panoramas

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

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

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

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

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)

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

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.