Mackerel on plaster

The inspiration for this piece came from seeing a painting at a friends house. Our friends Barbara and Barry, who own and run the Countryworks Gallery in Montgomery, Powys, have a 'painting' at home (I can't remember what the subject was) which was almost like a mini fresco that had been broken. It was mounted and put in a frame and I thought it was really interesting. This mackerel was an early experiment and before that I played around with different plaster and cement mixes and made notes as I went along. I just used watercolour paint and it went on really easily, I remember. My intention had then been to make a more authentic looking piece (as if it was an ancient section of a fresco) but made up of pieces as if it had got broken at some point and then roughly assembled with the pieces not quite touching. Unfortunately I got my notes muddled and I never did manage to replicate the plaster concrete mix. Whenever I applied the paint it just didn't go on very well. I may have a go again one day as I liked the effect. I'm sure with trial and error I'll get it right eventually!

Avalon cupboard

I call this the Avalon cupboard only because I had it in the Avalon Gallery in Marazion near Penzance for a while before bringing it home. Its now in our guest bathroom. There's that mackerel plaster painting hanging above it.

Egg Emporium

Here's the Christmas present I made Jane a some years back. It's all made from a door very kindly donated by my friend and aerobics teacher, Jan Phillips, when we lived in Shropshire. The great thing about the door was that it had many layers of gloss paint, built up over many years, so it was great sanding this back to give it its very aged and distressed look. It took a while to make and although I designed it on paper first it kind of evolved as it went along. The letters are hand carved, the recess into which they sit was routed out partly freehand and partly using a wooden template I had to make first. The door never seemed to quite fit and took hours of careful sanding and the painting took a while too, with several false starts as it really wasn't working. I hate to say it but I didn't finally finish it until Easter time (fitting I suppose!) and gave it to Jane at 11pm on Good Friday. Well, to be fair to me, I was only able to work on it some weekends. 

Egg Emporium door open

Notice the tiny hinged door in the sky. This was difficult to make but when you open it there's a little wooden 'cradle' attached to the inside of the door just big enough to hold one egg. The idea was that if you were cooking and just needed one more egg in a hurry and only had one hand free it would be simple to open and egg that 'emergency' egg!

Yellow crown egg cupboard

Here's another egg cupboard. I've got loads of ideas for others but I think I might save these for any egg cupboard commissions I might get.

Tall egg cupboard

Partly inspired by the Egg Emporium I made for Jane and partly as we keep chickens, I decided to make a few quirky eggs cupboards. There's also a special shelf at the top for one of Jane's papier mache hens!

Seaside throne

I always picture this chair placed on the outside deck of some lovely beach house. I'd sit on it and look out to sea on a lovely sunny afternoon. One day maybe!

2 pages from my sketch book

Here are 2 pages from one of my sketch books. I thought it might be interesting to show how a few of my pieces looked at the idea stage. There's the tall green cupboard, the blue wall porthole cupboard and a few clock designs.

Pink hanging fish cupboard

I made this cupboard at about the same time as the blue porthole cupboard. The door infill was made out of wood from an old packing case, the frame from old floorboards and the top from old pottery boards. When I eventually sold this piece, the lady who bought it wanted it blue so it was re painted. Understandably blues and turquoises are much more popular colours for my more sea-sidey furniture.

Porthole cupboard unpainted

Here's what the blue porthole cupboard looked like before it was painted, sometimes I think it'd be nice just to leave one 

like this.

Port hole cupboard

This was one of the first really sea-sidey pieces I made and developed my weather beaten paint effect technique. I sold this piece in the Avalon Gallery in Marazion, near Penzance in Cornwall. It went really quickly and I've always meant to make another.

Giant garden throne

This 'chair' was my second major project and took a number of years to complete, just working odd weekends. (Please look at a more recent post). It's made up of all sorts of timber sourced from waste piles in timber yards, junk shops, salvage yards and a few bits were found half buried in the ground in our garden in Shropshire (our house dated from the mid 16th century so the front legs might be that old).

The first chair I made

Here's a picture of the first piece of furniture I made, obviously all from reclaimed timber (taken in our garden when we lived in Shropshire. Really fantastic views, but I still prefer the sea!). It was a great learning process making this chair and I felt quite a simple sense of achievement when it was finished. Poor thing is stuck in a shed, for the moment, but I hope we can bring it back into the house at some point.