Wire, and read/gorge on Angela Carter's The Bloody Chamber & Other Stories. If you haven't read that or any of her other works yet and if you like fairy tales, dreams, sensuous language and the darker side of the human soul then I envy you discovering her.

Anyway, there's only so many DVD's and books a woman can read without boredom. So I rigged up some semi-vertical board to paint on and keep my back stretched long.

I couldn't hold on any longer.

I think you can click this one to see details...though the photo is tragic quality again, I give up with the photographing.

She'll be stting in the clock case eventually

Something bad and something lovely

2008-08-25T09:16:00.000-07:00

Reading back through my previous posts it's ironic now that I use the word 'hunched' to describe my position when painting. It really is a crabbity crouched posture, and the last few days I started paying for it. What began life as a slightly annoying throb after standing up from my drawing table has now almost completely debilitated me. I can walk a bit, I can sit down but standing up afterwards is dreadful. It seems likely that i've pushed a disc out - I won't know for sure until I go and get it checked out tomorrow.

Worst of all - the only thing I can do is relax and lie down while an unfinished painting sits in the hallway begging for a bit of muddy cyan on the wings.

Hopefully it won't be long before i'm back on, well, my back.

Meanwhile, in my ridiculous shuffling state, a new tennant was brought around by the lovely people at the Cat Protection Agency. His name's Nacho, he's about 4 but noone can say for sure because he's been living as a stray. He's quite a big cat, handsome to look at and incredibly freindly.

A new collage

2008-08-17T00:29:00.000-07:00

I've been messing around with some new exciting ideas for my website, and part of that lead to me obsessively cutting each thing i've painted out from it's background using photoshop. My boyfreind watched me doing this laborious task on my laptop last night for about 2 hours and finally said 'You realise that's very anal don't you?', but if you want to do a thing, then you do it properly right? That's not anal is it? :)

Anyway, I also put quite a large collage together as a result of some of my obsessive cutting. It's going to be available as a limited print on a large A3 sheet of Hahnemuhle paper.

Today it's actually quite fine outside, and this always happens when i'm getting ready to spend the entire day indoors hunched over some panel...And that's exactly what I plan to do :) I have somethings to do on a commission and i'm going to try and revisit the old clock case I abandoned earlier this year. Rather than anything theatrical I am going to try some painting inside it...we'll see.

Update later and a wee painting

2008-08-10T11:32:00.000-07:00

I'll be updating the shop later with one of the capes I made and a wee painting i've been mosying around with today.

It's been funny weather as I said in the last post but I am starting to enjoy the rain. This has happened to me once before about 5 years ago living in London. Some overnight, unplanned for switch occured and suddenly I loved the rain and the dark drizzly evenings. It's happening again at the moment, which is just as well.

Here's the little painting

Some more - capes?

2008-08-03T04:46:00.001-07:00

Well, finally this weekend the sun has come out. It was alleged to be raining according to the weather man, but in Britain meterological science might as well be a case of seeing if the cows are lying down(rain), whether the sky is pink at night(sunny), whether you're getting a funny head(thunder) . It's really no wonder we're obsessed by the weather. The last few weeks it's been torrential rain/grey mist/roasting hot/blasting wind/suffocating stillness.

However, after all that, the sun is here and of course I celebrated by not going out at all but instead hunkering over bits of suede and old beads and sewing till my finger tips hurt.

The white cotton is very old, as usual, I prefer old fabric to new, even a bit stained and water-ruined. It's all pleated around a beaded and painted suede neck band.

The full effect can be a bit too much for going out but under a nice tux jacket it's dressed down and looks very nice.Some details. It's not finished, I want to do some more beading and painting and then i'll line it....Lining things is not something I enjoy. For a start I tend to hand sew - I have a sewing machine but I can't stand the noise or the aggressive march of stitches - It's daft I know. So everything takes forever, especially lining, and it has no aesthetic effect on the outside, so for me it's utterly boring.

Detail of the black pleated cotton neck - what? I don't know what to call it at all.

Some attempt at professionalism there. It's actually a nice little technique I aw in the Craft zine. Just take t-shirt transfer and iron it onto ribbon. It really works well!

This also looks nice and quite dressed down under a black jacket, however I don't have a picture of that as my camera started to flash it's 'I'm dying' light. This one is the only one really finished. The others all need some manner of finishing (the dreaded lining!)

Prints

2008-07-30T05:21:00.000-07:00

I'm still messing around sewing things, I found some old white and black fabric, good quality though quite faded, I like that quality of destroyed fabric. So lots of pleating and ruffling has been going on :) More pictures at the weekend. In the meantime, new prints have gone into the shop - Natural Dark and the wee Flutter Fish.

Some kind of cape?

2008-07-21T10:54:00.001-07:00

This doesn't feel 100% finished yet, it needs a lining, and something else...i'm not sure what. That suede jacket i've been pillaging just keeps going forever, I still have tons of stuff left to make things from, it's quite exciting. I wouldn't mind trying a tunic, they're simple enough shapes for a beginner at sewing.

The front bits are pockets from the suede jacket. The back is actually from the back of it. I painted with some gold fabric paint on the back.

The collar is some very old material, and then some of the cushion embroidery sewn on. The buttons are from a waistcoat .

Ta dah! I quite like it, it's toasty round the neck. I am going to line it in nice soft felt.

The gold detailing on the back, not showing up fabulously in this pic but I think it looks quite lovely in real life.

Detail of the front, please excuse grotty purple top, it's my shameful painting smock thing.

Hat - well, headband

2008-07-20T06:31:00.001-07:00

So, these are some photos so far, maybe i'll do more with it i'm not sure...It's more of an elaborate head band than a hat. I have lots more material remaining and an idea, so i'd like to try something a bit more hat-like next.

This bit I embroidered myself and then some silk painting, it's quite pretty up close.

The toggles for tying the back together.

Some of this embroidery came from old worn cushions i've had for years, some bits of ribbon, and the buttons are from a very strange source.

Shop Update soon!

2008-07-19T13:10:00.001-07:00

I've been away at the Kyudo seminar, and have just got back. I had an excellent time there, very difficult on the muscles, but always worthwile. Anyway, the shop update is postponed till Monday. I've taken some better pictures of what I already have and also i'm currently making a totally different thing (something to wear!).

It's the last piece which has had me thinking. It's not the same as my usual images, in person compared to previous paintings it seems incredibly different. I thought I would like a hat like that, clothes like that. So I started messing around. Oh first of all, i'm repainting the beautiful marker lines for the Kyudo class as they got somewhat damaged in their journeys to Glasgow. They need reinforcing in black and then they're ready to go.

Back to the point, here's some photos of the materials I had around for making a hat or anything like the painting.

Amazing embroidered ribbon and an old suede jacket
Embroidery I tried on silk years ago. And some feathers
A Rabbit(?) paw with Amber(?) gem which I traded with the lovely and spectacular Lady Lavona, see her shop here.

Old cushions I bought a long time ago with some beautiful faded embroidery
With the feathers and ribbon, it's nice just putting them against each other
Some very old silk which was given to me and has a long history - to be treated with respect.

So I spent today putting things together. It occurred to me that I needed a doll or something to try things on, but there's only me, so I stabbed myself accidentally a few times and suffered for my art :P I've never sewn really, so I relied on temporary glueing a lot and then sewing. So far, I love what I have, I want magic in clothes, magic and history and a story to tell about each bit, and every bit of cloth has it. Some of them have been passed through 3 generations, it feels good to give them a new life, and to make up a new story.

I'll post more photos once it's finished.....and maybe something else, who knows.

Update and a new breed

2008-07-07T05:32:00.000-07:00

I just finished off a new creature, and rather than doing a 2D collage style, I decided to go 3D. Each part is hand painted on thick etching paper and then assembled and mounted on the background. I really love how he turned out.

Actually, in the second photo you can see just behind the frame is the old clock carriage which I attempted to do something with. As I was messing around trying to get a good photo (not managed, sorry about that) I realised a large fish of some variety would really work well in there! So, maybe i'll try that soon - so many things I want to do!

I've taken a scan of every part so I hope to eventually be able to offer him and other kinds of creatures ready for people to assemble and frame (or not) themselves. The frame is the excellent Ribba frame from Ikea. So cheap and so simple!

I'm away between Thursday and Monday so i'm going to try and update the shop on Tuesday 15th :)

New Blog and - FEEDS!

2008-06-30T14:20:00.000-07:00

Hello there!

I've started a new blog! aha! It's not a replacement for this blog it's actually a place where I blog about other art, music, anything I find inspirational and hopefully - other people will find something in it too! It's called Branching Streams.

Also, I have managed to put the Subscribe to links on the right hand side - some people have asked me about that before, so there they are!

A bit more

2008-06-29T11:25:00.001-07:00

Managed to finish up a painting, just a bit more was added. I don't know what to call it....Thanks for the nice comments everyone!

I'm currently working on another similar style version. It's so incredibly enjoyable to work with more colour, and more natural things....And i'm being inspired by a book that Rima mentioned recently - 'The book of lost things' by John Connolly. A magical book - with a very dark twist.

Some things

2008-06-24T13:25:00.000-07:00

Recently I left my old job and started at a new company - The new job means I spend more time with a pencil or a wacom tablet in my hand - it's a great feeling. Although, I am shattered, I think I may be over-excited!

Anyway, outside of that, my work is changing slightly. Some elements of different paintings are merging together, i'm having a great time. Another tiny flutterfish - he's framed but I haven't powered my camera batteries up to take a photo yet, so:

But mainly i've been sketching - lots of women and butterfly wings, flowers, fish all just bungled into a big writhing lump (I'm not really selling this am I? :))

And from the last sketch, the start of a new painting:

Again, my monitor is dreadful, dpending on how I tilt it these images can look washed out or over-saturated - literally have no idea what they look like :) hey ho. Eventually i'll amass enough paintings to put some in the shop.

Shortly....

2008-06-18T13:30:00.000-07:00

I'll be posting some sketches and paintings i've been dabbling around with soon.

For now, please enjoy this wonderful music video! It's all hand drawn and animated by Misery Guts!

A bit of work

2008-06-08T07:16:00.000-07:00

Hello! It's been ages since i've done any real painting or drawing. It seems like that anyway. I did manage to do two digital images for some freinds of mine's first wedding anniversary...Can you believe that both of the wee puddings asked me seperately to make them a surprise present for their other half? It was a bit of a nightmare secretly getting them both the printed images without me getting confused about which story i'd told who, and making sure they both agreed to the kind of images that would match! It was well worth it in the end I thought.

I have mostly been pottering around trying to decorate on a shoestring. It's a very rewarding experience, mending what I have, sewing covers with bright ikea fabrics, painting things in bold colours...I'm not sure it's anyone else's taste but it makes me smile.

I did manage some painting though, they'll be in the shop today.
One is this altered victorian photo which I painted at the Made in the Shade event mentioned below:

He is the Guru Albert Arkwright, the sage of Lancashire. Reknowned for his stoic silences and his wisdom on the nature of a good potato.

And a painting inspired by the wedding gifts and a visit to the botanic gardens, it's been donkeys since I painted a creature, it was a very pleasant experience!

If any colours look weird or too dark or anything then please accept my apologies! I have had to resort to my father-in-law's laptop as my other one has gone - the screen on this thing is horrendous so i'm saving up for a new one...Meantime I have no idea what the colours are really like here!

I hope everyone is having a grand old weekend. I'm off to amble about.

Made in The Shade

2008-05-22T23:19:00.000-07:00

It seems ages! I've been away camping on the North West Coast of scotland. It was superb! I'll post some pics soon as - with or without camera abilities - the landscape is staggering.

Where I live was mentioned in the last posts comments and yes! it is true I live in a place of ridiculous beauty and i'm very grateful for it. Here's the view from the gate.

The island in the distance is Arran.

It's surrounded by animals, we get sheep and lambs obviously, wild deer, rabbits and hares, pheasants, squirrels, foxes, moles (Gigantic mounds all round the house - the little buggers!) and down the road my favourite animal:

When I first moved here 4 years ago (I'm actually from around the Liverpool area) all I did was paint flowers, bumblebees, foxes and things. Very brightly coloured paintings, but unfortunately i'm not sure where they are anymore. Ah well!

Lots has been going on, but the immediate thing i'm looking forward to is attending Made in the Shade,
I had really hoped to be able to do some originals and paint some brooches for this but I originally thought it was next week - hence here I am sans originals. Also, some inks ran out on my printer and I don't have any more...it's one of those snafu situations.

So my plan is to take the few things I have - and also I managed to procure some old antique photos of serious gents and women and i'll paint on them throughout the day- it's a bit different and it gets around this problem of having nothing original there! Should be fun!

If you're around, do pop in and say hi!

Update and stuff

2008-05-04T05:40:00.000-07:00

The weather has been a bit drizzly here, so no more wandering down the lane eating chocolate :) This week's been eventful - including an unusual visitor:

The poor thing was found by Rob shivering in the garden (moor with fence round it) bleating like mad. It's mum had gone off somewhere...tsk. So he put it's afterbirth over it (we'd seen on a documentary once that this was how the mothers recognised their lambs) and took it to the sheep and tried to interest one of them in it.....No takers. So he brought it in. All this took place while I was asleep. It was quite a shocker to find a lamb in the kitchen when i stumbled in there for coffee. So sweet though, it's tiny curls, and elegant face. Later on Rob took it out again, still no takers, so we phoned the shpherd and he came round and took it off our hands....Apparebtly sheep do this a lot and eventually come back for them.

It's been a busy weekend, but i'm having fun...here's a shot from my table today:
An in progress painting i'm enjoying doing. And here's one for the shop update today:
I loved the curliness of this hair, it gave me enormous pleasure to wiggle the paint around....bit sad but there you go....Everything is going up in my shop now :)

A blissful weekend

2008-04-27T06:08:00.001-07:00

First of all thanks so much for the responses to the last post. It is so difficult working in a void, it's really important to get objective feedback, and I couldn't agree more with the comments. In reality the case was originally intended to house a different scene. It changed at the last minute and was not sketched before hand....It was just sloppy and all over the place and unsurprising it didn't work. So its sitting, resting in the corner..One day, something will happen.

Instead, I managed to relax this weekend and just do some nice small drawings and paintings..It feels a bit like therapy when I do that. I have these big plans for things, and sometimes it's quite crushing, always trying to move them forward (There is a largish musical mechanical theatre in the making.. I hardly know what i'm doing so it's taking time to figure out how to fit it together). So I just stopped, put it on the back burner. Relax.

I fit a very full time job, lots of travel, freelance work and various other ventures around my creative life, and it can get a bit boiling-point with frustration as I do not have the time...any time... I can feel sort of frenzied and unwell when I come to try and make something. So I had to actually talk myself down from this frenzy.... So, here's some wee thingybobs. There are more, and probably more to come, but before then, a walk in the sun, maybe match some flowers in my Wild Flowers book, probably go to the local shop and buy coke and a chocolate bar and just...meander about and look at the wee lambs in the field next door...And there's some new calfs too with lovely soft wet noses. :)

I'll be updating the shop with these and more on Sunday 4th May. I hope you can make it....And before I go, 2 music links from freinds which I think are brilliant!

http://www.myspace.com/miserygutsmusic

http://www.myspace.com/theailing

Enjoy!

Shop update today and when things don't work out

2008-04-13T03:23:00.001-07:00

Well now - the Monkey and Bear theatre appeared to be going well however - here's the back story. Generally speaking I always work out colour values for every aspect of an image/theatre before hand...Usually by doing a drawing and then digitally colouring it or using felt tips. The reason is that I always end up with one aspect not fitting with another, and then i'm stumped. The same thing happened with the new theatre. The background was fine, then I added bear and you could barely (heh) make out bear. So I put gold in the background. Fine...Then I added monkey, and the two of them seemed to come from completely different pictures. I could have sobbed... I didn't I just went and drank a glass of wine and hoped to find out the problem later on...I never did manage it. Here's some pictures!

Monkey on his own - vicious little devil eh?

Bear on her own - serene and sad

Somehow it just isn't working. It's actually driving me insane. Part of me logically realises that there are more layers to be added, more sea and also some circus bunting around the top....these things may mean it will come together. Unfortunately in a pique of - something - I ripped out the organ painting off he back and there's now a mess there....I really need to leave it alone for a bit! My other thought is that i'll repaint bear in monkey's browns and then they'll both occupy the same colours......we'll see, I don't think I can sit down with it again for a bit!

Anyway, I have some things to put into the shop in a sec. Here's a photo of the queen and I:

And! A jumping jack! He's a tatooed wonder - it's all very mystical

And finally, I leave you with a pic of monkey hanging around on the stand I use at Glasgow Craft Mafia fairs:
Hoping everyone is having an excellent weekend, i'm going to bust out of my studio and go for a walk in the sun.

Cooking, sketching, and clocks

2008-04-06T11:13:00.000-07:00

So, I ended up getting ill in time for my time off work...so predictable! So, I did a bit of sketching and made Quick Tiramisu! Let me tell you it's amazing and very simple ingredients and since me cooking is a momentous ocassion in our house, here's the process:

250ml Whipped Cream
250gms Mascarpone Cheese
3tbsps Caster Sugar
2 Eggs
6 Tbsps Amaretto
2 cups of strong coffee
1 Packet of Lady sponge fingers (Like you use for trifles)

Make some really strong coffee (about 2 cups) and let it cool. Add 3 tbsps of the Amaretto.

Seperate the eggs, save the whites and into a seperate bowl whisk the 2 egg yolks and Caster sugar until it's thick and pale.

Blend in the Mascarpone Cheese

Fold in the whipped cream gently

Whisk up the egg whites until they form soft peaks and then fold this quickly but gently into the rest of the cream.

Add the other 3 tbsps of Amaertto into the cream mixture and make sure you don't lose any volume.

Dip the sponge fingers into the coffee/amaretto mixture for about 2 seconds, shake off excess coffee

Layer the bottom of a glass bowl with the fingers
Add a layer of the cream mixture, and repeat until you run out of sponge fingers. Finish with the last layer of cream.

Sprnke cocoa powder or drinking chocolate on the top and refrigerate for 2 hours....The longer the better actually but it will last :)

Serve with some raspberries and Consume! And if you're feeling a bit fruity, you can make this nice liquer coffee using Amaretto, Kahlua and a topping of left over whipped cream!
Excellent day which made up for illness. Some sketching:

And some progress on the clock case theatre. It's such an insanely beutiful case. I cleaned up the outside, fixed some of the gold edging. I have painted the inside and added a large star and also a constellation.....Again i'm inspired by Joanna Newsom.....

The song is pretty obvious if you look at miss bear who is one of the characters to be placed inside it :)

I will have some originals to put in the shop soon then - including 'The Queen and I' from the previous post. I will put them all up at the same time, i've heard this is better than just shoving things up willy nilly. So it'll go up on Sunday 13th :)

Toys! Exhibition

2008-04-02T05:16:00.000-07:00

So the Toys! exhibition at Gallery 1988 began last night. I really wish i'd had more time to prepare something for it, but 'King for a day' seems happy where he is:

And I love his orange background! The toys exhibition looks great , lots of people took aprt and it even ended up on the news!
http://cbs2.com/video/?id=63691@kcbs.dayport.com

Anyway, that's all for now, back to work!

Some small progress

2008-03-30T13:09:00.000-07:00

Today has been excellent. I managed to put wood panel into the back of the clock case, sand the inside, gesso it and start the first layers of paint for the background.

I also, out of the blue, started and finished 2 small paintings that hang together. They came about because I was asked to say a few things about anthropomorphism in my work for The Storque. And it occured to me i'm not that interested in attributing human characteristics to non-humans but the other way around. I love animal masks, and as I say in the article, this all started with the Wicker Man movie....It could have been a more impressive beginning I know! So i've been messing around sketching animal masks and head dresses and looking at other representations, like this gorgeous drawing by Ink and Ginger and the stills from the Wicker Man film, here and here and this Joanna Newsom photograph:

They all combined into these:

See Mr I Don't Know has been pelted! The poor wee devil. Two wood plaques, they're called 'The Queen and I'.......Some details:

I really liked them, and crucially I was so relieved to just have the time to make something after so long being unable to. It will probably turn up in the shop soon!

I'll post some pictures of the theatre progress soon!

The newest thing!

2008-03-29T03:01:00.000-07:00

Hello! Thanks again to everyone who gave their ideas, I am planning to scan in sketches etc that came about as a result of them in the next few days. I would have done earlier except the last 3 weeks have been exhausting with me working 40+ hour weeks for my job. Finally next weekend I will be able to take off a couple of extra days and do some art!

On that note, I have a few things in the run. One of them is mechanical, and I will finally incorperate music into it! This is much longer term as I still don't know exactly how the mechanism will work, i'm going to have to do some soldering of wires - frightening!

The other thing is that i've discovered that old clock cases are the perfect things to use as theatre cases! Oh yes! Ebay etc have a bounty of abandoned and unloved ornate clock cases which I am going to use to put scenes in. And I thought you might like to know there are certain kinds of cases which would be perfect for people to give a bit of love to and hang the paper forest doll and the mystic cowboy in, see:

All they need is a bit of polishing up and some TLC and they are perfect, which leads me to the one I just bought and am going to house a rather scandalous scene in:

It was a bit dirty so I polished it and rubbed some wax into it. I will repaint the gold edging as it has flaked off but the dark wood stain will stay as-is.

I'll have to inset a piece of cut wood into the back and paint it as it is quite damaged there

The nice thing of course is that you can put it onto a mantlepiece or table or it can be hung as it is flat at the back. It's got a glass fronted door which i'm not sure about....we'll see. I'll post sketches and progress as I go wheeeeee!

And the winner is...

2008-03-22T13:32:00.000-07:00

Well, you guys have got some wacky ideas eh? Technicolor bunnies, native spirits, Ghosts, living toys. I sort of lied when I said I wouldn't steal your ideas, I did - well by accident, they just kind of lodged in my brain and i've got several sketches of different ones, which, I will post when I have some time - I hope really really soon!

Anyway, the winner is picked by a random number generator! So far we have 19 posts, although one of those is from that really annoying spammer who keeps posting naughty videos...it would really be the pits if (s)he won. Anyway, the winner is number 11! which makes it Lonnie but, since Lonnie already has one of these (bizarre eh?) then she will recieve something else which i'll think of and do asap! So, I must chose again! And it is number 4 :) Which is Joanna! I love your idea, it reminded me of Ernie Fosselius (What a name hey?) and his hand-made car with his hand-cranked automatons. He is actually a film maker by trade but there's such magic and charm in his hand whittled toys. A life like that seems to run completely against the speed and direction of the world in which we're living.

Special mention must go to Jo for being a fan of Benjamin Pollocks toy shop. For anyone who doesn't know about this place, it is a fantastical place, the museum and shop are seperate entities, but both celebrate the magic that is toys
http://www.pollocks-coventgarden.co.uk
http://www.pollockstoymuseum.com/

A while back the toy museum almost closed, but has thankfully survived. I was blogged by the lovely Trish and as a result the toy shop now carries some of my Heart Revealed theatres and some Dark Forest dolls.

Anyway, I digress, Lonnie and Joanna I will be in touch!

Another quick update and a giveaway!

2008-03-16T12:17:00.000-07:00

Hello!

A very quick update due to work work work...bleugh. I now have a full size (width and height) theatre with fully jointed dolls in the shop. It's relatively expensive due to the sheer quantity of ink and the cost of the Etching paper. However, I think it is rather beautiful and although it takes a it of time to construct, being more detailed, I think it was well worth it.

Here's some pics.

Along side the smaller theatre.

I'm only doing 20 of these as they are a bit long winded production wise, but the very first one i'd like to give away! :) Obviously there's a catch, heh. I'd like to hear what kind of theatre you'd build. Don't worry I won't steal your ideas! :) I will pick one from random and send the theatre your way.

For what it's worth, the theatre's story (which i'll one day illustrate, curse this procrastination) is that the girl on the dragon has a horn which contains a heart, and when she blows it, it reveals what a person really thinks and feels. Does anyone else think that this could be quite devastating?

Long time no see!

2008-03-12T01:00:00.000-07:00

It seems like ages since I blogged about anything of note. So here's some kind of update very quick (About to go to work!).

I'm taking part in a group exhibition called 'Toys' at Gallery 1988 in Los Angeles. Here is my submisson...I'm running late so I need to ship it asap!

He is called 'King for a day' - and is based on traditional French harlequin jumping jacks, infact his snazzy outfit is lifted almost directly from a fabulous one I found here. He has a wee bell on the bottom of his string so that he jangles when he jumps.

In other news, i'm currently producing a full size version of the Heart Revealed Theatre. I'm just test-constructing it now and then will list it. It's printed on A3 german etching paper, all the dolls are jointed and hung in the same manner as the original theatre and it has a few additional touches. The smaller one is very sweet and easy to put together, the larger one is, well, larger, takes longer to construct and so forth but is very beautiful - I think so anyway!

New Print

2008-02-24T11:42:00.001-08:00

I have a new limited edition collage for sale in the shop:

Quick Update

2008-02-17T03:46:00.001-08:00

So, this week i've been running around in my full-time job - what a nuisance. But other things are also happening!

I managed to finish off the last layer of varnish on Fleur and put her in a gilt frame.

She's for sale in the shop.

I also have invested in a really brilliant A3 printer which uses Chromalife inks - The Canon Pixma Pro9000 - Using Canon's papers and inks the prints have a longer lasting life and good colours. I've always been happy with my prints, but these are even better! Somehow they are just richer, and not only that but the printer is fast and you don't get any jamming or problems with the thick art papers...that was my main problem, I had to hand-feed every sheet and it took an age to get a print, so printing out on order for the theatre for example could take me 40 minutes! It's absolutely gigantinc, and since I can now print A3 i'm going to do a few large theatres and assemble them myself - It means the dolls can be jointed and it will last longer.....Hopefully have those ready soonish.

I also recieved a package from Ponoko..I love that site, laser cutting made easy and accessible. I got 5 jumping jack patterns in wood. One of these is being primed and painted today and going off to Gallery1988 for an upcoming group exhibition! I'll post more about that soon....

Hopefully next time i'll have some progress and some pics!

High theatrics

2008-02-03T05:06:00.001-08:00

Today I decided to set things up so I could take some better photos of the theatre and ended up taking better photos of the old paper forest and of the new thing I have made from the theatre! I'm quite excited to show you!

So here's some photos of the theatre itself:

Unfortunately you don't really get to see the gold paint in these photos, by candlelight it's all mysterious and golden - but candlelight is not ideal for photos :)

If anyone's wondering what i'll be doing with this, i'll be sending it to the wonderful CrankBunny because she's doing a book on paper puppets! Isn't that wonderful, and there's a section on other makers which she kindly asked me to contribute to, so this is my contribution. I have to send it to her so that professional photographs can be taken - thank goodness! I'm really excited about that, and I will also get a copy of the book which is really great.

Something else i'm excited about is that fact that after much scanning and messing around in Photoshop i've produced a paper cut out theatre based on the original! It's the first time i've ever managed to get a full theatre. Here it is hanging next to the original:

The paper version is going to have goldy bits too on the waves and as accents everywhere else.

It's made from thick 310 gsm etching paper so the print quality is lovely, the paper is a tad soft for this kind of thing but it is fine once constructed. Some glueing needs to go on but it's just pritt stick type stuff. All of it is just smaller than A4 and a couple of centimetres deep.

You can choose to have the girl or Mr I don't Know the bear displayed. Currently I use a tiny bit of blu tack at the very bottom of them each to secure them to the wave at the back. It needs to be kept out of view because the blue tac can ruin the print on the wave due to the nature of the paper. The best way is to permanently install one or the other.

I'm pre building a few and have ordered boxes for them, I can paint the edges of the cut out and I have super sharp scalpels so it makes it a lot easier for people, but otherwise they are sent as 4 printed sheets with the gold parts painted on by myself. Then you can cut and glue yourself :)

I'm also going to be listing the paper forest for sale. I wasn't sure about selling her because it was the first theatre I ever did and the construction is a bit wobbly and she's fiddly to install. I've loved having her hanging on the wall but time to move on and get some new things on the walls! Here's some better photos of her anyway:

Oil

2008-02-02T04:34:00.000-08:00

All of my paintings are currently done in acrylic inks. I like them because you have speed, control and consistency. But i'm a romantic at heart and I love oils. It's been a long time since i've done any though. Partly this is down to the time it takes, which seems ridiculous when you become accustomed to acrylics. I like to layer the oils as well (i'm not much of a straight to canvas kind of girl) so you have to wait for a long time between layers drying...And because I like to work on something solidly I often lose interest after the 3rd layer and oil paintings lie abandoned all over my studio.

Anyway, this morning I was looking at one of these abandoned paintings, it didn't have much further to go, just one more layer of glazes, let it dry and then a varnish. Before i'd thought twice i'd jumped up and grabbed my oils and started glazing like crazy. And it struck me just how much I miss oils. There is something about them, and for me the glazing aspect in particular, which is just magical.

In the gradual build up of glazed layers you seem to get so much more depth than you do from laying down one single colour. The smell as well, Damar Varnish and even turpentine (Which I don't think you can buy anymore in Britain but which I have a stash of) is kind of wonderful. It was excellent, and I am already planning something new in the same vein as the current one.

Here's a wee peek.

Seven Random Things

2008-01-29T14:53:00.000-08:00

I was tagged by the lovely InkAndGinger to list seven random things about myself - i've never done anything like that before, so why not? :)

If i'm anywhere high, a bridge or top of a building, I have a fear that i'll suddenly throw myself off
I wished when I was younger that I could grow a beard
I've got a bit of a problem with taking up hobbies and then giving them up 6 months later
My boyfreind makes all the food and is a great cook, if it weren't for him i'd be living on sugar sandwiches
I have a book reading addiction of the highest order - mostly pulp fiction i'm afraid
My favourite activity after painting is dancing

I tag - Elista , Asking For Trouble, Middle of Nowhere & Unordinary

On a totally seperate note, a very rubbish thing happened. About 3 weeks ago I sent one of the hand painted brooches to the very lovely Michelle.

It hadn't arrived after a long period of time, we were hopeful because I had to fill out a customs declaration and sometimes that takes time to get through, but when it still hadn't arrived I decided to refund. If it turned up later then great and if not - then a nuisance but maybe it would be returned to sender...Unfortunately, neither happened. It turned up with Michelle, minus the brooch, with an ironic 'We Care' message. The package had been ripped and as Michelle pointed out, it didn't look mechanical. How depressing.

From now on, no original work of any kind is being sent without being signed for/registered. It's really quite an upsetting experience, and I hope everyone else who might put stuff in the post will take heed from this! I've been entirely too trusting about posting things....and this is a good kick up the backside! Fortunately Michelle is a very understanding person and we're both just hacked off with the post system...it could have been so much worse.

Very quick update

2008-01-27T04:52:00.000-08:00

The last few nights i've been ill, so consequently i've been drawing and making little things rather than getting on with the theatre. Even so, the theatre is basically finished, it needs some varnish, it needs the front glued on instead of blu tacked...and so forth. Here's some shoddy photos...I'll take better ones soon.
The girl and her dragon completed

Unusual angle, you can see more of the depth - bad photo i know

Dreadful photo ok, but it shows the gold highlighting in certain areas.

I scanned all the parts of the theatre except the very back and reconstructed it digitally - gives a better idea of the different parts. I'm considering making a construct your own - smaller version. Not sure though - will take time to prototype making something like that.

So, here's some drawings - which are for sale in the shop now.

And here's the bear that at one stage was going to be part of the theatre, but it wasn't working out for him. So I dug out an old brass frame I got in an antique shop and put him in there, he looks quite regal. His name is Mr I Don't Know. He came about from a story my freind tells her daughter at bed time and he was a character I had to invent on the spot for this story. Anyway, he's also for sale in the shop.

Great Artists

2008-01-26T13:12:00.000-08:00

I love discovering new artists, this is actually someone i've loved for a long time, but it's possible he's not as well known abroad or right now as he was here once upon a time. Patrick Woodroffe is a British artist, best known for fantasy / sci fi art but he's also done a lot of children's books. Anyway, he's one of my favourites, so here's some images to inspire!

This is by no means the best selection, the best images i've seen are in his book 'A Closer Look at the work of Patrick Woodroffe' where he explains some of the techniques he uses to create his oil paintings. He also paints on plastic and cuts it to create images of fantastic creatures which he places in real surroundings and photographs. I think he's wonderful, and the main point is that he always aims to present a positive and uplifting message in his art.

He reminds me a lot of Terry Gilliam in that respect. I read something Gilliam said once which I loved but I can't find anywhere online, so to paraphrase - People often think that making fantastical art in terrible times is burying your head in the sand, but this is precisely the time when imagination is most needed.

Website

2008-01-25T14:07:00.000-08:00

I've been meaning to make a website for ages, and although this is really rushed, I felt it was better than nowt. It's just images with image map links - very remedial - but it serves it's purpose in it's limited way :) Here it is!

The theatre continues (In fact most of the website design is scanned part of the theatre) . I just need to glue parts in place now - I would have done this today except last night was my pal's birthday and we went out for cocktails - French Martini's - ever tried one? I highly recommend! Anyway, I woke up this morning with the worst sore throat (I woke up very early because I was having a dream that I was trying to eat some kind of sandpaper...nice) of course I also had the complimentary hangover with associated delerium. So, me andRobin went and bought fish and chips and then had apple pie and ice cream. Of course we also had a wee bit of whiskey to celebrate Burns Night ( Robin even managed to belt out one of his songs) - Here's a little Robbie Burns:

The Rigs 'O Barley

It was upon a Lammas night,
When corn rigs are bonie,
Beneath the moon's unclouded light,
I held awa to Annie;
The time flew by, wi' tentless heed,
Till, 'tween the late and early,
Wi' sma' persuasion she agreed
To see me thro' the barley.

Corn rigs, an' barley rigs,
An' corn rigs are bonie:
I'll ne'er forget that happy night,
Amang the rigs wi' Annie.

The keen eyed among you will know that this song is the theme tune for The Wicker Man movie.

Valentines cut

2008-01-20T03:51:00.000-08:00

On a totally seperate tack, I recently got myself a Craft Robo (I think they're called Wishblade's in the U.S) and it is my favourite tool of all time!

For those of you who don't know what it does it basically cuts any vector shape you give it into certain depths and types of card. I bought it because I would like to be able to print and cut dolls/small theatres for people rather than them having to cut them themselves. We'll see how that turns out. Meanwhile I made my first proper thing on it this week, a valentines card for people who are tired of teddy bears and kittens:

The white card is cut away to the heart shape and then I put a piece of red card behind it and voila! It's amazing how finely it can actually cut. For these I have to do a double pass on the card but it can do that with such precision....I spent about 20 minutes just watching it do it's thing last night...It's a thing to behold. Anyway, the cards are for sale in the shop.

Theatre update and some slightly better pictures

2008-01-19T05:34:00.000-08:00

So last night I finised the dragon off, I was a bit dissappointed once i'd assembled him...Something was wrong...I realised there was too much green and blue going on.

So I quickly revised the colouring on his tail and other wingy bits this monring...that's not finished yet but I couldn't resist trying him out in position - nothing is permanently installed yet, it's all being held together with blu tac and bits of string until it is completed...so it's kinda wobbly looking. But it gives me an idea about what's needed.

The first thing is another layer of larger sea at the back behind him. The next thing is that...somehow I want to be able to change the scene of the girl and the dragon to a bear catching a fish....It's just something which has been bothering me .... I want 2 scenes...and i'm running out of time...I haven't even started the young lady - I feel like I haven't washed or eaten properly or cleaned my house in weeks...It's all gone skanky again.

Anyway, I plan to work till my fingers start shaking tonight and see what kind of progress I can make.

Another Theatre Update

2008-01-17T09:44:00.000-08:00

Well, once again I feel like i'm fighting against the tide with progress, however some progress has been made! I have attached some bad pics of the progress - I always take pics at night after a day of working one something - I promise once complete there will be bright day light pictures!

A full shot - bit grainy, sorry

You can see the gold edging on the waves here

Some more details at the bottom

Hanging up, terrible photo but you can see the start of the outside decoration

A scene of chaos! I got half way through today and felt all glum because I couldn't move without standing in wet paint or gluing myself to my tea cup....Anyway, I abandoned the mess to eat dinner and blog and try to forget it exists! Till tomorrow!

Quick update

2008-01-15T12:19:00.000-08:00

Well, the paper theatre continues afresh after a shaky start with a hang over and a juicy new novel....it's amazing how much time I can fritter away on that kind of thing! I have 2 weeks to finish this and I will post photos tomorrow once i've recharged my camera batteries. In the meantime I have a new Limited Edition Sea Life Print in the shop here. It's my favourite so far.

And I just recieved this lovely drawing from PenAndPaper. She also has a great blog here too!

Thank you! And some progress

2008-01-03T13:44:00.000-08:00

So the first thing to say is Happy 2008 and Thank You! To everyone who reads this blog and buys my work. You have all been incredibly encouraging and kind to me. As a thank you, the first person to comment will get a surprise gift :) - so, comment and i'll get in touch with my email address so you can give me your postal address... I think that's probably the best way of doing it :)

Here's some progress shots of the theatre...it's frustratingly slow progress, and today I felt I had to actually clean the house and myself! Yes i'm ashamed to say people that I had become a total skank. I think the great idea about getting old is that you could just scud around in your ripped dress covered in paint with dishevelled hair and feel like you'd earned the right.

Cut & gessoed pieces of wood for the the theatre surround

Mixing the basic colours for the whole thing. This is the only way I can work, if I don't mix base colours for everything upfront I get confused and irritable part way through :)

The base colours painted onto the front. This took almost 2 days to do completely! This is because to get total flat coverage with Acrylic inks you have to go over each layer several times.

Details added to the top.

More details on the top and the back panel beneath to show the contrast between the reddy/orange and the blue/green of the backdrop.

A rather desaturated picture of the top and bottom details

Bottom details up close
Full picture - not that great but there you go. There's one last set of things I need to do - the lettering on the top and bottom banners. Also I started painting terllises up the sides and didn't like them so am now having to go over them....phew..I actually thought it'd only take me 3 days to do this front panel but it's taking an age. I'll also be doing some gold edging when all of the details are finished. Then i'll assemble the box istelf and start doing the paper bits! I have another fortnight scheduled off this month so I should be able to finish it. Hopefully without personal hygiene slipping too far ;)

A busy bee

2007-12-30T11:44:00.000-08:00

The last few days have been brilliant as I set up position in the middle of the living room. I've been surrounded by rulers, bits of paper, scissors, sellotape, sketch books while I design a new paper theatre that i've been thinking about for the last 2 months. It's more in keeping with traditional paper theatres, so is rectangular rather than circular. The circular format is nice but it's a problem when it comes to installing things into it and you have no base on which to place things.

Here's a page from my sketchbook.

The line drawing produced after numerous sketches

A digitally coloured rough it to get an idea of what general colours to use

There's a story to go with the theatre and i'm hoping to make the sea creature moveable, which might take some fiddling around and prototypes.

I also managed to finish off one small commission, a hair painting to go with the season:
I have another week off work in which to make a start on the theatre and work out what i'm doing next year!

Brooches

2007-12-27T06:57:00.000-08:00

I ended up buying some porcelain cabochons and silver surrounds a painting a few brooches..Mainly because I never seem to find exactly the kind of jewellery i'd like to wear, so this is the kind of jewellery I like :) Probably not to everyone's taste, but then what is?

How sad am I? Plus - Creatures of the sea!

2007-12-25T10:00:00.000-08:00

It's totally sad to be blogging and doing worky things on Christmas Day but there you go! I have had a great day watching 'Star Dust' - brilliant movie, funny and beautiful imagery.

Also I spent the day making collages for prints. They are a mixture of my art and old (royalty-free) nature prints, from Ernst Haeckel.

Fig 1. The all-seeing octo-eye

Fig 2. The sage of the sea

Fig 3. The kingdom tree

Fig 4. Shakespeare flutterby

Fig 5. The bee hive

Unlike all of my other prints I am only running a limited amount of these, 10 of each.

Monstrous love

2007-12-12T14:05:00.001-08:00

Recently Unordinary was kind enough to make me a waistcoat and jacket with her monster theme. She was brilliant/unblievable, I love all her work, but I was astonished when I got these! They are so utterly excellent and I feel, well totally unordinary when I wear them. Here's two pics (quite grainy but artily shot by the lovely Victoria) of me at the recent Glasgow Craft Mafia swanking about in the jacket!

I love it! :)

Cowboy doll

2007-12-02T04:09:00.000-08:00

I have finally gotten around to making a printable version of one of the art dolls...I have no idea why this specific task really drags on for me, but either way - the Mystical Cowboy is up in the Shop and ready to be cut!

Quick update

2007-11-27T13:45:00.000-08:00

Thank you everyone for your incredibly kind response to my last post. I'm so happy because she arrived to her destination and her owner is happy! The perfect end.

I am beginning work on a new theatre over the christmas holidays, it's always the perfect time to make something new. And i'm still wondering what to do with the other paper forest theatre. It's a prototype so it's kind of fiddly and I feel unsure about selling it because of that. I have made prints of the doll that you can assemble for yourself however they're not in the Etsy shop just yet - i'm only selling at markets. But they will probably go up there soon along with the Mystical Cowboy!

In other news i've got a stinker of a cold and am laptop blogging from a cocoon of blankets, tea and shredded tissues. I hate colds but they are really good ways of actually stopping for 5 minutes.

Also, some christmas cards in the shop - they're simple but eh, magical :)

The lady and the moon

2007-11-11T01:05:00.000-08:00

You know sometimes you get asked to do a piece and it's like a dream come true? Well, I just finished one for a fabulous lady who wanted something similar to the paper forest piece. It's based on an old photograph of her grandma sitting on a paper moon. Now, the funny thing is, I was heading in that direction with the paper stuff anyway - moon, clouds, stars etc - it's an obvious step given the classic films and theatre sets which include them. So when she asked I was completely overjoyed.

A still from the classic Voyage dans la lune. And of course there's the Smashing Pumpkins homage to it. I messed around with a few compositions and then made the final sketch:

The idea was to have a wooden backdrop, a circular surround of decotrative wood and 2 layers of cut paper. The moon and grandma hang on a seperate layer. There are also some small accessories like the star and the sun (Who is sleeping in the final one!). I don't have any in-progress photos i'm afraid. I was off work at the time and went into a frenzy of cutting and painting, and emerged without any photos at all. So it's straight to the finished piece:

It was a dream to make it, and now I just have to make sure I wrap it up right and get it there intact!

Etsy just keeps on giving

2007-11-07T23:48:00.000-08:00

I am currently at a Flash Conference in Brighton (I work as a Flash developer/Designer by day) and was priveleged to be able to see Jared Tarbell give an inspirational talk. Jared is actually one of (if not *the*) founder of Etsy and also a brilliant producer of generative art. At the conference he also showed (and gave away) some of his beautiful prints (of generative art) and also laser cut wood ...sculptures? I'm not sure of the correct term but they are structures arising, I believe, from his generative stuff.

It was for me the perfect mixture of those 2 worlds. I love generative art and I love well crafted physical things. It never occured to me to mix the 2, but he's done so in a brilliant way. Apparently he may be opening an Etsy shop in the future and he has sold prints on this website previously.