works on ply-wood

Been given some ply-wood strips so I thought I'd paint some images..I like to use wood and paint so quite happy with the results. This is a diptych and works quite well together.

Gold Tooth


Red Heart

new additions to the Lucien Fellowes Collection of Road-Side Particulars (ongoing)

Here are the four collected particulars that I found on the walk from Royal Blackburn Hospital on the 4th June 2013 at 4.30am to about 7.00am when I arrived at my home destination in Darwen. I have now collected up to 150 of such particulars and need to archive them via photography.



Haslingden Road, Blackamoor Road, Stopes Brow and Greenbank Terrace

Work at Malgras|Naudet

Screenshot of the Exhibition taken by Mike Chavez-Dawson..(with thanks).

I have now got one of my squared envelope collages that I've been working on for the past year up in Malgras|Naudet Gallery round the back of of Piccadilly Station. It is a rather small but quite cool gallery that is attched to Rogue Studios on Chapeltown Street, Crusader Mill.

I have been visiting this gallery for a couple of years and rather glad that I now have work on their walls. I am hung next to a Chavez-Dawson work which is well-hung to say the least. I originally brought up five pieces up with me with three unframed squared collages and two cut-down to A2 portrait sized collages, one in an aluminium frame and the other in a black frame. They selected the black framed collage which has a collective name of; 3in, 1.5in and 1in. The title reflects the dimensions of the collage squares.

I went to the preview last Friday on one of the hottest days of the year with Ken, my partner and milled around for a bit. I am quite shy still at these events, even though I have work on the walls. I'd rather have somebody else be me and I can watch at the periphery but I brought Ken with and he ligged around for me. I heard some responses which was favourable and pleasant enough, which was nice.

We went to the Android show next which was at Piccadilly Place as I had some friends who had work exhibiting here and I met up with some other friends. The work was OK, all based on the concept of the Android..a man-machine. I quite liked the screenprint of some passage written in phonetics. I am interested in language and in phonetics especially and this runs currently through my cut-up prose experiment.

We went back to Malgras|Naudet soon after and enjoyed the work, chatter and the heat of the gallery.

Framed Collage

The collage actually framed and presented..only to myself though at the moment.

month catch-up

It's a rather busy month at the studio with all my focus going on the envelope collages and researching on how I can get them shown at specific exhibitions and galleries. For the first time in what seems a long long time I have focused on the same work and allowed myself to get sidetracked by something else. This may have a detrimental effect on what I think how my art and craft stall idea is and how it has been shelved at the moment, with no pun intended. I have quite a bit of stock now and with a few collages made and one framed up quite nicely..this idea will be returned to. I need to make some money somewhere and it's getting expensive traveling and paying the studio, at least the core ingredients for my work are quite cheap except for the Uhu which has gone expensive due to my supplier stopping the supply.

So back to the collages, the cutting of the squares are very time consuming and now I'm becoming more relaxed and confident with the scalpel. They have to be a specific dimension and I have experimented with 3in, 1.5in and now 1in. I have done a few of each sizes and now have seemed to have focused on the 1in, they have a certain pattern forming elegance.

I am not trying to create mosaics, pixelated art or mood boards for quilts but I'm trying to show the design elements of the innards of the envelopes and contrasting them with the squares that are surrounding them. On my practise runs they have melded into greay areas and dark areas but now working on a larger canvas, they are more fragmented and becoming groups and hopefully ending up as my painted contrasting squares have ended up.

new collage..studio work

new design for card/postcard

developmental work..lino cut?