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

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?

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.

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

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!

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.

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.

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