All work and a bit of play

Did I say these 3 new pieces would keep me out of trouble for a week? Maybe a bit more than a week. Actually they are almost finished after 12 days on-off work so not bad going really. The mod rock duo remain 'unclothed'. No surprise there. The 2 other pieces ended up being wholly paper pulp which was a change to the original plan.

The beam gymnast was such a nice pose when I got into it (changing the arm positions several times) so I wanted it to look nicely proportioned. I quite like this one; it's worked out well without any mess ups along the way. (Spot the new bases I sourced from here. Really glad I found these, they are lovely.)The acro duo was less horrific to do than I'd imagined. Did have to do a bit of surgery to extend a support arm as I miscalculated the wire length for the guy, and the leg positions moved around a bit until he was balanced ok. Just a bit more work to do on that then decision time on how they will both be painted.

Took a bit of time out this week and went to Mayfield Lavender Farm - a great place to spend a couple of hours inhaling the scent and absorbing the incredible colour on what was a pretty hot day. I misread my hand drawn map and got lost on the way home but after a long string of directions from some other cyclists I made it back without any errors. Turned out to be a lovely ride too - worth the hassle of realising I was going in the totally wrong direction and getting annoyed at the wayward sign posting.

Whizzed around some of the Carshalton Open Studio sites today as well but not enough time to see them all as I wanted to get as close to finishing these pieces so I can get moving on something new. Next year maybe I will be able to take part as well. It's all good and well diddling with stuff at home but at some point you have to get the stuff out there and get some feedback and critique. And here's a thought - sell something! Ah, still haven't got my shop app thing done. Most upset to find that PayPal have bought Stripe, which I was going to use as the payment provider. Rats. Need to think about that. Please tech companies, can the public be allowed to have independent operators without you lot sucking them all into your world dominating portfolios cos you can't handle them being better than you! Rant rant. Sigh. Right, better hit 'publish' before my laptop croaks from the heat again.