The big studio re-jig is finally complete! And I have photos to prove it! LOL It's been several weeks in the doing, much longer than I had planned due to a variety of circumstances - none of which, you'll be pleased to hear, I'm going bore you with! I have a really great opportunity coming up that I need to make the most of and it's been stressing me out not being able to work towards it with the studio in such a state of flux so it's a great relief to have it done. I've rediscovered plenty of artistic enthusiasm amongst the physical detritus I've been sorting through and I'm ready to go, go, go! ;o) So, down to business....the before and after shots...

Before...

and after...

This is my new little office area, something I haven't had in my studio until now but it's definitely been needed!

Before...

and after...

The base cupboard here was badly underused where it was previously, pretty inaccessible due to mountains of crap in front of it and since I rarely ever wanted anything out of it most of it's contents has dispensed with. It now houses my metal stores.

Before...

and after...

The larder cupboard has shifted over a bit and is more accessible than it was. This is my tools and materials (like paint, pencils, mediums etc) cupboard.

Before...

and after...

and an extra pic of the desk itself...

My desk area was constantly overstuffed with everything imaginable! I've settled for just having some essentials in the box tray and nothing else on there so that I have some decent working space. I was tending to work in about six square inches previously! ;oD

Before...

and after...

and an extra shot looking straight on

This larder cupboard replaced the green cupboard and is crammed with all manner of work materials. The filing cabinets and map chest work much better in this alcove. The little trolley moves about and acts as an extra work surface when I need it.

Before...

and after...

Not much change here, just tidier and less clutter hanging on the back of the door!

And just an extra shot, from a different angle, of my little office area.


That concludes your guided tour for today! Now tell me how amazed you all are! LOL

Studio

After a few lovely days away I'm back home and catching up on lots of jobs, not least of which is my current studio re-jig. I'd felt for a good while that the space just wasn't working for me in the way I need it to so August became "re-jig the studio month"! I've dispensed with some rather shonky lightweight furniture, which frankly just wasn't man enough for the job, and have put another vintage kitchen larder cupboard in. I tinkered about with the lay out so that I could create a small office space which will be be a great boon I hope. With all the furniture moved about and the lay out settled I started putting stuff back in the studio and that's pretty much still the stage I'm at. It's not moving as fast as I would like but I'm grimly determined to have it sorted by the end of this coming weekend! There, now I've publicly declared myself I'll have to knuckle down and finish it now! ;oD There will be before and after pics when the deed is done but as a little taster....

This is taken from the hallway looking through doorway into the studio. Remember this, it's going to look soooooo different the next time you see this corner!

Henry Moore

A couple of weeks ago I visited The Henry Moore Foundation at Perry Green in Herts for the second time. I really enjoyed seeing the sculptures again, the backdrop of the grounds they're set in is just lovely, also, touring Moore's house and his studios again were great. I loved discovering about Moore's technique and process last year when we visited and with that knowledge seeing his work again this year was even more enjoyable. I shared some of my photos last year but couldn't resist taking more this time so apologies if I'm repeating myself!


Working Model for Sundial. It was quite a showery day but I liked the different perspective the rain gave the sculptures.


Detail of King and Queen.


Close up of some textural detail on Large Figure in a Shelter.


Large Figure in a Shelter.


Three Piece Sculpture: Vertabrae


Three Piece Sculpture: Vertabrae


Roof detail of Hoglands.

Life Drawing

I've been going to a local life drawing class run by my artist friend, Richard, at his studio since last November time and have been plodding along trying different media...charcoal, coloured pencil, pencil, pen and, most recently, PanPastels. I tried ordinary pastels way back before Christmas but didn't get on very well with them at all but these pastels are something else, they're really smooth and soft, easy to apply and I'm really enjoying using them. I'm no pastel artist nor am I much cop at the life drawing itself but I enjoy going and think I'm making a tiny bit of progress and I intend to plough on and try to keep improving little by little. These are three of my drawings using the pastels:

The Reiki Pendant

I have alot of catching up to do and I thought I'd kick off with my latest pendant, now going by the name of The Reiki Pendant! ;o) For those of you who aren't knocking about on FB with me (feel free to join me if you're not!), a brief explanation...I made myself a new pendant, choker stylee, a couple of weeks ago, the base of which is a metal piece, think it might have been a napkin ring in it's former life. I wore it that evening to a complementary therapies workshop I've been attending. The subject that night was reiki. To cut a long story short, we did reiki share where everyone takes a turn to receive reiki from everyone else. During my turn I could feel my throat pulsating and getting really hot and when we'd finished the metal of my choker was almost too hot to touch! My throat chakra was chucking out some serious heat! So, here it is:


The main piece started life as a napkin ring or one of those things you hang on decanters maybe and I straightened it out and wielded my drill on it. The danglie is comprised of a vintage fishing piece wrapped with coloured wire and various beads and part of an earring. At the moment it's on black velvet cord which just ties at the back but I may change that for something else.


Close up of the metal piece.


Close up of the danglie.

Journeys

My latest joint exhibition with the talented Rob has gone up today ready to welcome visitors from Monday. As ever, I'm relieved to have got to this point and to see it all in situ and ready to go! ;o) I've really enjoyed working on this theme. We originally planned the theme as travel but it transpired that neither of us were too enthused about that so we shifted the focus to journeys, a theme open to much wider interpretation. Rob has produced some fabulous work using not just photographic images but also some of his beautiful prose, there's a couple of pics here. For my part in the exhibition I decided to explore my ongoing artistic journey through my assemblage pieces. When I was in the ideas stage I thought aboutdoing something akin to the Stations of the Cross, shrines representing the different aspects of my journey. That idea evolved and has resulted in 16 assemblage pieces all reflecting different feelings that I experience as an artist. I had a long list of possibles and the 16 I worked with are hope, passion, frustration, procrastination, criticism, creation, doubt, belief, confusion, fun, determination, loneliness, revelation, evolution, growth and loss. All the pieces are quite raw and simple, some are quirky (although nearly all my work is quirky I think! LOL) and fun but with all of them I've tried to express my emotion as it presented itself in me. I'm not sure that makes much sense! ;o) To whet your appetite, here's Passion and Revelation:


"Passion" ~ glass & metal religious stoop, vintage poetry text (Longfellow), vintage copper sheet


"Revelation" ~ vintage camera, vintage text (not visible), metal coil, plaster moulding

Gateposts and Graffiti

Last weekend we had a day out and about and went to Blickling Hall, a National Trust property in Norfolk. We took the dogs on the longest of their waymarked trails and along the way I was captivated by the patterns on an old gate post:





We finished our day out off with a stroll along the front at Sheringham where we happened upon this groovy piece of stencil graffiti:

Art Journaling Workshop

Over the weekend FenVAC hosted an art exhibition as part of a local town's Medieval Festival festivities. During the exhibition we offered some free workshops and my contribution, with my lovely friend, Kath, was on the subject of art journaling. It would have been difficult to cover the entire topic in the two hour slot I had so it was more of an informal introduction to art journaling with lots of journals and journaling books to look at and plenty of different art materials to play with. We had lovely participants, adults and children, who all threw themselves into journaling, some for the first time, and had great fun! We used self portraits as our theme which proved a very popular choice. Here we all are getting down to arty business:



I started on a self portrait journal page of my own during the worskhop which I have since finished:



The night before the workshop I had been playing about with an inkjet photo transfer technique that I read about in Corey Moortgat's book, The Art of Personal Imagery, where you spray water onto the inkjet image, lay paper on top, burnish and hey presto, a transfer of your image. ;o) After making a couple of transfers the photo was still wet so I used the end of my spoon to idly add spirals (one of my favourite shapes and one I'm increasingly drawn to) and outline the figure. At the weekend I added some colour to the image with various pens and ink, taped it to my background (which is mount board with acrylic and gesso baby wiped on and pen added on the corners) with masking tape and added a variety of text.

Pollocking Good Fun!

Last week I joined forces with my artist friend, Richard Savage, to produce a scarecrow for a local competition during June and July. This year's theme is famous people, real or fictional, and we, of course, chose an artist! This is Mr Jackson Pollock! ;oD





I have to admit I didn't have much of a hand in making the scarecrow, Richard made a fab job of the head and another friend made his body, I just helped slap a bit of paint on and get him decently dressed! ;oD

The most fun though was creating a Pollock style painting to stand alongside the figure to give folk a clue as to who he is!! We joined two life torn canvases together making one whole canvas of about 3' by 8' and covered them in more canvas before starting our drip and run extravaganza! We both now have more of an appreciation of Pollock's working method as it took forever to get the paint to the right consistency!! However, once we got the paint sorted we had great fun flicking it about! ;oD Don't even ask how much cleaning up it took afterwards! LOL





If you're local you can see our man outside the Honest John public house, South Park Street, Chatteris, PE16 6AR from this weekend until the end of July.

'Cos Dads are Special!

My latest joint exhibition with Rob is all set to open on Monday. ;o) We're exhibiting a variety of work, some previously seen, some new. It would be fair to say that this one has be a challenge for a number of reasons but we're nearly there and it's time to celebrate so if you're in the vicinity on Tuesday evening, come along and meet us, peruse our work and partake of a nibble & drink! ;o)

There's worse ways to be rejected.....

I've had the news from The Royal Academy of Art that they don't want my self portrait for this year's Summer Exhibition. I can't imagine why on earth not, there's no accounting for taste! LOL When I heard the news I was in Paris close to the Eiffel Tower so it wasn't all bad! ;oD

Beads, Bijou and Adventures in the Loire Valley

I've just returned from a brief jaunt to France and have some updating to do! More of my French adventures later but first more recent news.

This is my latest piece of jewellery:


It's made from copper napkin ring, the copper based decorative oriental metal I used in my last piece, a vintage key, a bead and some wire. The beads that the pendant is attached were found a car boot a while ago.

Last Thursday I went along to RAF Wyton, with five other FenVAC members, to take part in a Learn at Work Day. There were all manner of interests represented from astronomy to composting and sugarcraft to metal detecting! It was good to meet lots of folk and chat about my work. I sometimes struggle to talk about my work in these situations but I know I have to get out there more and do some serious networking! It's also a good reminder of how isolating it can become to be beavering away on my own in my studio and forgetting the real world still exists outside!! During the day I worked on making beads from copper sheet reclaimed from the back of a shed! I managed to make 180 + beads and here they are:




So, my French adventure....
I went over to St Jean de Braye, the twin town of March, in the Loire Valley region. I was peforming in a show with MADAOS but we also got the chance to do a little gadding about so just a few photos to share with you...


How cool is this little fella? We visited a Medieval village, Yevre le Chatel, and there were several of these wild boar sculptures in the ruined castle. I'm not sure how they're made and couldn't find any details of who made them so can't credit them but they were delightul.


In the churchyard at Yevre le Chatel there was a lovely tomb with this glorious rusted wreath on the door.


Still in the churchyard, I spotted this unusual grave stone, more of a sculpture than a headstone but very interesting although it freaked my daughter out!


This was taken in Orleans, it's a shop in one of the main streets but I couldn't tell you which as the upper architecture was so much more interesting! I love French architecture and could have wandered about for hours getting a crick in my neck! LOL


I loved this sculpture which was close to the cathedral in Orleans. It's called La Beauce but, again, I can't tell you who the artist is despite doing a bit of research online.


More rust! This time, in the courtyard of a witchcraft museum we visited.


Given the name of my blog I couldn't resist snapping this chappie on the back of a coach in the car park at the Pont Canal de Briare! I earned myself a few odd looks but hey, what can I say? I'm a artist! LOL