Christmas With The Impossimals Pt 2

Hi, it's me, Peter, this Saturday the 24th Of November myself and Jayne will be appearing at Castle Galleries in Solihull between 1-4pm for another free Christmas With The Impossimals Event and your all welcome to come along.

Artists can be scary in real life so to prepare you here's a few things you need to know. Being an artist means that my diet must meet strict colour criteria so I will only eat food that is red. This in no way restricts my diet, if a food is a different colour I will cover it in tomato sauce before I eat it, simple!

I do like chillies though and I can often be found in the garden attending my special Capascicumgiganticas fiery spicy flue buster chillies. A chilli that once eaten allows me to belch flame over twenty feet, of course I will not be doing this at this weekends event so don't worry about getting scorched.

More often than not I can be found every day at the bottom of one of these, it's all in the name of art as every week I save all the corks up to add to a new art installation.

It's called 'Corked!' And so far included all the corks from this weeks bottles, around 243 to be precise and is assembled around forty beer cans and a bottle of scotch, essential artists equipment used to silence the inner turmoil. Of course I will not be bringing my cork collection with me this weekend.

In my spare time I attend to my three giant rabbits, each one is over twenty feet tall and weighs the same as two double decker buses. They live in Bunnyopolis, a purpose build construction with over 20,000 cubic feet of space hidden behind a waterfall in the garden. Facilities include satellite and radar coverage of the UK and early warning systems spanning the globe to alert the buns to the possibility of free cabbage.

They do knock me about a bit though so with that in mind they will not be accompanying us both at this weekends appearance.

Peter & Jayne will be at Castle Galleries, Solihull on Saturday 24th between 1-4pm, before the event you will find them sitting in the skip behind M&S swigging from a wine bottle wrapped in brown paper.

 

www.petersmithcollective.co.uk Home Of Foreverbunny and the Impossimals

New And Improved!

'Fill this in and sit over there' the Gruffalo eventually said after pointedly ignoring us for a few minutes whilst she talked about someone called John and an episode with a boiled sweet. I started to fill the first form in but was rudely interrupted by the Gruffalo asking me if I was deaf. 's'cuse me? You said fill it in and sit over there so that is what I'm doing'. 'You do it OVER THERE.', by now she had filed me under difficult and annoying not to mention simple and possibly hard of hearing. 'Over where exactly?' I asked, unsure as there was quite a bit of over there to choose from. 'Over there.', she indicated by flicking her hand in the general direction of the rest of the world and giving me a look that you would normally receive if you had taken a dump in someones handbag.

It's going to be one of those days I thought as I clutched my questionnaire, patient sheet and medical history form and took a seat in the dentists with a bewildering amount of paperwork to fill in. I compared forms with Jayne, we both had different ones. We sighed, we had filled in these forms over and over again each time we visit and each time they get bigger and bigger.

Here we go, title, surname, first name, e-mail, occupation, hang on, occupation? It's not a bloody job interview so I wrote astronaut. NHS number, what the hell is an NHS number? Underneath it said to find your NHS number click on this link. Nice if you can do it but I tend to find links printed on paper do not take you to websites easily when pressed. I pressed a few times to see if we were indeed in the year 2153 and was almost at the point of returning my form as faulty when Jayne stopped me, we were both laughing and Gruffalo looked like she didn't like laughing. In fact she tried it once in 1978 whilst watching an episode of the Goodies but quickly realised that fun in any form should not be allowed so her face had been a permanent downturned mouth since.

Sex, yes please! It always gets me and I'm sure they always find it amusing when people answer it that way, what's next? DoB, well I don't own a DoB so I left this one and moved on. Address, telephone, mobile, email, inside leg... It went on and on... When did you last visit the dentist? Oh, I don't know, you tell me. Oh, sorry, you have only been my dentist for the last ten years so how can I expect YOU to remember, silly me.

Next of Kin, wha! Since when has a checkup been life threatening? What are you planning to introduce torture check ups? Or marathon drill sessions to test my stamina? Oh, here we go, the meaty stuff, Are You Currently... Taking suppositories!? Wonder what triggered that question, I'd love to know the background to that story. Do You Suffer From Any Infectious Diseases? Suffer Indegestion? Allergic to Rubber? Did You As A Child Or Since, Have Growth Hormone Treatment In The Mid Eighties? Have Brain Surgery? These are are all true questions obviously designed to help insurance companies screw more money out of us at some future time when they can point out on your death bed that in 2012 you said yes to the question 'Have You Ever Eaten A Hotdog', our policy clearly states that you should never eat hotdogs or your life insurance is null and void, goodbye Mr Smith.

Then we get to the good bit, the filthy habits. Units Of Alcohol Per Day/Week/Month and of course Have You EVER Smoked In Your Life? I did of course get carpet burns one night, does that count? it was pretty smokin' but really I can't remember as I had just finished my usual tipple of two bottles of JD a day.

Last but not least come the off the wall ones no doubt tailored to get more business. Are You Satisfied With Your Teeth? Do You Wish Your Teeth Was Shaped Differently? As a matter of fact I do, if you could carve them so when I bite people it leaves my name imprinted on them that would be great and whilst we are at it I always fancied my back teeth to be made into hexagons and little crosses so I can unscrew things without resorting to an alan key and screwdriver, a sort of Swiss army mouth.

Do You Wish Your Breath Was Fresher? It depends what I have been licking I wrote, If You Could Alter Your Mouth What Would You Most Likely Change? The face and body surrounding it probably. Finally, the last question... Is There Anything That Frightened You In The Past Which You Are Anxious About Now? Well, when I was young I was biten by a small dog in a tartan coat so when I pass kilt shops or tins of shortbread I go into meltdown.

Really, what a load of tosh, I know that records are needed to maintain standards and safety but seventy, yes seventy questions is a little over the top. We were sent upstairs to sit an wait, at least that's what the Gruffalo told us to do, but she smirked as she said it which ment only one thing, there was no chairs. Revenge was her only aim and we both stood at the top of the stairs in a confined corridor barely two feet from three seated individuals. Five people in a red hot waiting area six feet square, I could smell feet too.

Anyway, not to bore you further we had our checkup and got poked around the mouth for sixty seconds then returned to the Gruffalo to cough up the thirty five quid and stepped out of the door to walk into Mansfield.

If you ever fancy going back in time when visiting Mansfield then Sally Twinkles is the place to be, a delightful shop full of buttons, ribbon, cloth of assorted variety and old fashioned display cabinets, not much has change from when I used to visit this as a child, even the staff remain remarkably endearing and batty in equal measures. There's not many places you can find three sizes of silver bells for Jaynes Foreverbunnies, or indeed a ribbon counter run by a ribbon obsessed assistant who loves ribbon order according to colour tone and texture. It was a bit of a oasis today for as soon as we left the madness returned.

'That will be £8.20 please.' Our cheerful assistant replied from behind the health food counter. Jayne pulled out a ten pound note and asked quite innocently 'Would you like the 20p to save your change?' Which of course is Jayne actually saying don't give me £1.80 of change to slush around my purse. I don't think we would have had an any worse reaction if we had said devide 534 by 73 then add your shoe size and age to the result before multiplying it by 9 and adding Pi to seventeen decimal places. We watched in amazement as she stopped, I mean really stopped as if somebody had pulled a plug on her and her eyes rolled up to the ceiling as if she was watching a balloon floating away. I swear if the store was quiet we would hear the sound of a marble rolling around an empty glass bowl before finally plopping into place. 'Err, I don't do mafs'. Walking away Jayne muttered 'Do I look like I work in a bloody arcade?' as she struggled to get the £1.80p in 10 pence pieces stuffed in her purse.

On to the next one, I needed an extra box of contact lenses, a simple matter, I return to the opticians, ask for a box and pay my money. Oh no you don't, not today, for today the world has been collectively hit by a stupid stick.

'Do you have any of these please? I need an extra box.'

'I'll just check' our assistant bounced over to a cabinet and pulled out a box. 'Here you are, name please?'

'And address?'

'Telephone number?'

'Have you or do you suffer from dizziness, headaches or impaired vision?'

'Do you plan on wearing these lenses for concerts, driving, ski...'

'Hang on young lady, I have come in here to buy an extra box to top up my stock that you deliver every three months and have done for the last four years not take a medical, I think by now I have got the hang of these contact lense things, here I'll take one out of my ear to show you. You mean they should go in my eyes? You don't say, we'll there's where I have been going wrong, it probably explains why I keep answering the iron and phoning people with a banana.'

'Oomp, I'll check'

I have been in here a million times I thought, every time it's a new assistant and they have to 'check'.

'Ah, you're back, any news on the can I have them front?'

'I'm afraid I cannot sell them to you.'

'Why? You have just sent me two packs through the post last week why can't I have a pack to top them up?'

'You need an eye test first.'

'Wha! Sorry? I could have sworn you said I need an eye test, funny thing is you said the same thing when I came in for my eye test last week, you know, the one where they render you nearly blind blowing air into your eyes then ask you to read small lettering fifty feet away that spells the word P E N I S'

'Oomp, I'll check'

'Too right!' I said indignantly marking me out as a bit of trouble no doubt.

'No, you need an eye test first' she said upon here return.

'But I have had an eye test, look on your computer, it was only last week, you served me!'

'Sorry, you have had an eye examination not an eye test'

'What's the difference?'

'On an eye test they use the charts to determine if you need a different prescription'

'But I did that!'

'Yes, it's part of the eye examination.'

'So what's the difference?'

'You didn't pay for that its part of your contact lens contract, you need to pay for an eye test before you can have the lenses.'

'You're plucking joking! (use your imagination), I need to pay you to have the same test under a different name to top up lenses that you sent me last week that were only sent because you sent me a letter telling me I needed an eye examination before you would send me lenses which I did. What, is this some kind of initiative test? What do I need to get my next boxes? teach a dog to dance? or maybe learn to walk on stilts?'

There followed a lengthy to and fro with various assistants until finally a senior optician 'allowed' me to take them.

'That will be £16.95 please!'

'Wha! no, that's more than what I pay each month for a box'

'Thats what it says here, do you want me to check?

'Of course I want you to check, I had made sure I took a half days holiday so I could fanny around in the opticians, be my guest, check away!'

She returned with a burly assistant that reminded me of the Gruffalo, 'I have met your sister today.' I said.

'Pardon? You said this was too expensive?'

'Wha! no, I said it's more expensive than my boxes I pay for each month by direct debit and wondered why it is more expensive.'

'The price reflects the convenience.'

I really don't believe I'm hearing this, 'So let me get this right, I drive into town, come into the store ask for a box, get questioned for six hours, save you postage and I'm willing to give you money for them and you are charging me because you conveniently have them available for me to buy?'

'Yes, if we didn't stock them we would have to order them and that is an inconvenience to us, so we have them in for your convenience.'

Conveniently or inconveniently depending on how you look at these things I didn't have a shovel with which to beat the entire staff with. It took another five minutes of gentle persuasion before I finally got them at the not so convenient normal price. It makes me wonder where will it all stop, will they start charging entry fees to supermarkets because they are convenient? Convenient is the new buzz word along with 'for your benefit' which never is and the 'I'm going to disguise the fact that this product is inferior' by adding the words new and improved to the front.

So for your convenience I am levying a charge on today's blog, obviously if it's here for you to read its convenient, if I don't post it somehow it will inconvenience me in ways I haven't though of yet so please leave your donation in the hat provided and fill out this short questionnaire.

1. Name

2. Have you ever touched a dolphin on the moon?

Please answer truthfully, all answers will be checked by the government, police, opticians, dentists and possibly the Queen. If you have never touched a dolphin on the moon there is a further charge to validate your claim, please fill in form number 174/72/A and include the appropriate payment to cover our inconvenience.

 

www.petersmithcollective.co.uk Home Of Foreverbunny and the Impossimals

Gazing

With Jayne's Foreverbunny debut only a day away an unexpected parcel arrived at Bunnyopolis. A gazebo, an essential tool for outside events some of which she has booked in December. To make sure it doesn't look like a scene from Carry On Camping the first time it's set up we had a trial run in the garden. It was a good job we did.

The instructions try to be comprehensive but only succeed in describing what can only be taken as dance steps. Hold opposite legs and gently step away from each other, turn to your right and approach the opposite leg, again pull the leg gently away from your partner whilst walking backwards. Be careful of obstacles when doing this manoeuvre such as trees, furniture and sharks. Actually it didn't say sharks but then again it didn't say don't erect it in the sea.

So anybody looking down on Bunnyopolis would have seen two people waltzing the gazebo waltz as the mini 3m x 3m tent slowly erected itself and took shape.

Looks a bit like a wedding tent for unpopular people, just enough for the couple, a vicar and a small dog as a witness. We erected it in almost perfect calm weather, the next time this goes up is in a field on the 2nd of December and you can bet that it will be raining, blowing a gale and freezing cold such are these things. So if you find a small tent passing your bedroom window as you wake on the 2nd give us a wave as we tumble by on the cusp of a hurricane.

We have invested in some extra windbars and importantly weighted leg attachments to save using the tent ropes and to avoid a tripping hazard, apart from that there's not much to blog about a gazebo is there? It's white, it's very tent-ish and its got flaps and plastic windows where you can pretend by walking slowly past them whilst gradually bending your knees on a pretend set of stairs, that it indeed has a basement.

It gets even better to passers by if you repeat the manoeuvre but this time come up the 'stairs' carrying a box.

If you would like to meet Jayne at any of the Foreverbunny events and be one of the first to see the full range of Foreverbunnies then a full listing can be found on the events page of www.foreverbunny.co.uk or for this weekends events see below. I'm sure Jayne would love to see you there :)

Saturday 17th November 2012 10am-4pm

Arrow Farm Christmas Craft and Food Fair

Steetley,

Worksop,

Nottinghamshire.

S80 3DZ

 

Sunday 18th November 2012 10am-4pm

Christmas Craft Fair

North Notts Arena,

Eastgate,

Worksop,

Nottinghamshire.

S80 1QS

 

www.petersmithcollective.co.uk Home Of Foreverbunny and the Impossimals

Yay!

The general weirdness of the blog takes a break as the weirdness travels to you because today is the official start of the Christmas With The Impossimals events, four appearances with everything Impossimal. We are at Castle Galleries, Chester between 12-3pm today so come along and enjoy the fun, it's free and everyone is welcome!

For the day we have managed to secure two oil sketches, 'I Love You Too' and 'Never Let Me Go' as well as a major piece shown above called 'Because I Love You' and plenty of other Impossimal related prints and sculpture.

So if you want to know a particular story, a piece signing or just fancy a chat we will both would love to see you there a little later :)

 

www.petersmithcollective.co.uk Home Of Everything Impossimal

Forever

Inspired by the never ending fun that is Bunnyopolis and its residents Aaran, Iona and Jura, three continental giants that became our fur kids in 2011 Jayne decided to have a go at creating a little bunny plaque called 'A Hoppy Home Is a Happy Home' to go in Bunnyopolis. It was to be made out of wood from an old palette that came with a few slabs we layed in the Summer

Well, one thing led to another and Jayne made the plaque, then another, then another. Pretty soon she had moved in the studio with me and we began to work side by side, Jayne making anything and everything she could think of bunny related whilst I painted Impossimals. Then one day Jayne said 'I could make our three in wood' which seemed a splendid idea so out came the paper and pencils and we sketched Aaran, Iona and Jura as simple side profile views.

The palettes were stripped of their wood so she had plenty of raw materials to begin with, the thicker bits left for the bases of the bunnies and she started to saw away.

Once cut out the profiles looked rather simple, what was required was a bit of work to make them look attractive. Rather a lot of work actually that Jayne got stuck in to.

Through a combination of trial and error slowly a particular style started to take shape using everything from paint, pens, pencils and wire.

A little bit of fabric finished the bunnies and she ended up with this...

And so Foreverbunny was born, hand made bespoke rabbits with a real vintage feel. I'm really proud of Jayne doing this single handed, all the products look great and now include wreaths, freestanding buns and even fabric all made with a love and care as if it was going in our own home.

The Foreverbunny website went online a few weeks ago with events starting to be lined up this year and next. The first of which is on the 17th November at the Arrow Farm Christmas Craft and Food Fair, Steetly, Worksop, Nottinghamshire. Further events will be added as soon as we get confirmation and can be found at www.foreverbunny.co.uk or by clicking here. All are welcome on the day to see Jaynes Foreverbunny range for the very first time.

So I thought it would be only appropriate to celebrate it with a special Impossimal original called 'Meet The Family' featuring our own special Foreverbunnies...

'Meet The Family'

 

www.petersmithcollective.co.uk Home Of Everything Impossimal

Sketch

Work is well underway with new Impossimals after a burst of activity over the last few weeks entailing plenty of new sculpting, set building and oil sketching so full painting can start in earnest next week now everything is prepared.

A new addition is the oil sketches, although I have done them before as shown above they were primarily used to get the colour balance right and certain ideas across but now I have changed them again to be even more useful so they include a list of oils used and certain mixes that creates specific colours and tones, a date when the piece was created and relationships to pieces if necessary to link stories to other Impossimals.

This small 10"x10" image gives you an idea. Even though it doesn't include the oil paint information yet what it does show is the heavy black border I have quickly put around the piece to frame it. Using a plasticine model as a guide a rough approximation of the light is added, to help this further I will paint this again in black and white to get an idea of the depth then finally paint the main piece using all the reference materials and models. A bit more work than usual but I'm dying to get stuck in, just one more to finish off today and I have left the best till last, it's got rabbits in it!

 

www.petersmithcollective.co.uk Home Of Everything Impossimal

Bunny Comforts

Bunnyopolis is ready for the winter with its installed double glazing in the living quarters and Perspex sheeting around the open run to ensure that Aaran, Jura and Iona, our three continental giants keep snug and warm over the coming months. So what were the bunnies doing at 9am this morning?

Jura was outside enjoying appreciating the sun and taking a break from all the rain over the last few days, she's looking very regal and relaxed with her laid back ears, always a good sign. All she needs is a cup of tea and a biscuit to complete the refined lady look.

Iona on the other hand was milling about around me convinced as always that you are the bearer of gifts, namely food. Always the first in for tea and the last to leave her appetite knows no bounds but still she retains a sleek rabbit look and has the biggest eyes of all three, possibly to match her stomach. She followed me into the run where I found Aaran.

Sleepy eyed Aaran was enjoying stripping bark from some fruit tree cuttings, these are plum, which is perfectly safe but can lead to distress if you don't expect the colouring to come out the other end, yes, it is plum coloured. The bunnies love it though.

A peaceful morning at Bunnyopolis and hopefully a nice sunny day to boot.

 

www.petersmithcollective.co.uk Home Of Everything Impossimal