wobblyblog

birds

2012-02-23T21:51:00.003Z

I'm always gazing at and sometimes photographing birds on high. Here is a crow in a recently pruned tree in my neighbours garden. I've tweaked it in Picasa as I wanted an illustrative effect rather than a photographic one

Captain Woodget's Collie

2012-02-16T09:03:00.002Z

The most renowned of the Cutty Sark's captains was a keen photographer and loved collies some of whom made the voyage to Australia. This collie is made from oak from work done in the 60's but she has a collar with original hull planking

panoramas

2012-02-12T15:43:00.010Z

Playing with ICE, a free programme from Microsoft has resulted in these images. The top is composited from a 360 degree movie in my local park, Hilly Fields

This view is from the top of the house after the recent snowfall.

Below is my office taken from the centre of the room

Cutty Sark project

2012-01-28T17:29:00.007Z

I have been asked by Cutty Sark Enterprises to make creatures that would have been found on and around the ship from the ships timber. Some of this material is from the original build, rock elm from the hull, teak decking oak and pine. It is not easy material to work - it is full of metal so takes a considerable time to prepare.

The creatures seen here are all from the teak decking. The ship carried chickens and pigs all part of my usual repetoire.

There are a lot of smaller pieces and my own offcuts from making the creatures which I wanted to try and use so I have moved out of my comfort zone and produced a small automata of the Cutty Sark at sea. This is a mixture of timbers. The sails are from an oak refit in the 60's.

I am planning a colllie dog that Captain Woodget travelled with and no ship would have sailed without a rat or two!

behold the dodo

2011-09-12T10:19:00.016+01:00

I felt compelled to show this first effort at a Dodo in sepia tones! I was first asked to do one many years ago but thought it wouldn't work without its big legs and feet but as you can see it has other charms, in particular the provocative little wiggle of its tail.

My Lovely Workshop

2011-06-30T21:02:00.005+01:00

Discarded doors found in the mews and a tidy up for the Open Studios has brought a renewed affection for my lovely shed. The Virginia creeper has crept to places it has never crept before and rounded all the sharp edges with its cloak of green.

wooden pictures

2011-06-24T21:00:00.014+01:00

I love sifting through all my offcuts and waste bits of wood and seeing the possibilities of them becoming something else. I have been making these little houses with bark roofs for some time but the opportunity to exhibit one at the local eatery Toads Mouth Too focussed my efforts. The picture on the left has sycamore from my garden and elm bark from Nunhead cemetery. The one on the right has pieces of oak from old doors from Goldsmiths College

craft&design selected (wood and metal)

2011-05-15T13:10:00.002+01:00

I am really pleased to announce that I achieved the gold in the Craft and Design Selected awards. Thank you to all those who voted for me

The somewhat erratic Wag- o- Matic

2011-05-05T10:24:00.016+01:00

I am not too good at mechanisms for automata, so after years of wondering how to wag the tail of a dog by turning a handle I decided on this simple solution. In the 1950's when I was growing up, the o-matic suffix seemed to be applied to a host of machines and devices, Wash-o-matic, Dry-o-matic, Wipe-o-matic. Take a look at the Verse-o-matic and Dog-o-matic

I see from a Google search it is still used a lot, not so much for machines but to make high-tech processes and software seem friendlier. I am going to revive my only other automata the Spratomatic using this simpler technique.

Hall Floor

2011-04-13T23:02:00.011+01:00

I have been planning this for some time - a printed floor, imitating Victorian hallways and paths. It was done very simply and quickly using roughly painted squares and triangles of cork tile printed on to a black painted plywood base. The hardest part was establishing the size of the tile. After the hesitant start (top left) with lots of guidelines it soon got easier and all that was required was a centre line, the position of the black border and an occasional transverse line.

Francisco A. Soeiro : Photographer

2011-03-28T19:01:00.051+01:00

Francisco visited the workshop for a few hours recently. He is a warm, open and very interesting man. He is working on a personal project capturing images of arts and crafts people in their workshops with their tools.
I'm just amazed by the quality of Francisco's work.

I have never seen my fish look quite like this. It looks vivid but at the same time skeletal and transparent and.. magical. I look very much part of my world, proud Lord of my small, dusty domain, and just look at those hands, oversized because of the wide angle lens and strong and capable.
When he visited he told me his wife was due very soon to give birth and they are now the proud parents of Orson, born on St Patrick's day and doing well. On the same day Francisco was diagnosed with a tumour in his mouth. He wrote:

You know this is the stuff of life and you can only deal one day at the time. Sure, it would be a personal tragedy not to see my baby son grow up, but I try to stay positive and deal with things as they come.

He has an operation due on 8th April. I hope everything goes well for him.

Woolly Drawers aka black faced sheepy thing

2011-02-24T17:59:00.014Z

I first made woolly drawers 20 years ago. The name was never quite right as there was only one drawer at the head end. This recent version has a drawer both fore and aft. The drawers are lined with wool waste so that the name fits even for those who have never known the joys of woolen undergarments. It was bought by a very nice man for his wife who both likes my work and loves black faced sheep so was a perfect present. He re-named it the black faced sheepy thing.

seal in elm

2011-02-18T10:45:00.016Z

This seal is unusual. It is made from a plank of elm which was part of a groyne washed up on Mersea Island in Essex

I use the planks as part of my display stand at shows. One of the planks was badly split and has been lying around for years until this week when it became this, slightly smaller version of the usual seals I make.There is a very strange aroma when you cut wood that has been immersed in seawater. Very unpleasant in the case of pine but elm was quite interesting.

Incidentally I was the winner of a lovely award one year from the British Toymakers Guild for the Best Dressed stand. It was an automata of a pair of disembodied clapping hands. When the prize was presented, Robert Nathan, the manager of the Guild announced " The award this year goes to Jeff Soan for his best dressed Groyne"

Marbled Gecko

2011-02-04T20:09:00.003Z

Made of oak and leather and very lively this little marbled gecko was born in the workshop today. I have hooked it on pegs in a piece of driftwood so it can be wall hung and can be easily removed.

Baby Iguana

2011-02-01T20:30:00.006Z

This is a baby iguana completed this week. Quite by accident his tail, if free to dangle counterbalances the body so that the legs lift and the body moves. I'm not particularly good at getting the look of the young of the species but this little fellow with his slightly over sized feet definitely helps give that youthful look.

2010-11-03T19:41:00.007Z

This is my brother, Chris. He died on November 2nd. He was a courteous, loving and caring man, a real gentleman.
He was full of life and fun and jokes. He loved to talk and tell stories. He was a very practical person, very organised. We were very different in outlook but had a huge respect and love for each other. My big brother was always there for me and now he isn't. He leaves a big hole in my life.

Iguana

2010-10-02T19:58:00.006+01:00

I have just completed this iguana 125 cms. nose to tail, originally commissioned as a wedding anniversary present but the budget was blown after the second days work so will now go on sale. It took four days to complete The main technical difficulty was in the back legs overcome by constructing them in three separate parts plus the five fingers. The crest was made in the same material I use for chicken wattles a synthetic chamois.

Here Lies Art

2010-09-09T21:09:00.014+01:00

I'm taking part in an unusual exhibition called Here Lies Art . I have taken my inspiration from the symbol on the main gates of Nunhead Cemetery of a snake devouring its own tail ouroboros- a symbol of eternal life.
This public art exhibition takes place in the splendid restored Anglican Chapel in Nunhead Cemetery, one of the Magnificent Seven Victorian cemeteries on the outskirts of London, opened in 1840. Here lies art inspired by: burials and catacombs; tombs and monuments; mourning dress and stationery; angels and symbols of death. There is also a photographic tribute to the Leysdown tragedy, where 8 Walworth scouts drowned at sea, one of them, William Beckham, is an ascendant of the footballer David Beckham.

Location: Anglican Chapel, Nunhead Cemetery, Linden Grove, London, SE15 3LW.
www.fonc.org.uk

Directions: Nearest station Nunhead, 15 minutes from Victoria, then a 5 minute walk.

rarities

2010-07-26T21:31:00.004+01:00

I have made a porpoise and a mermaid recently. The winged mermaid sold on the second day of Art in Action. I haven't made one in over a year.

The porpoise came about as a commission from Klaus Lucke a research scientist working in Buesum, Germany

Peony Flower

2010-06-13T13:12:00.005+01:00

It was too windy for garden shots so I took this photo indoors. A 30 second exposure at f22 and much effort with the torch to 'paint' the light on.
I think this photo has the look of a old painting or print with the light illuminating the wooden table a little and the flower looking as though it has browned under layers of varnish.

Peony flower and bud

2010-06-08T22:21:00.007+01:00

I only managed one photograph tonight before my tripod broke. It wasn't very dark and I kept the torch trained on the bud exposing for two seconds. The warm light of the torch and the cool blue light has produced some nice purple shadows in the middle

The garden by torchlight

2010-06-01T22:43:00.000+01:00

Clockwise from top left:foxglove,angelica,geranium,aqua legia,rhubarb
I heard Linda Rutenberg on the radio talking about photographing plants at night using a torch and I couldn't wait to give it a try. It took some experimenting with exposure times and how much to waggle the torch. Some magical effects are possible and there are lovely black backgrounds. With film in the camera there might have been a lot time waiting for possibly disappointing results. I love the the instant results from digital photography, discarding the failures immediately and pursuing the more interesting ones.Why not take a look at Linda Rutenberg's blog
http://www.thegardenatnight.blogspot.com/

I liked the foxglove photograph on the left because the light was played over the top part a little more so that the lower blooms have a bluer cast. These are 5-10 second exposures so best done on a still night although the effects from a little movement can be really nice as can be seen on the aqua legia where the lower blooms are moving but the top has stayed relatively still.
These images reminded me a little of Mary Delany's decoupages or "paper mosaiks" as she called them. She mostly worked on a black background with cut out tissue paper. She started making them when she was 71 and made thousands before she died
http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/highlights/highlight_objects/pd/m/mary_delany,_passiflora_laurif.aspx

On the holding of hands

2010-05-07T17:01:00.000+01:00

There has been a lot of hand holding in the last few weeks.
With the ambulance men and the primary care nurse it was a traumatic experience, I was in shock.
With Benjamin, the plastic surgeon on the evening of the accident it was very painful..
With the wonderful anaesthetist who searched for nerve bundles in my armpit whilst I watched the strange black and white ultrasound images on the screen.
With the nurses in the operating theatre when my hand was an unfeeling lump that had very little to do with me.
With Rachael the hand therapist who fashioned the splint and worked the tendons and massaged the scar
With Ellie the plastic surgeon specialist nurse who cleaned and anointed.
With Barbara, my wonderful wife who has held my other hand and tied my shoelaces!
.............................................................................
I recall when I first started selling my work that an Irish customer said to me as she left the stand "Health to your hands" which I thought was a wonderful thing to say to a craftsman. The Greeks say "Yas to heri sou" meaning much the same. We don't seem to have an equivalent saying in English but then we don't say "Bon appetit" either!

pink snow

2010-05-04T18:33:00.001+01:00

The cherry blossom outside the house formed a thick carpet this year, like pink snow.

Chipolatas anyone?

2010-05-02T12:19:00.000+01:00

I had an operation on my right hand on Sunday April 25th to repair the cut tendons to the ring and middle finger with a local anaesthetic, a nerve block, and here is the result a week later. Chipolatas!

My hand came out of plaster on Friday. Rachael, at St. Thomas's Hospital hand therapy unit fashioned a lovely blue thermoplastic splint with contrasting dark blue velcro straps and gave me horribly painful but necessary exercises to do if I am to get full usage back. What has intrigued me is the almost universal reaction to hearing about and seeing wounds. I get a physical reaction on the inside of my thighs, others report a clenching of the testicles. My lovely neighbour, Jo used to say "it makes me bum crimble" I wonder what this deep-seated human reaction is all about?

A tad too many tadpoles?

2010-05-01T17:54:00.000+01:00

This morning the water in the pond looked a though it was boiling. I had fed the few fish that the heron has left and when I returned there was a feeding frenzy. I have never seen so many tadpoles. I hope the garden will be able to support so many froglets I thought the pictures on the left looked a bit like impressionist paintings.

On becoming left-handed

2010-04-26T17:54:00.000+01:00

On Friday 23rd April I had an accident with my bandsaw, the main tool of my trade. I have cut through tendons on the middle two fingers of my right hand.

I was tremendously impressed by the care I have received and the number and expertise of the people involved so far.

I will be out of normal action for a while. I am already intrigued by how many normal things are difficult - socks, shoelaces (impossible), cutting bread. I am managing to write very slowly. I am looking forward to some left-handed painting. I am having great fun with voice recognition software to write on the computer. I am determined to make the most of it.