Bakewell Tart

Here is what I have been up to for the past few days: le bakewell tart. I am rather pleased with it! From this recipe here with added almond essence and retro iced top. It is going to sit alongside the copious amounts of other puddings that will be gracing our festive table this year. Merry Christmas everyone!

Fun in the snow!

I went on a lovely winters walk today, braved the cold and took a camera out with me. I think snow is quite hard to photo so that's why most of them are black and white. They were almost devoid of colour anyway because of everything being so white! These were taken in Abbey fields in Kenilworth, I wanted to take some of the castle, maybe another day. The lake there was frozen over and all of the ducks and swans were huddled in a small patch of water that was not iced over! Brr.

Book art!

So I had a bit of time on my hands. Well, a whole day to be precise due to the the blanket of snow that has engulfed our street. Looks lovely but no one should really be going out unless they have those tennis racquet shoes on and a dog that has a brandy barrel on it's collar.



So I had a bit of a play with a book I have been dying to do something with for ages, not sure what Mr Spooner would think of it. I, personally, think he would be proud I have finally found a use for the maths skills I acquired at school. These are parabolic lines (had to google it, sorry Mr Spooner) and each one is cut out of a page in the book. I will fix the pages so that you wont be able to turn the pages when it is finished. (Mainly to disguise the pretty rough cuts around the lines) It was quite difficult as I just leapt right in with no real idea of what the finished result would be like and no handy "edit, undo" button to fix it if it went wrong. Am I the only one that repeats ctrl, z, ctrl, z, ctrl, z when I have majorly messed up?!

Thought so....

Adobe After Effects

Have been having a go on After Effects tonight and followed a rather good Harry Potter tutorial from creativecow.net. I think this might be my new obsession! A bit like Photoshop for video I guess. I couldn't resist having a little play...

A Greek Holiday!

A few photos from a recent trip to Corfu. Everywhere was shutting as it was end of season and the weather was a bit grim one day I took the camera out and it resulted in these kind of derelict images, everything looked a bit worse for wear, something you probably wouldn't have noticed if the place was abuzz with tourists. It was a bit strange, like a ghost town along the beach front with all these colourful empty places. Here are a few pics.

Art work being shown up in Leeds!

If there is anyone up in Leeds this Friday night have a walk through Millennium Square and you may well catch a glimpse of one of my video pieces. As part of Light Night a showreel has been made up of "Short shorts" that were originally screened at the beginning of the year as part of Art in Unusual Spaces that will be screened on the BBC screen at 12 am and again at 1 am. If you happen to be staggering back from a night out or from any of the wonderful activities going on in the city that night check it out!

Some printy goodness!

Here's a little something I made for my friend's birthday, just some simple black and white prints of birds for her higgledy piggledy house.

Call

Accompanying text for September call to Kat. Kat, if you have not completed your piece read no further!

Call and Response is a project myself and Katherine Johnson are doing together as collaborative partners. I live in the West Midlands. Katherine lives in Lancashire. Call and response is our solution to bridge the physical gap between two collaborative working partners: One of us sets a brief, the other one answers it. The piece not being complete without the stimulus or the product. The interesting thing is that we will each have very different ideas on how the piece will turn out as we both have different thought patterns.

The most recent call I have sent Kat is a picture of myself, no instructions alongside apart from to visit this blog when she has completed the piece. I wanted to document my thoughts on it so there would be something to compare after the piece was created.

Kat,
This is a picture of myself that is really rather horrible. Everything about it from the double chin to the glasses, it is really unflattering. However, it struck me when I came across it that I had never thrown it away. Every time I see it I cringe. But I haven't destroyed it, neither have I shown it to anyone. I got to thinking and felt immensely glad that there were no social networking sites around when I was a teenager! Especially as I was a bit of an oddball! I can't imagine having that sort of pressure when I was younger when and being judged by how many friends you have, what you look like and how witty your status updates are. Via these sites we can edit how we are perceived, I have been known to de-tag the odd horrific picture so why had I not thrown the photo away? Is it that there is something special about the printed photograph and that by destroying it it would destroy a memory? Or are we so flooded with photos today because of the ease of digital equipment and media that the loss of one or two is not important?

In any case this photo I have not shown to anyone I have shown to you and anyone else that will come across it as part of this project. I look forward to your response.

It might be okay...

Hmm maybe there is something salvageable from the bees. I think it looks okay lit up, not as pristine as I wanted but certainly not as bad as I thought it was going to be! Particularly by layer 4 where it was smoking and smelling like hell! The crack is still noticeable but still sort of alludes to the trapped in amber/honey thing I wanted. Just to let you know, I didn't kill these bees, they were collected from an abandoned nest at work. Sad, but I think by preserving them in the resin it hints at the problem of colony collapse disorder, consumerism and cause and effect. Just wanted to show you the process involved, so each layer of bees had to be trapped in a separate layer of resin. Also, look how different the unhardened resin is (in the coke bottle almost green) to the one in the jar!!! How hard to guess the finished colour! I am now wondering whether to make a light box/plinth for it to be displayed on. From afar it looks good! All is not lost, I think the fumes had managed to kill my enthusiasm for this project. We will leave the resin work for now. Back to work this week, no more weeks free of responsibility to do lots of art!

Epic Bee Fail

Oh dear oh dear. I have spent the day trying to do my bees. And I have a headache from all the fumes, it looked like it was going so well and then it went all wrong. I'm wondering whether I can salvage it and make it look ok using lighting and stuff but I have a feeling it wont work. You can see the layers where I have poured the resin and also there is a massive crack in the top. Obviously where it got too hot, ah well. Have enough bees to have a second go if I wanted but I think I'll leave it for now. Sad day in the art world today.

Writer's block

For Kat. writing paper and ink-less biro


And a shout out for Hayley!

Nyyyyaaaaahhh! X

Call and Response

For Kat.

The four eng-
ineers
Wore orange
brassieres.

Willard Espy.

bees

Here are some bees. Bee-fore I potentially destroy them in resin.

Poly printing

A little bit of poly printing of iconic British stuffs. I really like the effect it gives, and the process is quite nice and repetitive. What next? Hmm...

And here's one I made earlier...

Mississippi mud pie. Was yum but a little sickly. I totally could be a food writer.

Resin tests!

So I finally got my resin and got round to experimenting! After overcoming my fear of opening the dead bee box I managed to pick some out to cast. (Dead bees smell really bad, resin smells worse but bees also float. 2-1 bees grr) I ordered water clear resin and some amber dye, it was a toss up between that and yellow but I wanted the bees to look like they were floating in honey. I could have used actual honey but I think it goes cloudy over time which would spoil it, also I wanted them to look suspended in the liquid rather than all gathered at the top (grr) As you can see I used far too much of the dye in the little jam jar test and it looks far too orange. I did a couple more tests which were slightly better but the thing is the colour intensifies as the thickness of the resin increases so even with the smallest amount of dye in it starts to look orange at a certain thickness and has a horrible tendency to increase in orangeness after the hardener is mixed in so there is a certain amount of chance involved! I think the final piece, which will be in a big kilner jar will look good with a warm light reflected through it, the resin has an amazing clarity and I'm pleased with the tests I've done. Also it will look like a kind of lantern at a shrine which will link in nicely. Very excited about this piece! Excuse the photos of the backgarden!

British stuffs

I've been having a think about typical British "architecture" and making prints and how I like the iconic shape of things like post boxes and phone boxes etc, so here is one of many experiments going on at the minute. I have been having a go at monotype prints and although I'm quite liking the effect I am still finding it not "clean" enough for my liking. I will press on with it though! Am enjoying having a go at different processes.

An art day

Went to Birmingham the other day for a visit to the art galleries with the brother. We went to the Ikon Gallery, a really good venue for seeing some interesting contemporary art. On at the moment in the main gallery is a retrospective: This Could Happen To You: Ikon in the 1970s Very much art of the time there is a lot of work pertaining to the political and social affairs of the day. What I found more interesting however, was the offsite project in the Pallasades shopping centre: Seeing the Unseen: Photographs and films by Harold E. Edgerton Photographs based on the new technology around at the time, exposing unseen movements and actions in everyday life in an appropriate location not far away from the original site of the gallery. Both on until the 5th September. Also there is an amazing exhibition on at the Waterhall Gallery by Steve McCurry Another retrospective, breathtaking, almost painterly images. Some with gorgeous colour and others with fascinating content. On until 17th October it is definitely worth a visit.

The Art Book Book Shop

I almost forgot! I was in an art exhibition at the Oxfam bookshop in Leamington. It was in conjunction with Warwickshire Artsweek and Oxfam Bookfest curated by Annie Carpenter.

A group of artists respond playfully to the idea of the book as both a physical object and a method of conveying information. The exhibition takes the form of an intervention into the bookshop, where viewers will have to seek out the artworks within the existing shop display.

Me and my collaborative partner Katherine Johnson were invited to do our Eat your Words performance piece on the opening night. It was really nice doing the performance in a book shop where many of the edible books we alter come from, a return to the beginning as it were. A really enjoyable evening. Other artists involved were Taneesha Ahmed, Alice Bradshaw, Robert Cliff, Chloe Edwards, Yan Laundy, Amy Mckenny, Hannah Rollings and Lynne Williams.

...more photos, stupid uploader thingmy

And here's the rest! Some from my back garden too.

Some more photos

As school has broken up I have taken the opportunity to get on with a bit more of my own work. I have a box of dead bees in the back of my car waiting to be used when I can get some resin. Some monotype printing on the go and a few other things on my mind too. Here is a collection of photos from a walk I took. I came across an abandoned warehouse which was very cool but a little scary!