More squirrels

Not a 5 minute doodle this time, more of a painted sketch

Daily Doodles

I wanted to see what my daily doodles looked like side by side,  so here they are.

The finishing of a Dragon

That is it, finished!  Smaug is done.

 

He was almost done for too.  One swift wallop across the snout.  I don’t think our cat likes dragons.

 

 

 

Spring walking

We have been out rambling through various favourite Nottinghamshire haunts over the last few days. Woodlands really start to come into their own at this time of year. The canopy has not yet filtered out all the light above and the floor of the forest throws out vegetative flowerings, that follow one upon the other. Each flower follows it’s order: celandine first, wood anemone next, primula, primrose and bluebell with wild garlic to follow.

Tim has been out with his trusty camera and captured these precious moments.

 

Generally though to be harmless.

The walk yielded a number of competing skylarks in the fields either side and a lone peewit (lapwing) nesting on the ground.

This was a sea of anemones in a wash of garlic leaves, the scent from which was very heady.

Ridge and furrow showing through on the walk that closes the circle.

Nearing completion

Smaug is almost finished.  All that needs to be done now:  claws and pads on the feet; finishing on the wires inside the wings; then the surface finish for the body.  Not much then

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Unfurling

I have a new respect for butterflies.  Emerging from chrysalids and pumping ichor through the veins; plumping up wings that have been crumpled up

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Adding the wings to this dragon has caused me a number of headaches and presented problems that need to be solved.

So having finished off wet felting a very fine felt, I have been easing each wing onto the armature and beginning to pin it into place.  Thankfully felt is a very forgiving material.  

It will fold, twist and, as it has no nap, will tolerate being turned any which way.  There is still a massive amount of work to do but he is starting to come together now.

Blodeuwedd

I first encountered this story through Alan Garner’s The Owl Service, as did many of us of a certain age. Over the years I have read several versions of Bloduedd’s story. Along with the legends of Merlyn and Nimue, Tristan and Iseult and other tales …

Inspirations and how to cope with them

Having been invited to join in with the Puppet Challenge, I am rather embarrassed by the lack of work I have managed to produce so far.  I have worked mainly on 2d paper puppets that are animated using the stop motion method.  This has been frustrating and joyful in equal measure.  The painting of Bloduedd as an owl was satisfying; creating the movement was a challenge but in the end I felt generally pleased overall.  Where it has been knuckle-clenching-ly frustrating has been in the quality of the final images.
The shadows on the board caused massive problems with the green screen effects

Even with Tim’s Canon Digital SLR the frames are very grainy; add to that the limitations of the software and my ability to use it the overall finish has not matched what is in my head.

Then there was the hiatus caused by school.  Working in year 6 of an inner city primary comes with time challenges that are sometimes overwhelming.  The needs of the children, and the school, are such that most evenings and weekends are spent working, marking and assessing.  What free time there is then belongs to family first.  So 6 weeks of school effectively paused any participation in the challenge.  What I was able to do was follow the brilliant work put up by the others taking part;  take a look for yourselves.

After that there was the small issue of an unfinished dragon, promised to the boys after they had seen the Hobbit part two.

Balance achieved with the essential addition of the tail.

As a result Smaug took over the work desk and ate up what little free time I have.  Even though dragons are dominating the table they are not quite overtaking my head, there are puppets there still, most particularly Bloduedd. I plan a move from 2 to 3 dimensions and this is where the posts title comes into play.

I am an avid follower of a number of artists’ blogs, Twitter feeds and Facebook pages.  Their sharing fills in the gaps when work overtakes;  their art provides inspiration and provokes thought and they act as a daily reminder that there is more to life than school.  Recently inspiration has come from two of these sources:  Rima Staines’ Hermitage and Nomi McLeod’s Air and Parchment.  The first pricking of ideas came from the recent posting for the Puppet Challenge by Nomi.  Her beautiful puppet is a work in progress, a process which I found very interesting as she offered a solution to a problem I have encountered when needle felting rod puppets.

My first needle felted rod puppet. The body of which caused a major headache

She shows the naked form and use of carved foam for creating the body shape. This offers such a neat solution to the bulking of a body in a felted puppet, the amount of wool needed, the weight and problems to achieve the same effect is prohibitive in so many ways.  Felting over a carved foam base offers so much potential and I can only thank Nomi for setting a train in though in motion.   Imaginings of Bloduedd turning into the owl are stirring and she was beginning to solidify in my thoughts.  I was problem solving ways of creating bulk, adding wings, making felt, adding the rods and …

….at this point I took a huge pull on the reins of thought.  I could see Bloduedd so clearly in my head, I knew just what she would look like, how she would move, where she would spread her wings.  She was so clear, so naggingly familiar, I knew I had seen her before.  Indeed I had, the Bloduedd in my head is not mine – not exactly – she is one of Rima’s creations.  You see: inspirations!  They come from  the oddest corners of the memory.  Slova Sova is the image I have been creating in my head.  However, though it is undeniably inspirational, she is not my image, she belongs to another.  So there is the rub.

I still want very much to make Bloduedd at the point she is transformed into the owl.  I want here to be a three dimensional puppet with rods for manipulation.  She will be made out of felt and foam, as I have envisaged.  But she needs to shake off the mantle of Slova, no matter how beautiful and clothe herself from my imagination instead.

I give grateful thanks to the artists who share their work and ideas, I will use their imagery as a springboard and now will rise to the challenge of makings of my own.  The ghosts of others will sit on Bloduedd’s shoulders but I hope to make her a homage rather than copy.

 

Addendum:

After an afternoon of playing with ideas I think I have banished Slova and invited Bloduedd in.

The point of transformation

To add a frill of not?

The bulk of the base wool is now on the armature, from nose to tail. Now it is going to take a lot of stabbing, layering and stabbing again to get the surface finish I prefer. What I can’t decide is whether he needs a …

Four legs better

Needs a tail. It is only when you make an animal without one that you realise how essential a tail is for balance. Then I will begin to tackle the problem of the wings