I’ve been wielding my scalpel to cut out chairs for one of the images for my exhibition at The Old Sweet Shop next month. It’s for an illustration of a game called ‘winking’ – a sort of Victorian parlour game.
Cutting out chairs
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Sewing in Hook
I’ve spent the last week working at St Paul’s C of E primary school, Hook, creating two large textile collage panels to celebrate the school’s 150th anniversary. The red words are the school’s values. Everyone from year 1 up to year 6 took part, and I completed the work by building two wooden frames and stretching the fabric over them for a neat finish.
The perfect T
I found the perfect T for my Wandle alphabet at the river cleanup at Kimber Road, Wandsworth yesterday. The alphabet is nearly complete – now I only need B, H, W and X, then it’s ready to turn into a poster.
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!
Celebration time
Today was the end of the School Arts Partnership project with the National Trust at Morden Hall Park. I was the lead artist for the whole school year, and today we had an exhibition to celebrate, featuring the lovely paintings the children made in the park in May,
and the lanterns from the floating lantern festival last November,
as well as the mosaics we made last term. Then all the children from the two schools involved – Wimbledon Chase Primary and Cricket Green special needs school in Mitcham – wrote their memories of the project on a postcard and tied them to a tree with a ribbon:
In the evening Wimbledon Chase Primary School organised a special event for parents, also attended by the press and the Mayor of Merton, to mark the end of the project. It was a lovely evening – there was a documentary film, poems and singing, and then I had to sign autographs! A great way to finish the project – thanks to everyone involved.
Animal sketching
I’ve finally had a chance to do some drawing following my day as zookeeper for a day at Whipsnade Zoo a month ago. This is the starting point for my show ‘Compendium’, at The Old Sweet Shop in October. Now I need to develop the drawings into ideas about games and playing.
Through the magic door…
I’ve been putting together another demonstration book, this time for a workshop plan I am writing for the education programme at the Mall Galleries. It’s on a theme of doors, and children will each choose and create a character, then make a book with open-able doors to lead to a series of adventures. Back at school after the gallery visit, the children can write the narrative to go with the visuals they have created.
Taking flight
Today was the last day of the library project at Singlegate Primary School in Colliers Wood. All term I’ve been working on Friday afternoons with a group of children from different classes, making an installation for the library – including a wall hanging complete with collage nests, a flock of papier mache birds (I specially like this one with the smart scarf):
and – since the project is in the library – a set of hand-made books about the birds:
They were a great group and I will miss them all!
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.
