I’ve been making lots of penguins for the hand-made book I am making for London Zoo‘s education department – it’s all about the zoo’s ferret, Toffee, meeting the other zoo animals.
Penguin invasion
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Category Archives: General news
Nearly ready
Just getting the last things ready for my show, which opens tonight at The Old Sweet Shop and runs until 31st October. I have a very messy desk!
Getting ready for the show…
I’ve been preparing the publicity materials and posters for my show in October at The Old Sweet Shop. It’s called Compendium and is about animals playing games.
Studio visitors
Life models Billy and Mabel visited the studios today.
We fed them strawberries and drew them.
It was like having two little clockwork toys on my desk all day. Thanks for the loan, Cathy!
The big launch
Today was the launch of the story boat at Morden Hall Park – and the end of the London Voices project with the National Trust. Sculptor Simon Kent carved the boat in panels of solid oak from Sherwood Forest, working to designs I produced using the drawings, prints and poems created by the families from Liberty School in Mitcham during the workshop sessions earlier in the year. The launch was a great event, with over 250 people coming along throughout the day, and joining in with activities like making mini-boats (Suha, above, made three despite having a broken wrist!), playing eels out and listening to exciting and adventurous tales on the boat with storyteller Diana.
It was a great way to end a project that has been wonderful to work on from start to finish. The boat looked amazing and it was so exciting to see it finished for the first time. Simon also made five free-standing sculptures to act as bases for the game ‘Eels Out’ – below is the vole. We also presented the letterpress posters featuring the families’ poems that I made a few weeks ago with Ross and Jon from JMG Studio – each family and everyone involved was given one to keep as a special souvenir of the project.
Macaw collage
In a couple of weeks I will be visiting a school in north London for a project with ArtisanCam. A class of year 6 pupils will be getting a visit from a live macaw from London Zoo, then making a book inspired by the experience. Today I’ve really enjoyed making a demonstration model, using a selection of jumbled up words and paper collage.
Settling in
This week I have been settling in to the new studio space at The Old Sweet Shop.
Boats small and large
The National Trust London Voices workshops start again next week with families from Liberty school in Mitcham, with a theme of ‘journeys’. Each family is going to make a boat like this sample I’ve been testing, and they will decorate it with their own family stories ready for a boat race on the Wandle at Morden Hall Park in March. Today I had a meeting at the park with sculptor Simon Kent – he will be creating a huge carved wooden ‘story boat’, and I will be working with him to incorporate some of the families’ work into the design. This project is going to be very exciting!
Time for tea
This is a card design (painted with real tea!) by me for the charity Contact the Elderly. Volunteers host tea parties for isolated older people and several designers were invited to produce thankyou cards for the volunteers. They have now been printed and will be on sale through the charity later in the year.
Wandle Lantern Festival
Nearly 100 lanterns floated down the Wandle at dusk in Morden Hall Park as a celebration of the term’s work with the School Arts Partntership between Wimbledon Chase Primary, Cricket Green School in Mitcham and the National Trust. The weather was perfect, cold and clear, and in the end the filming of the new Stephen Poliakoff drama at the Snuff Mill didn’t interfere too much, though it was funny to see actors in 1940s clothing wandering about. Delicious pumpkin soup made by the students at Cricket Green warmed everyone up afterwards. Thanks to Erica, John and Zigi for their invaluable help getting the lanterns out of the water again at the end, and to Nick for these photos, and especially to all the children who took part for making such beautiful lanterns.