Nottingham #1

The end of the week of posts leading up to the opening event and wow, the gallery was decked out with an ten foot Sherlock Sidewinder to greet us along with a fantastic display filling the window.

Opening events are always a little awkward as its the first time the new work is on show for the collectors to see first hand but as you can see above the gallery soon started to fill. It was the first time too we had appeared at Castle Fine Art after its move earlier in the year so we were keen to see how it had fared. It looked impressive with a great viewing room downstairs to see any artwork in a more intimate environment and a fantastic double fronted space to boot in which hung Bloodlines.

As you can see collectors came along to view the new work and collected pieces, we also had the two new sculptures available to see for the very first time along with several oil sketches and unique originals. At all the events will be a selection of very rare Impossimal pieces, so if you have been looking for something special and have not been able to locate it you may be lucky at one of the appearances on the tour.

So a fab day all round kicking off the thirty appearances, if you do get chance, pop along and say hello at any of the dates and this applies to Impossimal and Lost Impossimal collectors alike, it may be Bloodlines but we are still Impossimal mad through and through!

Finally the official tour guide is now available, they are packed with stories and behind the scenes info but are too big to post out so contact your local gallery near any of the events to secure your copy or turn up on the day to get it personally signed.

Next up Saturday 14th, Artisan Gallery, Epping and Sunday 15th, Castle Galleries, Stratford Upon Avon.

 

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

Last Off The Bus

Always be the last off the bus, remember that, it has served me well.

Many years ago when I left school and started work I used to walk a lot. I walked to work, I walked to town during dinner breaks and walked home at night. These cars were a familiar sight on the roads, their history is an incredibly rich one and was a solution the government decided on to give mobility back to all the injured servicemen from World War II. They were meant for one and the inside resembled the handlebars of a motorbike stuffed in a telephone box, they cornered in a wide arc to stop rolling but could get up to some incredible speeds.

How do I know this? Well, I was unfortunate enough to be working with an individual that was not disabled but then again didn't have a driving licence only a motor bike licence hence he had one as a runabout. It never dawned on him as he pulled up along side me one Autumn morning that offering a lift was a little rash.

Still, with the stupidity of youth I climbed in. I say climbed in, it was more like playing sardines. I opened the door and look in disdain, five inches were left on the single seat, how on earth was I going to fit.

'Come on, I'll budge up.' and he did giving me the luxury of six inches to fit my amble bottom in. It was a squeeze, you know when you see stupid attempts at how many people you can fit in a telephone box well it was that, from outside it must have looked like a car full of badly dressed flesh for I was wearing cords and he had a brown suit on. Come to think of it there was a couple of other chaps in the office with weird cars, one of them attended big parties on family estates at the weekend but drove to work in a Russian car with two gears, cinema seats for extra comfort and used the handbrake as the main brake, I kid you not. He did upgrade it later to a Lada which had the luxury of indicators but stuck with the habit of signalling with his hands.

Anyway, if you were walking down that road around '84 you would have seen two blokes crammed in a small three wheeled metal box squashed up against the doors, faces inches from the windscreen, sorry if we startled you. Trundling away we approach our first problem, how to turn corners. It was too cramped for him to reach over properly without being sued to steer so he came up with the unique solution of us having our own side of the steering handlebars. Basically if we wanted to go left I pulled and breathed in if we wanted right he pulled and did the same a sort of driving rowing excercise. As you can see health, safety, Highway Code and any other law you would like to throw at it went out of the window.

It got more daring as we went faster, hit anything potholey and we bounced into the roof to compress our spines, took a corner rakishly and alley oop, two wheels bond style. Braking was fun, I just love pressing my face at 30mph against angled glass whilst the single front wheel ground into the carriage way leaving a waving squiggle of rubber behind us. So with that we swerved and wound our way down straight roads and bounced off the kerbs on curved ones. Parking was a pain, we had to get out and lift it when he wanted to reverse. I arrived to work five minutes faster but developed a fine streak of grey hair. The same day I went out with another guy in the office who drove at high speed everywhere and braked Sweeny style, I had all on stopping him shouting 'Shut it, you slag!' At every opportunity. Yes, he had a potty mouth too. Anyway he Sweenied to a halt a little too quickly and a car thudded in to the back of ours turning my neck into a rubber band. This was days before whiplash injuries so I just wore stiff polo necks for the next six months. Climbing out of the car Mr Potty Mouth had a field day, I just curled up in the footwell and wept.

It's shortly after this that I decided to get my own transport and bought myself a push bike. I was knocked off weeks later when a disqalified motorist didn't see me but decided I needed to perform a forward somersault over his bonnet. He drove off leaving me and my bent bike in a bleeding muddled mess, I had a bang to the head but I'm alright sausages and trifle.

Looking back it was quite an lively few months in '84, a vintage year for transport related failures. I eventually gave in and started to get the bus, I must be one of the only people to witness a horror hurl. Riding upstairs was always exciting but sit at the back on the top deck sometime near Christmas when you have had rather a lot to drink and you get bounced about an awful lot, gradually you feel like a shaken pop bottle and something's got to give. Fortunately for me I was not that person, I was sat a few seats ahead but was well aware of the grunts and groans emitting from behind.

My stop came up and I rose, so did the bouncy groaner from the back seat, my spider sense tingled and I paused just long enough for him to stumble by. I didn't fancy him falling on me as he climbed down the narrow stairs. There were quite a number of people getting off so the queue was building from below and about three people were on the stairs when he reached the top and let it all go.

It sounded like somebody had dropped a soggy blamange. Lets just say that I never want to pick my way down that staircase ever again, it was like the ill persons version of the Tunnel Of Love. Dark, slippy with a smell that curled your toes. How they got it out of their hair, clothes and carrier bags I'll never know. Hope they had plenty of sand on board because as I strode away I heard a chorus of synchronised sympathy hurling. Merry Christmas indeed.

And that is why I will always be the last off the bus.

 

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

Fingering For An Answer

 

One of the biggest problems for me with painting and using the chemicals associated with them is dry cracked hands. Over the years I have used many methods to avoid it with varying degrees of success so I decided to google it and see what I could find.

Well, I haven't had my retina burned as much since I decided to innocently search for a 'nice cream pie'

"I cook every day with butter and always rub it on my hands, I also rub in bacon grease and any animal fat I cook with. Rub it in hard then let your dog lick it off, my fingertips haven't cracked for two seasons."

I bet. Unfortunately I don't fancy my fingers smelling like sausages to passing pooches, call me picky but doesn't it make life a little difficult leaving greasy bacon flavoured marks on everything you touch? Anyway, I soldered on and found this bit of sage advice.

"I wonder why they use world plant oils as a replacement for the animal skin oil we lose that results in dry skin, too bad they don't have lotion made from human oil skin"

WTF! Freshly pressed humans to make an oil hat nourishes your skin? Seriously, you have issues, well played Internet, well played indeed.

"Burn a candle and pour the hot wax over the cracked areas, it may sting but the wax will seal in the moisture."

Wow, never thought of that, I must set fire to a wax stick immediately, I'm sure the burning sensation will make me completely forget about the cracks and the third degree burns will remind me how effective it is as a remedy. I suppose you might be the same person that suggested wire wool and detol makes a great scrub for your genitals. Took me three weeks with my legs in stirrups to get over that one.

"Use udder cream or nipple cracking cream, both are ideal to soothe damaged hands. Regularly rub udder cream in vigorously and work it into a lather to make them feel extra sexy"

Eeek, I think you are posting in the wrong forum, the last thing I want to do is 'work up a sexy lather' when dealing with udder cream, try Cow Pokers Corner, the forum for Cow Fanciers With Dubious Practices next door.

"I tried all kind of lotions, bandaids and superglue before I tried Tipex and now I wouldn't use anything else. A blob of Tipex on the end of my fingers each day seals the tips and I haven't had dry or cracked skin for years."

You have probably not had any friends either as they were too embarrassed to be seen with you and your white tipped digits. Superglue? I know it was developed to heal wounds in the Vietnam war but using it on cracked fingers is a little extreme, I mean, what if it isn't dry and you nip to the loo? Last thing I want is a digit permanently stuck to my bottom hole.

This next one delivers a little too much information, if you are looking to steal an identity he's your guy. This was posted openly as a reply to cracked and dry hands...

"I'm a male, 5' 9" and 140 pounds soaking wet after eating a pizza LOL. but I suffer the same problem. However, I've been working long hours in the last month or so though (I work in advertising, so sometimes days are 9am - 10pm or later), at my company's building, and incidentally, washing my hands with the soap in the lav there much more than in the past.

But I went to college in the midwest, just south of Lake Michigan, and survived some brutal winters....with and without gloves, and NEVER experienced this problem before."

I'm sure the guy has a problem but in two short paragraphs we know his name, height, weight, preference for food, job type, hours worked, toilet hygiene habits and where he went to college, a brief look at his profile and we have his age too and we also know he has cracked and sore fingers. It gets worse. On the same site was this...

"I used to have cracked fingers from fishing but I found that if I stroke an otter after touching fish my fingers don't crack any more, it's as if otter oil is protecting my fingers. Does anybody make otter oil?"

Oh Internet you really have excelled yourself, I must try that and nip to Boots to see if they have an otter I can purchase to liberally rub up against every day, it will match the goose I stroke to relieve my symptoms of anxiety and the pygmy goat I lick to relieve flatulance.

"the best treatment for severely dry, cracking skin is prevention."

Hang on, prevention is not treatment, it's like, prevention.

"Rub castor oil on your hands and wear cotton socks on them overnight."

Yes, and wake up screaming when you think your legs are wrapped around the back of your neck.

"You might consider increasing the amount of oil you consume in your diet, drinking more olive or hemp oil will increase the suppleness of your skin and prevent a variety of skin disorders."

Really? Well pour me a pint of your finest virgin olive oil and fire up the chip pan, I'm about to grease my insides up, I can almost feel the lubrication oozing out of every pore. It may prevent a variety of skin disorders apart from one, stretching. A couple of weeks of this and my skin will feel like a babies bum that coupled with the twenty six stone I have piled on will increase my confidence and allow me to call myself 'bubbly'.

"Handle some sheep! Makes your hands soft as a babys butt. Use Lanolin, just don't get too close to a male sheep during breeding season, as that lanolin is some strong-smelling stuff!"

No comment.

You always know its time to stop googling when you reach entries like this.

"I know of a brick mason that came to my taxidermy shop to beg bear fat to render for his hands, failing that he wanted possum."

And this...

"I find fat or grease hard to wear so I have come up with a handy alternative. Go to Walmart and buy some dollar sausages, fry them and let them cool. Use a sharp knife and cut them lengthways before sliding them onto your fingers. Keep them on for as long as possible then eat them, I haven't had problems since."

No, I bet you haven't.

It's been really difficult typing this today what with all the Tipex, oil and sausage grease dripping off my fingers that I have had to resort to wrapping them in my underpants so I'm sat here butt naked next to an otter sipping at my gin and Mazola. I hope one of these works or I'm going to feel a real idiot but at least I'll have a snack to cheer me up and I have managed to work up a sexy lather.

 

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

Invention Test

Something was rattling at the bottom of my swimming bag, thrusting my hand in the pouch revealed an assortment of odd objects I didn't recollect packing with my trunks. It was my combination lock that had somehow managed to spontaneously combust over night to become a 3D jigsaw.

It's set the theme for today, I'm back model making for my last Lost Impossimal so after fiddling with the lock and understanding how it works I decided to crack on and start to build a new lighting rig.

Here's the start, this will be turned into a miniature television, just got a few things to hack into it including this jumble of wires.

Some old LED lights I saved after their transformer burned out, I knew they would come in useful. Chopping a few off I checked that they still worked.

Yay! Blutac and a nine volt battery and we are away. So today I will be constructing another scene so I can get exactly the right atmosphere for the Impossimals. I have used this method a couple of times when lighting has been required, this model I made last year.

Part of a cross between a machine called The Turk and a fortune telling machine similar to the one in The movie Big. The painting required moody lighting so I constructed this in a shoe box, the final painting reflected this moody look and allowed me to get some real depth into it.

One of the biggest pieces though was this, the scene for the return of the Sherlock Sidewinder and his most deadly adversary. I'm only showing a small portion but I built an entire Victorian street complete with railings, pavement and road, bridge and of course lit lampposts which you can see here. The resulting glow cast its light across walls and using a tight triple perspective I constructed a scene that places you in the street, the feel of three dimensions is quite uncanny but time consuming to paint. On the ground is three hundred cobbles, each painted individually and lit from two directions, one with a warm gas light glow the other with a blue cast from the mist under the bridge.

This is a daylight detail shot, measurements for the house were taken from old Victorian building plans and the bridge was also modelled from accurate measurements. The whole thing is made from balsa wood, card, paper and lots of hot glue. When finished the complete set was five foot long and was only used for one painting before being dismantled and eventually turned into this.

Which brings me back round to my lighting rig project for today to add some much needed shadows into the scene. Better get cracking, it's not going to make itself!

 

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

Big Benned

I have just spent two days absolutely brain dead, no ideas, no creative thoughts whatsoever that it started to get more than a little worrying. Eventually I came to the conclusion that the last six months workload had contributed to the moment along with my last Lost Impossimal painting, Big Ben.

It was a tall order, make Big Ben from cardboard, place it in a scene with an Impossimal and paint it in the traditional style of the turn of the century 1900. Boy, did it take some doing.

First the construction of Big Ben. I had no detailed scale to work to so employed my old architect skills and used measurements from photographs to come up with a rough proportion shape which I fashioned out of an old cardboard box for rigidity. You can see the construction lines above. This was then placed in my scene and I started work on the plasticine Impossimal that was going to feature in it. The whole process took three days to model, adjust, strengthen when it collapsed, model again and finally photograph ready for the next process, transferring all that work onto a prepared board for painting.

I'd like to say it was painless but actually it was far from it. The angle I wished to work at used multiple vanishing points, all of which had to be adjusted to account for the inaccuracy of my model, further more my Impossimal had real hands so using photographs of my own these had to be worked in to grip on to Big Ben in the right places.

Getting the brickwork looking Big Ben'ish was cruicial, this was the first stage of a nine day painting process on the clock that took into account all the detail before I painted over the top of it in places with my Lost Impossimal. Every aspect was checked and the painting turned upside down occasionally to look for errors.

Eventually I made it to the clock face and decoration, another days work using a mapping system I learned many years ago when surveying a road network.

It paid dividends, here's the first face halfway through the detailing, already it's looking rather accurate.

Four weeks from start to finish, joining nine others raring to go. Only they will have to wait a while longer. Two more to paint over the next two months then I start on tying up all the links between the items in the paintings and rewriting the stories accordingly. Then and only then will I start to build the final document that will form Bloodline, a story of household items, a surprising chain of historical events, nostalgia, horror and ultimately murder. I can't wait!

 

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