Giant Grouper Mural

Since becoming interested in Deep Sea Gigantism I have wanted to do a Giant Grouper Mural. Here's a photo of a section of it.

And having recently seen a BBC program on filming a Giant Squid in it's natural habitat, and it shone GOLD in the camera light, I feel the urge to do a new Giant Squid Mural. Here's an image of the last one I did which was for my RCA show last year....

Manchester Exhibition

The work I did for 'Forming Words' exhibition is now moving up to The Craft and Design Centre, Manchester.... it opens on the 13th July so you still have plenty of time to get to it...

Waiting for the kiln to cool....

A couple of photos I've taken today while waiting for my kiln to cool down. The foxes are glazed and waiting to be fired.....and below is a very good reason to always finish the biscuits before leaving the studio.

Trusty Servant

As part of my collection of Winchester figurines, this week I made this 'Trusty Servant'. I created my own print of him  (above left) from an image I found on one of my dads jugs
and then made a figurine from my own print. I was worried about making a figure that balanced on hooves rather than feet, but it worked out ok, although as usual I'm not getting too attached to this figurine until it's had both it's firings.
Below is the poem about the Trusty Servant explaining why he looks how he looks. He's an embodiment of the perfect servant, which is quite a horrid and old fashioned notion, but also means he's pretty interesting in appearance.

The Trusty Servant appears on antique  souvenir pottery and prints from Winchester, and there's a large painting of him hanging in Winchester College.

Alfred Russel Wallace

With so much about Alfred Russel Wallace happening at the NHM and the new BBC Bill Bailey programme about him, I thought it was high time I put up a couple of pictures of my natural historians that I made for my MA show. I chose to make a few of the natural historians from the past that I found the most interesting to look at, and had personal or  professional stories that grabbed my attention. (which admittedly is a lot of them) Wallace is described as  'An intrepid explorer and brilliant naturalist, Alfred Russel Wallace (1823-1913) co-published the theory of evolution by natural selection with Charles Darwin in 1858 and was one of the most celebrated scientists of his era' (NHM Website )























I also made Mary Anning, the female fossil hunter based in Lyme Regis, and Evelyn Cheesman, who had guts- as in bravery and adventures with spiders and snakes- Please have a read ; http://www.nhm.ac.uk/nature-online/science-of-natural-history/biographies/evelyn-cheesman/)

 Have a look here at an old blog post for my figurine of Friedrich Welwitsch.

New Moby Dick Necklace

Pressed ceramic Moby Dick earthenware necklace (http://bysaw.bigcartel.com/product/moby-dick-necklace)

Book Title Brooches

Some designs I've been doing for fun, they're carved into plaster and then the clay is pressed in, and measure around 2.5 cm across.