Harvest! 2 more artists.

It occurred to me that I'd been so tied up with arty stuff I'd ignored the leafy babies; at last we have a huge torrent of tomatoes, cherry, beefsteak & purple ones, as well as peppers.

There's also been a trickle of edible Physalis, more decorative then nutritious, but quite tasty.

For the arty amongst you, can I suggest you look at Fred Baier for his wonderful furniture, a mixture of complex 3D geometry for the geeks with textures and colours to commit murder for!
http://www.fredbaier.com/index.php
The other one I've recently re-discovered is Thomas Heatherwick & his seed Cathedral, there was a display about it at Kew a couple of years ago, I was blown away by it then, & he recently came up in 3DDesign for his magical bridge.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kq_GVcApKDQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCDReIX88FA
Have a look at them both, you'll be delighted.

building!

The end of another week, where on earth has it gone? 3D Design was enormous fun to work on, but the end product was not so good. A rather untidy card model of a modular building kit, squares to clip together into a range of buildings.Given a few weeks & lots of money to make them from plastic in many colours  it would have been good. I think I should have stayed with my original idea of a trebuchet! Paperwork & stuff more or less up to date, off to M&R tomorrow, Dr Rosey's off to Antarctica for 18/12, I'm so envious! I hope she manages to keep us informed about it all.

3DD

3D Design this week, I wasn't really sure what to expect. We have to come up with a flock of ideas for something to be built in a 55x40x20cm suitcase, which then expands out and does something! All sorts of ideas from inflatable chair, collapsible trebuchet to my final choice, a modular play-house, made from 39cm squares, with 1/2 & 1/4 pieces. In real life it would be coloured plastic, the model will be cardboard. I'll do diagrams to show the possibilities, it can be a house, tunnel, fort, boat, castle, & possibly many other things. A fun project so far.

garden, drawing.

Half a day off, doing the lawn and bringing in the tender plants. Always means Christmas is creeping up, & weather creeping down: dark evenings soon! I hope everyone has simple wish-lists. I've finished my research projects, but no good ideas on the essay yet, have to compare & contrast two artists, no other clues!
Spent this afternoon drawing, seem to be improving a little, not Leonardo yet.

Knitting show

A must for anyone remotely interested in the arty side of needlecrafts, the whole place is full of vibrating colours, buzzing artists, more materials than I could imagine using and ideas from enthusiasts to last a lifetime or two. I chatted to many people, including Ruth Lee, who's the subject of my research project on textiles. I discovered her as a knitter, but she now does prints on fine fabrics, some like the first are multi-layered.

Here are some more of the treasure trove:

I love the way the embroidery spills onto the surround, the mixed textures and the felt sky.

The witch was almost unique in being fun rather than beautiful.

 This one is hand made lace, she's been doing it for 35 years!

I have to try this, mixed photographs with mixed media, felt embroidery and all sorts.

And finally, a ball gown for the more-adventurous-than-I

"Fashion" 23

I can't believe Amy was 23 yesterday! We had supper at her house, it looks wonderful now, well worth all the work.
Where's the week gone?
Finished fashion&textiles, our brief was to design a body adornment (i.e. garment/decoration/protection) for 10,000 years after an apocalyptic event on the earth. As always some of my classmates came up with stunning designs, I had a problem being bizarre enough. Eventually came up with armour plated pointy-fishy-scale tunic with a foil head-dress and shoulder protectors. My scenario was that aliens had nuked the sun, so the explosion blew away our ionosphere, so we had to be protected from the violent electromagnetic radiation. We also needed protection from the aliens who were exporting us for slaves, and using us as an organic power source...
What next?

Real peppers! Brainwork.

Just finished the first 3 of the 5 research-into-artists files, I find it hard to comment sensibly on the quality of a bit of art, and its place in the greater scheme of things, but have found some useful & fascinating things. Look at Susan Derges & her fascinating photographic art-crossover-with-science at http://www.mhs.ox.ac.uk/derges/guide.htm
I'd love to try some of this, but developing 7 foot long Cibachromes might be a problem. I have, however just ordered some cyanotype paper from Amazon. That's the stuff that develops itself just with light & water, it's a start to play with. No doubt L&A will want to "borrow" some.
Finally after inspecting them every day, 2 peppers are ripe&succulent. I'll have more in time for A's birthday supper on Wednesday.

Looks yummy doesn't it!
All jobs done now, so settling down to some hands mucky type art.