Quick Update

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

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)

Update

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!

Theatre Update 'n some brooches

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!

Another quick update

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

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

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.

One woman's junk is another's gold

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.

Flowers ahoy

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