Exciting possibilities

At present I am in discussion about creating a large decoration to cover a large clear window of a church in Blackburn . This would be a community art piece on recycled plastic. As usual everything depends on budgets funding and permissions but I really hope this one gets traction as it has a lot of potential to lead to other things .

This is a photo of the window I am hoping to work on

New skills always

Every project I am starting at present involves steep learning curves….. either it is learning animations programming a video game or learning how to use new equipment such as lasers or CNC’S . Recently I learnt how to work with recycled plastic to create signage and straight after that I was learning how to use 3d software and Photoshop to create illustration! and yes I love my job. (See the Fantastic Plastic and the Digital Drawing Course pages below)

This is a real research process. I thought thicker would be better but actually thinner works better with this large piece . This means the artwork is going to be about 1mm thick . At this thickness HDPE is still strong and light enough to do the job.

Week in School

So that was busy!
The missing part of this participatory art project was …up to this week …the participation. this week has shown me so much, such as how the children work with the materials what problems they may have. How much safe participation can I design into the project. Loads of small ideas whizzing around because this is a new material and …frankly …I don’t know . All the children’s work is back at my studio and I’m putting it together, onward and upwards!

So a little bit of context

Each 150mm by 30mm by 3mm piece of HPDE for the sign takes between 15 to 20 4 litre bottles that are at the moment hand washed and hand cut to prepare them so each sign is taking 140 to 150 bottles each these are top be covered in 1mm coloured plastic . Photos to follow

Exciting new projects

One of the frustrations of working in the arts is the number of times I work on a promising project and for usually budgetary reasons it …just…evaporates. That’s the life though……

Recent research is tantalizingly full of potential to expand into very interesting larger projects but time will tell. The Fantastic Plastic project is developing its second stage into large signage for Blackburn station. One of the challenges was acquiring enough HDPE plastic to make the piece . Surprisingly a couple of hundred small milk bottles from school wasn’t enough, so I’ve made links with a local cafe and they are supplying 40 to50 empty bottles a week which has made up the shortfall. The sheets I’m making with only a heat press at present are 300mm by 150mm by 2mm

I’ll be able to describe more once the sessions at school have happened.

Extra to this I am learning 3d rendering using a software package called Blender. Doing this is a strange combination between drawing painting sculpture and computer programming. I advise anyone who knows drawing and computers to look at this. In the meantime (please don’t laugh) here’s my first effort it’s a doughnut ….I’m very proud!

Hi I’m an artist

There it is …it is always an odd thing to say …. I find it a strange description of my working life. Artist, it has glamour an exotic feel that mostly other trades do not. This is in my opinion definitely a trade, and I can hear the screams “what about vocation”! Absolutely …you need vocation as well as talent, hard work and luck but that applies to many jobs there’s nothing special about art in that respect An artists need skills that other trades will recognize such as project management, versatility, research customer relations budget handling . If you don’t have these skills you need to buy them in or work with people who do have them.

There is a saying in the profession that art is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration it’s pretty accurate so I’m an artist Hi .. oh and I love my work please enjoy my site