Sculpting, sawing and Superglueing!

Got so wrapped up in things this morning (with one eye on my dumb phone in case I'm needed in the office this afternoon), I totally forgot it was blog day since I've just logged on now having realised. And my smart phone is dead as a dodo (oh, and now my dumbie is too!) so I'm waiting to see if it will wake up to take some pictures...

I've been racing ahead with the next four pieces when I'd planned to return to painting after the first 'collection'. Now I've almost completed three of them (not decided what the fourth will be yet). One of them needs a new base since the weight of the figure is a bit too much for the lightness of the base. I'm slowly hack sawing my way through a block of wood today since it's only a small saw and it doesn't cut too well.

Edit: Alrightee, I have 7% battery now so I can take a picture. So much clutter around me it's not great (are they ever?) but you get the idea. Bit of a sport/leisure theme with this batch and I like tennis, though it's not as good to watch as back in the olden days when games were full of interesting shots rather than cannonballs being thwacked from the back of the court for hours.

Funny to see how I also prefer watching gymnastics from the 70s, 80s and 90s to much of today's work. I wonder if changing equipment has created greater efficiency and/or safety for the athletes but less enjoyment for spectators...

Spent an hour or so at the gallery scraping flaking paint off doors and door frames, ready for painting this weekend if the weather holds. No primer had been used by previous tenants and it just had been given more layers of gloss as the years passed. Now it's pretty bad and needs tarting up.

The back 'step' which was a sloping piece of concrete and slippy as heck in the wet has been raised, levelled and covered in black and white tiling and looks really smart.

The tiles outside the toilet are to be replaced with the same thing and I really hope they can lift them intact so they can be reused. Some are already broken and maybe they're too old to salvage but we'll see.

The salmon pink dancer leaping in the hoop has sold. I quite liked that one, which is a turn around considering it sat for months in its initial abstracty state and I hated it.

The gallery is due a change around with some plinths to go in the centre space and my pieces will go there. At the moment I think they're lost in the current location and easily missed as people come in at the door so a better site will catch more eyes.

Carshalton Open Studios has now finished and though there were plenty of artists involved, reports are that numbers are down a bit. Various reasons why have been mooted but sometimes it's just the way it goes.

One thing the gallery did was to have a teen version. Selected kids from local schools were teamed up with a mentor and tasked with producing developmental work and final pieces to be sold. They learned a bit about the business of art and how art sells - a brilliant idea and still lacking in university level art courses. Wish I'd had that opportunity when I was young. What a difference it would have made but this'll be a terrific boost for those who'd like to make a career out of their art.