new studio - starting work

Really, my first three visits to the new studio were pissing about, and getting used to the space. Blogged here.

Today I started work on a large piece I've had in mind for a couple of weeks.

Being a bank holiday I started the day having a lie-in, and then a lazy morning. After I got round to showering I set off to town.

Since it was such a nice day I wandered round for a bit with no real purpose before I drifted into a pound shop, where I spent £12 on bamboo canes, cable-ties, and bright plastic things.

I got to the studio around 4pm, photographed what I'd bought, and started work.

The bamboo and cable ties were to assemble the main body of the piece. That came together fairly quickly. The bulk of it was completed in the space of an hour.

And yeah (2nd photo especially), it does look a little like a badly drawn dog. In 3D.

You may be wondering about the dustsheet. It's not because I'm worried about scratching the floor. That there is your actual forward planning, the reasons for which will become apparent.

The next stage was to adorn my badly drawn dog frame with the bright plastic bits and pieces. Specifically pegs, baskets, bowls, and an umbrella.

That required a bit of playing around until I found arrangements that seemed to work.

Looking at these photos, and remembering the process of making the piece so far, it occurs to me that one of the major reasons in my move to visual and sound art/music away from writing is that I find it much more enjoyable.

Yes, there are frustrations and moments when things happen slowly. But for the most part it's a joyous process.

And as shallow as it may be, I can't deny that the colours and the bright daylight helped a lot in this instance. This bit of the build took somewhere between an hour and 90 minutes.

Then I took a quick break to paint the inside of the paper pyramid mentioned in my previous post, and prepare the cocktail sticks that will pin it when I reassemble the piece at some point over the weekend.

Both of which needed to be done. Though the main reason behind it was to ensure I'd painted the pyramid while I still had the red paint available. Because the next stage in making my sculptural piece was to drip it with paint.

Which is the reason for that dustsheet.

Now, I've only dripped paint on half of the piece. When that's dry I'll be able to switch it round and drip the other half. Although, as I may have said elsewhere, I want some more bright coloured plastic objects and some coloured ribbons to decorate the piece a little more.

I'll also need to buy more paint. Some of it will last until this piece is done, but some is going to run out fairly soon.

Which brings us to the way the piece looks currently.

And finally, a short film which perhaps gives a clearer picture of how the whole appears.

That was shot just before 7pm, which is about when I left. I'm pretty happy with it for three hours work. 

If you'd like to visit the studio drop me a message and we can arrange something.

new studio - moving in

So I've had the keys to my new studio for around two weeks now, but because I was a little busy early on I've only been in four times so far.

There'll be more on what I was busy with in a week or two.

The first time I was in the studio I took a couple of photos just to show the empty space, which I'm sharing with a couple of others who don't seem to have moved in yet.

Except they don't really show the space as much as they do the windows. My excuse is it was a nice day, I'd finished work early to collect the keys, and my mind was more on going for a walk, which is what I did straight after.

There's a short piece of film, but it's just a couple of seconds of the same view as the first photo, because I forgot to switch from video to photo mode.

The second time I was in the studio I took a bunch of materials in and started to organise myself some space. I also started to put paint on paper. Really more to start doing something, and be in the space than because I had any immediate ideas.

Or rather, I did have immediate ideas, but they were for something much larger which required me to buy some bits. That's for the next post though.

Apparently this time I failed to get any photos documenting my beginning to occupy the space. Although I did take a picture of the paint I'd put on paper.

While I forgot the photos, I did take a couple of bits of film in the studio. The first one showing the desk I'm using at the moment, and the painting above.

The second bit of film shows more of the studio and the floor it's on. Which I'm linking from YouTube, since the blogger uploader doesn't like it.

The third time was a few days ago, when I did a little more painting, and also started work on another of my recent boxes.

These are paper and card boxes pinned with cocktail sticks or bamboo skewers. At the moment they're quite small, but I plan to scale them up, and get more ambitious with the shapes.

The first two photos are some additional paint I added to my first thing, and something new. To be honest neither of these seems like it's going anywhere, so they'll likely get forgotten. Third is another shot out of the window.

Then from the same visit there are a series of photos of making the new box. Which is a pyramid.

First the sketch, which I proceeded to ignore:

Then the box:

Which having assembled I unfolded and began to paint. The pyramid will be red inside and out, with blue tips to the cocktail sticks, once it's complete. On this visit I only painted the outside.

Today's was the fourth visit. Being a bank holiday I took the opportunity to get up late, have a lazy morning, then walk into town.

Once there I visited a pound shop to buy materials... But that's for another post.