Knickerbockergloriagone!

14th January Knickerbockergloria our GoGoDragon arrived from our sponsors Don and Carole of Bluebird Care, Norwich at our backdoor; five Impossimal launches, four new sculptures, three appearances, two signings and one commission slowed down our progress but today, two and a half months later Knickebockergloria left her temporary home for pastures new on the streets of Norwich.

Here's her story...

 When our dragon arrived she had to be manhandled into the conservatory, the studio was far too small to tackle such a project so she became a fixture, one that we saw everyday.

An oil sketch was produced of our initial design, always tricky at this stage as working in 3D never runs as smooth as it's planned.

 The first job though was an all over paint job for a base coat, we mixed this from standard dulux paint with acrylic tints to get just the right ice blue we needed, it took three coats and 2.5 litres to cover her before we could begin.

 It's about this stage you realise how mammoth the task is, painting and creating a six foot dragon is no mean feat and moving her around just as tricky. So after our experience with the London Elephant Parade we found an ideal way using plastic sheets and blocks of wood we could tilt her in most directions to make it easier to work on.

 By the end of the first week we had done quite well.

Then work started pouring in; commissions, unexpected opportunities, the cartoon series and personal appearances and launches effectively wiped out most of February for us and Knickerbockergloria started to look accusing at us most days as we passed by on the way to the studio with our heads hung low.

 Come March and we were back, the view of the heart had been constructed allowing me to see both sides of Knickerbockergloria's ice laden insides which happen to include some favourite ice lollies. The mini sculpture took two days to create and paint and a further five days to paint on her sides.

Jayne had been busy too and completed the five hundred ceramic snowflake designs for the wings, all that we needed to do now was attach them then seal them in place, another three days work.

Finally as we nearly reached the end we added invisible NFC tags to the sides and programmed them with information from Knickerbockergloria, simply tap your NFC enabled phone at these points to read them when you meet her.

 Mid March and she's free! Ready to go to the garage for a few days whilst she gets her coat sprayed with glitter!

 Today we said our goodbyes for now and watched her depart in her silver coach (white van) soon to arrive at her new home in Norwich and eventually she will be looking for a permanent home when she goes up for auction later this year.

If you want to visit Knickerbockergloria then watch this space as we will be publishing details of just when and where she will be through the Summer months. Send us your photos if you see her and we will include you on a special Knickerbockergloria special in our Autumn/Winter magazine later in the year.

Bye Knickerbockergloria, see you soon!

Here We Go Again!

After being invited by Don Gregor on behalf of Bluebird Care, a national provider of care at home to participate in GoGoDragons 2015 an interactive arts sculpture trail bringing around 80 large painted sculptures and up to 100 mini school dragons to the streets of Norwich our dragon arrived safely yesterday at Impossimal HQ to undergo its transformation.

Each of the Dragons have been sponsored by a local business, group or trust and the sculptures after being displayed on the streets of Norwich for the summer will be sold off at an auction on 1st October 2015. The proceeds of this project will fund the valuable work of Norfolk charity Break who support vulnerable children, young people and families across East Anglia.

It's not the first time we have been involved with such a project, in 2010 we took part in the Elephant Parade, London and created the Impossiphant complete with spots, hearts and Impossimals which eventually went on to raise over £30,000 for the charity through its auction, subsequent limited edition miniatures and assorted memorabilia. We hope the dragon will help in some way to raise funds in a similar manner.

This weekend we start; measurements have been taken and rough ideas sketched out, we will be trailing the designs by sketching onto the dragon to see how they fit before approximately three weeks of painting starts to complete it. It's looking like we will use extra materials to add to the structure in some way to make it a tactile creation and it will include NFC technology to make it a truly interactive sculpture, possibly with its own website and story that can be accessed in various ways through smart technology.

 

So here we go again, all this will be attempted whilst I carry on with the Lost Alice piece now in its fifth painting week and create the special Lost Impossimal for the Michelin starred night at the Pipe & Glass in May.

 

Phew!

 

You can follow our dragon on Twitter at @sapphire1dragon or at @impossimal, all the dragons can be found tweeting away at hashtag #ggd15 and #gogodragons2015.

 

GoGoDragons can also be found on Facebook, Instagram and many other social media sites, simply visit www.gogodragons.co.uk for details of these and information about the charity the dragons are supporting.

 

Our fabulous dragon sponsor can be found at www.bluebirdcare.co.uk

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

Norwich Or Bust

Artists are queer people, they smell of linseed and dress oddly to the rest of us. They have sticks full of pig bristles and squeeze coloured snakes from metal tubes as if by magic. They then dip the pig bristles in the colourful snakes and make a mess on something called a canvas.

 Artists sleep upside down like bats and have reoccurring nightmares about one day having to become normal. At night they use sonar location to find the nearest wine bottle and talk endlessly about themselves to themselves.

 Artists have big chillies and like to show off their big chillies by painting them red.

Most nights artists can be found laying down in a pile of corks from their many wine binges they have to cope with the mental stress of creativity.

If you wish to see an example of an artist and how thoroughly distressing they look in real life then we have our professional drunk 'Peter Smith' on display this weekend Saturday 12th September at Castle Fine Art in Norwich between 12-3pm. Come along for an unstable chat with this weirdo before we lock him back up and throw away the key.

Castle Fine Art has now moved and has a brand spanking deluxe gallery space at its new location 13 Back Of The Inns, Norwich. Peter will be specially caged on the day to avoid public distress and harm so please come along, he won't bite. Well, not much anyway. Please keep all arms and legs away from Peter and under no circumstances give him a brush.

See you tomorrow in sunny Norwich :)