Hope you all had a great Easter with plenty of chocolate, Bunnyopolis went into full swing with Aaran, Jura and Iona enjoying the sunshine and making sure all our plants were freshly trimmed. Over the Easter holidays the studio had a good clear out as we reconfigured the workspace to take into account the growing Foreverbunny presence which requires a great deal more space than the Impossimals to flourish. It was an interesting diversion, the studio has been needing a bit of a tidy up for a while so on Friday we got stuck in. Jayne started to paint the outside a pleasing two tone colour whilst I emptied the entire studio and removed all the shelving. You would not believe the amount of stuff we managed to fit in such a small space, it really was quite amazing when it was all removed.
The shelves were moved, fixed into different areas and extra storage was added with several additional shelf levels making the space feel a lot bigger than it actually is. The move unearthed a few things I thought you might like to see from various areas of the studio starting with something rather special.
My first ever 'artist' paint set that I used to carry with me along with a small pad. Unfortunately painting with this small set also made me a target for ridicule at a young age, after all artists in the 70's had rather a dubious impression of being strange and addicted to smocks and berets. After being termed 'arty farty' too many times I decided it was best to keep this hobby a bit of a secret. I still have the foldaway brush somewhere although it's a little battered now much like myself.
I'm obsessed with ingenuity, musical boxes amaze me with their tuned comb like pins that are twanged from a pin spiked roller. This one whilst not particularly old fascinated me because it was contained in an old fashioned wood matchbox to enhance the sound. Turning the handle plays the Vienna Waltz, closing the box and turning the handle enhances the wonderful sound.
On the wall is two charts, the first is a paint chart in order of transparencies and opaques, I have a drawer system set out exactly the same way. Below that is a charcoal chart highlighting finishes from various tools such as cloth, sponge etc. The paints are a mixture of Talens Van Gogh, Rembrandt and Mussini oil colours as well as additional finishes such as metals and pearlescents and unusually transparent white for tinting.
Top shelf as always is the sculptures, this is one of two areas dedicated to sculpture the second being the latest maquettes whilst this is the finished area. The two boxes at the back are sandcast sculptures from Caithness Glass who have two Impossimals in their current available collection. The scruffy bit of paper in the centre of the shelf is a page from a magazine that we found in an old casement window we removed at a previous house. The builder had thoughtfully placed a note in the sealed casement part along with a page from the radio times dated 8th November 1946. I reassembled the page a year or so ago and blogged about it. Interesting reading it made too.
So the studio feels like a new space, Jayne has the workspace she needs and I have a new area to fill with Impossimal goodness starting with painting number twelve for this year, 'Four In A Bed', part of the new Impossimal range later this year.
www.petersmithcollective.co.uk Home Of Foreverbunny and the Impossimals
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