Paper mosaics

Over the last few weeks I have been really busy working on some extremely intricate and fiddly paper mosaics. The first is a dragonfly and I am really pleased with it here.

I like the green circles sweeping behind it's body and am also rather pleased with how the wings came out. I studied the wings of a real dragonfly when creating these wings so that they are as close to real life as I could get.

My second piece was smaller, a seahorse and once again I am really pleased with the end result. I particularly like the colour combinations and the shape of the seahorse's body.

Resin Jewellery

I've found a new material to use, resin. I can't believe just how simple it is to use and so I have created my first resin pendants and overall I am pretty pleased with the final result. I thought I would mosaic a couple but for ease used some seed beads and to a pretty good effect and the other two I painted with acrylic first. Soon to be put on sale in my new online shop Nimanoma to be launched very shortly.

Mirror, mirror...

A busy few weeks, holidays, Art in the Pen and still endless mosaic.
On our hols to Glen Farg in Scotland, just North of Edinburgh we had a few trips out to Dunfermline (lovely), Edinburgh (huge!) and Glasgow (disappointing). We had gone to Glasgow for the Gallery of Modern Art which we had been to years ago and I had loved. After a long drive, subway journey and a walk we found the gallery and it was as great from the outside as I remembered. Unfortunatly I was so disappointed by the content. Despite this we did enjoy the actual building itself from the beautiful stained glass windows...



...to the inspired mirrored walls in the entrance way.





As we returned to the subway and the car we passed another enormous mirror effect, this time a big mirrored glass building reflecting the older buildings opposite. So not an entire dead loss after all.

Fame and Fortune! Well fame anyway!

See Petri from all angles on the Leeds Today programme, an online news show that recorded me (!) and Petri in a short interview earlier this month. I'm quite pleased with the end result as it shows quite a lot of my work but also shows a guided tour of my rubbish in the dining room!! Not quite what I had imagined. Oh well anyone that knows me will have seen the mess in there anyway.



http://www.leedstrinity.ac.uk/sites/leedstoday/FEATURES/Pages/Skipton(0408).aspx

Busy, busy, busy

It has been a very busy weekend! First of all, on Saturday i did my first Art's Market which I really enjoyed despite the slow trade. Held in the rather attractive Riddings Hall in Ilkley, it was so nice being in the company of other artists and seeing the lovely things they had to sell. It's just difficult to hold on to any profit made when there are so many nice things to spend it all on!




Today has been hectic, driving to Liverpool to visit mum in hospital. Before it was visiting time though Emily and I went to visit the Metropolitan Cathedral to look at the breath taking stained glass there.



From the outside it is pretty spectacular but inside it is just amazing!



The colours are so vibrant and I love the abstract coloured panels.





There were some fantastic wall panels outide too with great textured sections in the concrete.

TV Interview!

Wow! What can I say? I was contacted today to do an interview for a Tv programme to be hosted on the internet. The show is called Leeds Today and will be launched in about two weeks timeI have never done any kind of TV interview before so it was just a tad nerve inducing.
Anyway it all went well, I got chance to plug the sheep, my artwork and you never know I may even get a mention of my website.

Stop the Press!

There we are, Petri and I are in print at last! It's all quite exciting really. The report appears to have gone for the family angle in particular and mentions some of my influences but unfortunatly doesn't mention that I am an artist or give any references for my business or website! Oh well, I'll have to get that in to Horsforth Life!

To view the article follow the evening post link at the side of the page.



Photographs taken by Tony Johnson Yorkshire Evening Post

Fame!

Now that Petri is finished I thought it was probably time to get in touch with the local press so that we could get some publicity through him. That is why this morning I was having to pose like I was painting the sheep, leaning on the sheep...



...even with the cat on top of the sheep!!


Thomas the cat always has to be centre of attention!

If anyone is interested the article will be in the Yorkshire Evening Post tomorrow (14.7.10). It will also appear in the Wharfe Valley Times and Horforth Life!

The finished article!

Looking rather handsome and shiny here he is Petri the Sheep is complete.

Mosaictastic!

Why do I always give myself such enormous tasks to complete? This is the start of the huge mosaic that I am creating for our new shower enclosure. It is going to take 40,000 1cm by 1cm tiles to complete! It completely fills one half of my studio floor!



Progress is slow but as it gradually takes shape it becomes more exciting. I need to get it done asap as I can't use my ensuite shower until it is finished!

Petri the Sheep!

A little while ago I heard of a project to create fibreglass sheep to be painted by local artists and then displayed in places of interest around Skipton, London has it's elephants, Liverpool the Super lamb banana and Manchester has had cows. It sounded pretty cool so I decided to submit an entry, not really imagining I would be chosen. It was sent, forgotten about until about a month ago I recieved an email saying 'CONGRATULATIONS' you have been commissioned to decorate one of our sheep. Just a few days later this was the view from my front door as the sheep was delivered.
Where do you keep a 5ft by 4ft fibre glass ram? In your dining room of course! Heaven knows what my neighbours thought as this was being carried into the house!



This is what greets me every time I walk into the room. The children have named it Molly but his pedigree name is Petri as my design had the look of cultures growing in a petri dish.

Here he is gradually taking shape. Spotty at first:



But after a bit of work he began to look better than a sheep with measles!



At last I have got to the stage where is can be varnished and after just one coat he is looking particularly handsome if I do say so myself!