Bedroom chair up cycle

 Well, I’ve been super busy but I’m pleased to say I managed to remain on target re desk chair.

So here it is, not yet finished but at least ppl can now understand what I’m on about.

Ok, so here are the earlier stages in the process..

I covered the buttons.  This took a couple of hours.

Then I did the Diamond Tufting, where I basically followed the instructions in this video:

Diamond Tufting Tutorial

This is a fantastic tutorial, grab a coffee and learn. 

When I came to make my own piece, kept referring back to the video for hints and tips that really explain what you should be aiming/looking for.  In short, you work with the grain of the fabric to keep your tension perfecto.  I had to re-do only two tufts, and that was because the backrest of this chair was curved.

By the time I realised how the curve of the backrest would alter my design, I knew what would go where, so made the adjustments as I went along.  A lot of people at that point may have felt they needed to re-draw the plan.  I knew that was not where the problem lay, because the plan was fitted to the shape.  The problem lay in the distance between fabric holes, taking account of the curve e.g. I needed to ‘decrease’ widths on the inner curve.

Above is the back of the Tufting.  I used buttons to secure the thread as I didn’t want to use more staples. 

Next I will have to use Sliding Knots on those threads and tidy up the whole area and cover in felt.

This is the section I’m working on now. More about that next time. This is so far my favourite part. I’m using drum tight mini back stitches, working with the grain and using a curved needle.  I must have done this in a previous life, because I sense an innate knowledge of this kind of thing.  It is ‘weird’ working on this part of the chair. (Anyone reading this blog knows my interpretation of weird means eerie.  Eerie nice and ‘connected’, not eerie creepy)

Gotta go xx

Completed desk reveal

 This is a super quick post because I am swamped with work but also very excited about how the Diamond Tufting has gone.

But for now, here is my darling old desk, putting its best foot forward once more and a very pleasing addition to the minimalist bedroom.  

The last photo is a bit dark but it shows the driftwood modesty board and the inner shelf.

I would say the Zinser BIN was excellent, but you do have to de-wax it quickly with White Spirit and a rag, before applying the latex paint.

Finishing drawer fronts, desk top and blue painted leg supports with polyurethane water based varnish means it’s hard wearing and easy to clean.

I am very pleased....(it is usually quite difficult to please me).

The whole thing took, on and off about 6 weeks, which is a long time but no part of it could be rushed or fudged. 

Here is a close up of the finished top. I used Rustoleum Weathered Wood: White Smoke and Ash Grey.

I am pleased to say, the desk has passed the test, in that in years to come, when I retire to Carbis Bay to paint seascapes until my number is up, the desk will be loaded onto the lorry.

Now back to my Diamond Tufting x

Diamond tufting chair back

 Oh wow, another challenge for time-poor headless chicken.

So diamond tufting is an exact science. It needs a grid, it maths, it needs rulers and all kinds of things that make you want to knit instead.

So, I worked on my design from the inside out, being a bit different and very fussy.

I figured the centre of the chair back needs to have a diamond right in the middle.  If that diamond is not where it should be, the whole thing will be horrid.

So I drew out my first rhombus, two acute angles and two obtuse angles, in proportion to the thickness of the foam.  2 inches, that’s the only maths I’ll touch.  I’m an artisan through and through.

So here’s the design...

Ok, so you can see the central diamond is cut out and stuck to the middle of the chair back rest template.

Now all I have to do is drill holes into the pink dots.

The template took 10 minutes to draw up, what took forever was driving to the store for the self cover buttons.  The traffic was very congested and anyway, that’s done, so tomorrow I shall start drilling.  

I had to order the tacks from an online retailer, they’re not here yet, so only the holes can be done tomorrow.

I cut the foam for the seat with an electric knife I borrowed from my parents.  It went through the foam like frozen butter.

Here is the seat...

Yes, it’s pink fun fur with gold highlights. I doubled the fabric and used the staple gun, as you would tack down a canvas for a painting.  The front of the seat has a dip and consequently looks like buttocks.  This was not planned for, obviously and I’m hoping the tacks I bought are going to be good, because if they are I shall tack round the seat too and hopefully that way the buttocks suggestion will fade out (?).

Stay sane,, gotta go xxx

Desk finished, now working on chair

 Hey ppl, outside there is freezing fog today.

I managed to finish the desk, but not after a last minute go to moment of sanding and refinishing the desk top.

The polyurethane water based varnish I used reacted with that wonderful colour I’d achieved, so much so that the patina looked like it had been subjected to 20 years of nicotine.  I had moved the desk back into the bedroom and immediately I just couldn’t live with the results the varnish had caused.  The desk was basically 30 shades darker....what!

So I hauled it back downstairs (it weighs a ton) and went at it for 10 mins with my trusty sander, then repainted it much lighter. 24 hours later I did the same and 24 hours after that, I applied the same varnish, but this time watered down by 25%.  It says on the tin not to do that, but I had a further trick up my sleeve.

I then grabbed a fan heater, set it to hot, closed the door and maxed out the dying time of the varnish to about 05 mins.  Went in, exchanged the air and then did the same again.  

I didn’t have time to reassemble the desk, so set to work on the chair. I’ll show pictures of the chair next time, because the seat is reupholstered and the primer is done, but I’m still working out the design of the back rest, I’ve decided I want buttons...what have I let myself in for....?

So here’s the ‘seaside’ themed desk....

I used Zinsser BIN for the primer coat to block out the woodstain and finished with latex eggshell.  There are no splinters anywhere now, or dark bits.  I used wall paint Matt on the drawer fronts and finished with polyurethane varnish again, they’re very nice and satiny now.  I like to look at Matt, but in a situation where you have to interact with it, it has to be Matt varnished too.  I could have used latex satin, but the way I did it, it’s even more durable.  The blue is darker now as a result but the room it’s going in is pretty dark, so it’s toned down up there. 

Stay busy people, it will get us through...

Desk top and modesty board finished

Only have time to post one  piccy.  I have managed to conjure the ghost of the previous life from within the wood.  Oh don’t you just love all the loaded suggestion of gorgeous driftwood!

Have to catch up with the day job now and line up my soldiers for stage two of desk e.g. prepping and applying Zinser BIN to internals.  Zinser is the best invention ever!  The whole world is your canvas with fabulous Zinser!  Can also save you mucho dinero, for sure...

Design is complete.  I’ve already started to move on to my next project in my head.  It’s a mini set of drawers from Ikea where I’m making a taller unit and decoupage drawer fronts, adding new handles and painting the whole thing in.....you guessed it: GOLD.

“I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams." - Hamlet, II.ii

I am funking up my furniture!

It worked ppl, it worked! My reputation lives to tell another tale.

Final design of desk is also complete in my brain box, will draw and colour it later, when things are quieter and I’ve cleaned up a bit.

So here are before and after blah, gotta go ppl and try hold down the day job...

Driftwood desk (originally Schrieber)

Oh wow, I bet you could maybe see that the job ahead of me was going to be fun fun fun!  All I can say is, what a wonderful way to forget that I’m in prison, as it were,and that we live in such maniacal times that it’s even illegal to venture to The Range.

So, we’re with Rustoleum’s Weathered Wood now, and so far so good.  I bought two tins, the ash grey and the smoke white to work in layers.  You need to stir this product really well, because it separates while standing on shelves at the retailers.  I bought two colours because driftwood, or aged wood per se, is always more than just one colour.  I also mixed in at the start, a small amount of Farrow & Ball’s ‘Pointing’ colour.  I adore Farrow and Ball, but to my mind, Darling Wilko cooks up fantastic cheaper alternatives.  

Once the Rustoleum Weathered Wood was mixed to the consistency of single cream, I went to work...

There was a nail-biting hour or so, after it was all prepped, when I felt completely at a loss as to how to proceed e.g. to work from dark to light, or light to dark?  This dilemma threw into question just how much sanding I had ahead of me, thankfully there was none.   The colour that was left, which was eventually very red, I decided to retain and use as the dark undertone, for when I sand and wire brush paint back later, that red under layer will appear as small dark areas, a bit like Sgraffito.  

There are very good videos out there showing how to approach both options, but there are more videos of people working from dark to light, so I went with that interpretation.

First, I stripped both panels, being the modesty board and the desk top, with a wire brush, then I stripped them with chemical varnish stripper, from Darling Wilko.  Then, after two hours, I scrapped off the gloup with a plastic scraper.  Then I washed off all the residue with soda and white vinegar.....that’s when ‘light bulb in head‘ moment happened and I said to myself “right, now I get it!’.

Put simply, to my way of understanding this faux patina thing, it’s only when water swells the wood that the nature of the wood changes, be it rain, fresh, or salt water, it’s the water part that really kicks things off.  

So after the wood had been scrubbed, it became a velvety cold surface that opened up to the various layers of paint.  I suppose what I’m trying to say is, that’s when it became super-porous and absorbent.  So the colour you are applying will actually go into the wood and change it, as well as rest on its surface.

And off I went....

The last photo is my favourite so far, but things have moved on a lot since then, more for another post.

I am so enjoying slapping on this fake patina, it’s really, really enjoyable!  I have always wanted to recreate driftwood, so for me, to do this to that desk is so special.

Whenever I see a piece of driftwood I’m always completely transported back in time, following its battered path over many years to become such a remarkable object.  To the concept of interiors, the past is fundamental.  From the beginning of time, in our dwellings we have always given respect to those that went before, and what I particularly love about driftwood is it’s wood with the appearance of a bone or fossil....and you KNOW how I adore my fossils and bones.

To think, we can now make our own driftwood from convenient tins!  Much better than organising dawn raids of coastal regions.

The desk is going to take looooooonger than I thought, but the drawers are now a source of creative zeal, because being small, and something you interact with, the possibilities are.....endless....

Stay sane ppl, there’s not much more of this imprisonment to go...

Moroccan bedroom - more pictures

Well, it will come as no surprise that I’m getting dangerously close to the limit of my budget for this bedroom.  So far I’ve bought one dud, which is not too bad, considering a dud or two are inevitable in projects like this.  

So I’m trying to create a feeling, an experience, and a big change in my environment.  I think I have achieved this, but now, because my sanctuary is so vastly improved, I’ve set my sights on another room, but because the money has run out, I’ve started up-cycling furniture.  

To be honest, I didn’t want to start doing that now, on top of everything else, but we have to ask ourselves, when is the right time for anything, actually?  Exactly, the right time is always the time you decide it HAS to be done.

Ok, so here are some photos of the bedroom, with the dressing table and canvas on the wall and another piece that I think works really well, that’s out of this shot.  

Here you can see how the purple background and gold stencil colours are mixed in the eye, to create a kind of rich brown.  This effect blends well with the earth colour of the walls.  I’m so glad the curtains can remain the same, I really didn’t want to start looking for curtains.  You can also see in the image above, an RSJ sticking out of the feature wall.  This idiosyncrasy of the room was always a potential problem, but I think now, it somehow adds something strangely positive to the whole effect.  I did worry quite a bit about how the RSJ would look, I’m so pleased its totally fine.  

OK, so above is a rather blurry picture, I’m afraid, of the dressing table area I created.  As you can see, I simply hung the Moroccan style mirror much lower than usual for it to also be the dressing table mirror and it works!  The mirror really suits the room too.   

I’ve changed the orientation of the dressing table, in that now I face the light, which is much better and I changed the chair I used to have, for this dinky stool in a very Moroccan colour.  This means the dressing table and the door can comfortably co-exist.  I’ve eliminated a small chest of drawers I used to have near the entrance of the room.  I was so pleased I did that, because now when you come into the room, there is nothing in the way, just lots of space.  Creating space is very important in room design.  

The stool was about £50 which was OK, but I could have got something much cheaper at TK Max, if the colour wasn’t so essential.   This time, the colour was utterly essential, because I needed a very warm colour to shake up that end of the room.  I like that the dressing table is white and so practical.  I didn’t want a traditional dressing table anymore.   I had one of those before, I wanted something cozy, inviting and contemporary this time.  

The opulent feature wall meant I needed to accessorise with vibrant jewel-like colours, so I found that gorgeous Vietnamese turquoise box at TK Max and the gilded budgies.  I think the budgies are hysterical and I complemented them with a crystal tea light goblet thingy on the other side, to catch the light. The key themes are location, colour, space and de-cluttered peace.  

The storage unit is from Ikea, my daughter chose it and the boxes, knowing the bedroom would be Moroccan soon.  I was very pleased she did that, because I saw the potential in that storage unit as a dressing table right away and luckily found just the right mirror to complement the feature wall at the other end of the room.  

Ok, so here is the blank canvas, still completely...um blank.  Well, all I can say is, we’ve had such dark, dreary weather, no one in their right mind could conjure up the North African climate to get the colours right.  Also, another thing happened.  DH decided to become a little tiresome about what would actually be in the painting.  I found this at first, interesting, then, somewhat annoying.  He’s being funny about all this change I’ve imposed anyway, so I decided to give him some time to adjust.  But its a little more tricky than that.  I think that because the room is so successful, he’s now doing that very male thing, which is to become territorial.  

In all honesty, the wall is so good, the painting I’m supposed to do is now....um scary!  Not scary scary, but scary decisions, type of scary.  Should it be very colourful, as I first imagined it, or should it somehow tie in with the effect of the feature wall?  The jury is still out and my knees are knocking...

If I have to,  I will wait until the spring to decide, because that’s exactly what happened when we were trying to decide on bathroom tiles.  November’s low light conditions is no time to choose colours.  What I think I will do though, is paint some pieces of paper in single colours and cut them up and move them around on the canvas, to see if they work or whatever.  As I mentioned before, I have 4 images that I’m working from.  

Ok, and here is the other piece that I‘ve put up.  It looks even better on the wall than in the shop and does exactly what I wanted it to do, which is to remind me of Moroccan plasterwork and all its wonderful intricacies, it looks like stone carved into lace.  I bought it in The Range, love that shop!

 I bought all my paints, by the way, at Wilko.  We do so love our darling Wilko over here.  Their paints are fabulous and last year I did three rooms in Wilko paints, including painting the kitchen cupboards with chalk paint and sealing them with lacquer.  

All of that turned out very well, even though for the kitchen I had to apply a whopping 160 coats of paint, luckily with a mini roller.  (What’s really interesting, is my neighbour is now doing the same to her kitchen, but has called in a specialist company to do the work called ‘Funk up my furniture’.  Love that name!)

So the piece below is quite heavy in weight, but not as heavy as the mirror.  I’m the one round here that hangs everything, and this time I had to use a self-drilling nylon fixing that was going into a hollow wall.  Again, Wilko are fantastic for those things, because they always have the max weight of a fixing printed on the pack.  Takes the guess work out of so much stuff like this.  

I am going to speak very quickly about drilling into walls...  OK, so I will mark a cross, push in a bradawl, then use the thinnest drill piece to make a pilot hole.  Then I will go in with a wider drill bit, then finally, with the drill bit I need for that fixing.  This means I always manage to drill straight.  Drilling straight is hard and that’s my solution anyway. 

So, going back to the desk I’m up-cycling.

It’s an old Schrieber desk with matching chair made in GDR when I was 12.  Goodness, that’s how old the thing is!  I must confess, I wanted to donate it to charity, but I tested it fully for creaks, rocking and generalised weakness and ppl, let me tell you, there is NONE!  Same for the chair.  Now the thing is this, it looks really ‘industrial’ and that’s something I just adore and its another theme that’s very hot in interior design now.  Industrial, distressed, aged, bashed up, concrete, rusted metal, you name it, the legacy of our industrial past is now fertile style-ground in the world of interiors.  

So, today I took it apart and hauled it downstairs, tomorrow I’m going to strip it and go at it with a wire brush like a thing possessed.  Wish me luck ppl, there’s a lot hanging on the Schrieber revamp.  It has two drawers and a colossal modesty board.  I wanted to get rid of them, but I think the drawers could offer a chance for something interesting, perhaps in contrast to the treatment of the top?  And the modesty board adds stability to the desk and the last thing I want is after all this work for the desk to start wobbling, creaking or to inadvertently feel flimsy.  This is no flimsy desk, it weighs a ton and I can’t wait to give it a new lease of life...

Oh, one last thing, here is a close-up of the stencil wall, because I wanted you to see the adorable purple up close..

The Moroccan bedroom is done

Oh wow, what an interlude.

I’m very happy with what the decorator did.  He created something quite stunning and dare I say opulent.

Now I wasn’t expecting that, so now I have to reverse the relationship: wall now opulent, painting needs to be distressed. 

There was no way I could make the decorator, who is worth his weight in gold, understand that I wanted vintage, faded, handmade or distressed.  None of those words were part of his artistic output. 

The guy worked for 5 hours solid on my feature wall, which can only be described as stunning.

DH is dead chuffed, which was a very nice surprise and not expected, at all. 

So, I had to up my game, as they say.

Now, finally, for the fun part..... the canvas!

I’ve got some very serious ideas now, I’ve narrowed things down to 3 images that I’m either going to combine, or change somewhat, I’m not sure yet.  

The stencil itself was amazing to work with. There are crisp lines of contours and I’m so relieved that I chose a gold furniture paint that turned out to be a really great shade of gold,  not too yellow, or green, or orange.

I did have to spend more on materials than I thought, but I’m after a particular look, so that’s to be expected.

So here is one photo for you...

When the sun comes in the room, I’m in Morocco, which is just what I was after....to be transported.

It’s also very nice at night, because it’s so special and inviting.  

You can see it’s ‘Deeply Plum’ in the background and two layers of gold via the stencil.  I was not expecting two layers of gold, so this is where the decorator started having his own ideas.

This is OK, because I have to give it to the guy, he never forgot the context in which he was working e.g. a bedroom, and that is a serious professional.  In my mind, I was thinking art, distressed, stage sets, atmosphere etc etc.  In other words my ideas in my imagination were lofty and risky.  He took the idea and ran with it, as they say and I’m relieved that it turned out so well.

So I had to go back to the shops and raid TK Max for a better class of accessories. More about that next time.

Audios ppl, stay safe, stay strong....stay sane xxx

Royal Moroccan Palace Stencil

 I think I mentioned I booked the decorator, I won’t say exactly when he’s due to start because I don’t want to freak myself out.  It’s going to stressful because he’s doing three rooms and I want paper on two walls, which will need perpendicular lining paper first. 

Here is the Moroccan stencil that I absolutely adore.... it cost me a hundred Dollars and arrived quickly.

The Design Studio produces a video how-to which is very comprehensive.  I’m going to use a roller to apply the gold.  The gold paint I’m going with is runny, so it will need to be worked over paper first to make sure it’s quite dry to use.  To my mind this means it will have create a very handmade slightly uneven finish, which is what I want.  Personally, I don’t want it to look like wallpaper.  I want it to look handmade, slightly imperfect and hopefully a little ‘aged’ in the process.  

When the decorator saw it we debated which way up to use it. Thankfully it is clearly marked with laser cut Registration Marks, so there is no chance of errors.

The day job is a little bit of a problem now and I’m kind of stressed about by this and that, so to take my mind off it, I’ve started bringing all my stuff together to produce this canvas painting of Marrakesh.

So here is my colour palette ( you just head over to TripAdvisor and swatch up some photos). The thing to remember about Moroccan is those massive skies and what all that gorgeous light does to colours.  

I cheated and bought tester pots. Hats off to Howard Hodgkin who said ‘I don’t mix my own colours, I’ve got far more important things to worry about in a painting than to stand there wasting time mixing colours’.  I completely agree. 

New colours happen in Morocco because of so much reflected light. It’s that colour I want in the painting, the colour of the shade juxtaposed to the light. 

So this painting is going to be ‘the colour experience’ of Marrakesh.  I haven’t been to Marrakesh but I’ve been to Morocco lots of times: dry heat, sand in the streets blown over from Sahara, arches, lace like geometric patterns on walls, palm trees, buildings of immense elegance and style.  Also shade, much needed shade and the colour of the shade and the buildings.  

I also want a variety of textures, in painting that equates to ‘variety of matk-making’.  So for that I want....

Well I’ll stop there and put the genie back in the bottle...

Light relief

 

Sometimes I want not to have to think.  So yesterday’s blanched piece received some colour.  I wasn’t working from an image or even a fixed memory, I was just drifting...  Looks a little bit like a Jehovah’s Witness Lighthouse magazine cover, you know what I mean.  There’s quite a bit of heaven in there, kind of thing... especially where for half the image I decided to preserve the lightest area in a dome shape.

Then I saw something interesting 

Then I thought about this

Then chopped off the part that didn’t work as well and ended up with this...

I don’t know if I killed it or sorted it out.  Sometimes that happens, where I just don’t know for days or months, even years, if I did the right thing?  Then I have to go over why I did it, and ask myself if I would make the same choices again.  Only because I tend to work quickly, sometimes very quickly and the decisions I’m making seem, sometimes, like isolated sounds, rather than connected thoughts...

Or even conversely ‘sounds’ that are too connected, unwittingly to harboured preconceptions, which is a danger all the time. You want the created item to conform, because it’s all within a theme or context, but crucially you don’t want it to look like it’s in a cage.  That’s the essential difference between unique and mass produced, if you ask me.

I’ve got so many things that are abandoned for these very reasons, because to me, at the time, they were not good enough.  Then, ages later I see them and think, that’s wasn’t so bad after all.

Thankfully it’s usually only an overnight chance I need to reassess things.  Because after all, you can get so close to the things you create, that in the end you can’t see them anymore, because all they represent is 96 different decisions you had to make and each one was possibly a make or break type of ordeal.

My only complaint now is: is it too happy?

While researching the life and work of Jeff Beck, for my short story about him and CH (see earlier posts), I came across this truly amazing piece of live recording 

Jonny Depp and Jeff Beck’s cover of John Lennon’s Isolation

Do you see what I see...

For a long time I’ve been obsessed with horizons and sunsets and all the weird colours you can see at sunrise and sunset.  Even really grey skies have something going on, although notice how everyone becomes very still when it’s heavily overcast for days on end, like last week.

Apparently that has a lot to do with our ancient sense of direction being not so accessible at those times...?

As soon as the skies broke, I contacted the decorator about my Moroccan bedroom.  I booked him for two weeks hence.  Oh dear me, I have a lot stuff to move, clean and generally go to town with. 

I’ve found a writers website that interests me, so I’ll slow cook that idea. 

I found the rest of my very important art tools, especially for clay and Lino.  

I need to type up 6 short stories and buy a 750ml tin of gold paint for the decorator.

I need to work out how the canvas of Marrakesh is going to look, but I can’t push that far enough because I need to see how the room will look in the end. I want an ‘experience’ of colour but I don’t want too much coming forward.  

Here’s my latest musing, I think it’s going back to textile again, but we’ll see...

Neanderthal & HS finito

 

Neanderthal skull took longer than I thought. It wasn’t until I got some muted greens and orange in there did the thing come to life. 

Here it is on black

And for good measure, here he is on wood grain

The first one is the better photo.

Last night I was working on my short story about, you-know-who (see yesterday’s post) and something really ‘weird’ happened.  Basically I was scribbling away and I felt I’d done enough, after I’d got down an exchange of dialogue between the two main characters.  I ended up using a term that I felt HS would have adopted in that situation.  Don’t ask me how I knew, I just had a strong feeling.  I left it at that and went off to do more research. 

So I ended up watching a drama about when he was caught, starring James Bolam.  So there I was viewing this drama and at the point where he is questioned by the police for the first time, he passes the detective in the doorway and directs this precise term at him.  Now that is creepy!  I thought, what shall I do, shall I stop writing the story or continue?  I couldn’t make up my mind, I was that shaken up. 

Then when I went to bed, I had a very strong feeling that I should finish it.  Don’t ask me where this feeling came from, but it was there...do you know what I mean?  So I got up this morning and finished it.  I included the aunt and the neighbour and now I’ll type it all up and fiddle with it a bit more.  I read it all the way through this morning and think I’ll edit one chunk right down, but apart from that I’ll keep what’s there.

I don’t want to post it on a website where people will demoralise me, that would be counterproductive.  Then again, I could publish it that way, but use a nom de plume.  

Neanderthal skull sorted out - stage 1

 Well I was right (TG), what I did in my head did eventually work on paper.

We’ve got the drama back!

As you can see, I just tore the thing out and did some smooth cuts with the scissors in certain sections.  I like the frayed edges, I like where it’s going.  Alas I chose watercolour for this one, and that medium takes AGES to get any depth.  I suppose I need to dig out my hairdryer to keep to schedule.  (Goes off to find the hairdryer...)

On another topic:

I did some more research on Harold Shipman.  Can you believe I managed to find exactly what I was looking for. As a hypothetical imaginative based-on-fact interpretation blah, you have to be able to defend your views.  I think I can possibly do that now.  

There is still a lot of secrecy around his domestic situation, for instance.  In my quiet moments, I like to think someone he knew might one day read it and say “how did she know that?”and gasp.

I need to bring in some other characters, I’ve decided an aunt and a nosy neighbour.  You can derive a lot of suspense from a nosy neighbour and the aunt is going to be a very memorable character.  She can be super-loaded with nuance.  I can see her in my head already, she’s thoroughly fleshed out, even down to her clothes and hair. 

I’ve found a few photos of when HS was a boy, a teenager, a young doctor and a family photo. 

* Have a great weekend ppl

Neanderthals

 Well, if you’re locked up, down and in, it’s good you wound up here. 

This is where the past comes to life and our ancestors are given a nod. 

I’ve had an incredible week, I worked so hard and last week too.  

My Neanderthal short story is finished. Exhausted I watched a documentary on Harold Shipman on iplayer, three episodes, unbelievable.  So the next day I got up early and.....you guessed it, I did a short story on him too.

I had quite a bit of material amassed so it wasn’t a situation of the horror of the blank page.  I corroborated a bit of this and that and basically got to work.  I’m happy but not thrilled, with the results so far.  I like some but not all of it.  I need to bring in some more texture, sort of thing.

It’s a shocking story, but because we’re told he was always really nice to people, it’s hard work him out.  As we all know, he committed self murder in prison with some sheets, so we’ll never really  know why he did what he did, but my short story takes place when he was 16.

I suppose I’ll have to change the names again etc, or publish on a writer’s website.  I don’t really care too much about that.  It’s not about fame and fortune (although some kind of payment would be nice) it’s about expunging the emotion.  The trouble is, it doesn’t really end the emotion it just calms it down for a while, I suppose.

So here is a very quick and somewhat disastrous drawing of a Neanderthal skull.  

It’s the illustration for my short story.  I don’t like the drawing, it’s not good enough but even so, the essence of my first impression is there.  I’ve actually thrown the image away, as I felt I could do better. Now I’ve started it again and just look at what happened....

You see... it’s static, completely unanimated, it’s like a diagram. It says nothing.  There is no feeling. It’s just fact: a skull.

Technically I understood the angle of the head better this time but what does one do with this?  Marks communicate something, this drawing is not communicating a single thing to me now.  

How can I bring back the original energy and wonder - to this?  

So as I was walking in the rain I decided I need to distress the paper then reinstate the image.  It works in my head, we’ll see if it works on paper. 

* One day things will be normal again but it seems a long way off.  I’m going to need a trip to the sea again soon...

Venus de Laussel

Ok well I bashed out a ton of work and felt I had a little spare brain space to contemplate this bas-relief sculpture that I consider to be a very important early link in the possible evolution of Celts.

I’m not happy happy with it as a drawing, but there are certain areas that work. The important thing for now is to discuss it.  I think I might draw it again with better light.

In the image we can see a very specific depiction of a Cornucopia, or horn of plenty.  

Now it could also be a buffalo horn but, the sculpture is about 20,000 years old and so I think what we’re probably looking at is the earliest type of horn of plenty they used then, before they made them out of straw.  This receptacle was a hunter gatherer’s carrier bag if you will.  

The sculpture itself is very important because of the way she’s holding the buffalo horn.  It’s basically a symbol of abundance and this woman, who is much younger than her carving at first suggests, is saying to all who visit that cave, ‘in this region you will find plenty of food’.  

At that time people died around aged 35, in my view even younger, but I’ll leave it at 35 for now.  I put this woman at around 22 or 23.  She’s had a few babies already and that’s another element of the symbolism, she’s also saying ‘your pregnancy will be successful in this region‘.  When I first saw this carving I thought the head was kind of fudged, but now I can see she’s gazing at the cornucopia, so her head is in profile.  Again, she’s wearing a Gravettian hair net. 

My personal view is that the women back then that could give birth without being killed in the process, went on to have quite a few babies.  For instance, for brothers to share a wife, is not unheard of in remote regions. 

Her tiny short legs suggest to me that her lineage she was strongly Neanderthal, although a modern human by now.  

May I say, I don’t actually understand why people are so anti Neanderthal because we owe a lot to those very strong people.  For starters they lived in forests most of the time, and in England we have nothing but the utmost respect for all knowledge about forests.  I don’t think that their almost a million years of accumulated knowledge was simply ignored by the ‘small headed‘ invaders.  Things aren’t usually so abrupt. 

There are so many people anyway that really look like Neanderthals, they don’t even realise it.  Personally I’m fascinated in people’s head shape. I think head shapes are pretty special, especially when you relate them to overall stature.  I can usually tell from a person’s head shape where they originated from, in terms of their ancestors. I think ancestors are cool and deserve respect.  All cultures respect ancestors.

So, I decided to do another short story, but this time about Neanderthals.  I think they deserve an airing. I also wanted to weave into a piece of creative writing my take on the whole handaxe debacle.  I have a pretty strong feeling that each social group had a handaxe, and I have a really ‘original’ take on the reason why.  I can’t wait to finish that one, but at the moment the brother of my protagonist Neanderthal is in a coma.  I can’t say anymore for now, you know how it is. 

* He who is always hungry is walking around somewhat neglected.  Why is having a DH so often like owning a dog I ask myself.

I figured all my short stories about Paleo folk can be published on here, but my murder mystery stuff and other stories have to be posted elsewhere. 

Something interesting discovered

I went back to some ‘hunches’ I had, after coming across something very interesting and bingo!  I finally found a very important link.  Not hypertext mark up link, but link in strands of study.  

I can’t wait to spill those beans...

Apart from that, I finished the two short stories. I will have to change the names etc of the one that....you know.  I was more pleased with the second than the first, but I came across some further research and so will add that into the first, I think and tie that one up.  I think I can publish the Paleo story on here but the other one might be uploaded somewhere else....

All of this short story stuff reminds me that last year I did two other short stories about completely different subject matter.  They are not finished but the planning is over.  I have to read a book before I can finish the longer one of those, but then again, if the thing is ‘a work of imagination’ I don’t see why I have to bother reading something more factual.  You can either see it in your head, or your can’t.

Well, I was promoted in my day job, which is good e.g. fiscally speaking, but a bit of a bore regarding sapping my time.  

Who cares, I can mine more out of a spare 10 minutes than a lot of people I come across.  All you need is determination, a clear objective and a fair dollop of obsession.

My clear objective today was getting into the head of the Gravettian sculptor who made the subject of this quick-ish drawing here I did on the reverse of a teabag box.

So this is another piece of mammoth bone ivory that was carved around the same time as the Venus de Brassempouy and there are lots of similarities in the mark-making.  So what you are looking at here is a horse, obviously, but not the usual kind of horsey portraiture we are all so familiar with.

Below is a preliminary drawing, where you can see horses back then were fuller in the face and hairier.

Some might say it’s a better drawing in a way, because it captures maybe the horse that the sculpture was based on, which was alive sort of thing, whereas the later drawing is of a carved object made to look like a horse.

Well, it was only when I really got in there and was wrestling with the facial muscles etc that I realised the horse depicted in this Paleo Ice Age sculpture is actually being caught for dinner.  Sorry folks but you have to realise, horses were food back then.

So, my personal view is this sculpture depicts the moment when the horse is giving up its last violent movements of life and is being taken down. 

There are loads of these types of equestrian figurines from that time, and quite a few are of the horse defleshed.

Soapbox time

I believe that these sculptures were traded between tribes of these people and I think as a group of hunter gatherers living around the regions where they did and most specifically moving hundreds of kilometres a year in search of food, it’s my view that they preceded and eventually became Celts.  I would class them as proto- proto -Celts. 

I know that sounds like a massive leap and ‘who does she think she is anyway’.  I don’t care, I know what I’m looking at, and I have a really strong feeling that later, when gold, battle dogs and warriors were traded, around the Steppes etc, I think these people were linked, from very early on.  The Torc is a very specific piece of Celtic iconography and I think it’s fascinating how certain people spread over a vast area, recognised each other quickly with these torcs.  

You could argue me down and say ‘what on Earth has a piece of mammoth bone got in common with a gold Torc?’.  My answer would be “high quality craftsmanship that was traded”.  

Oh well, I gotta go and feed you-know-who...

Wiltshire Museum

Ok so here’s the thing, you pour over extracts and comments all over the shop about hand axes and you see over and over again, the egg heads saying “well of course we don’t know if they put anything around these stones”.  For ages I felt they must have, to protect their hands and to be able to really put some pressure behind their work.  Then they go on about using them as misiles and how they don’t show signs of wear but took a long time to make. Finally, they were of no interest, it was the flakes that came off them that provided the arrowheads and spear heads to hunt. 

Hand axes were fashioned over a stonking million years! I honestly fail to believe how humans would just do the same thing over and over again for a million years, sorry, but there is no way I’m falling for that ‘interpretation’ on the hard fossil evidence.  One thing is for sure, no matter when you’re born, people have had a deep reverence for their dead and the long long line of continuity that people are part of.

My feeling is that handaxes were used to break open bones to suck out bone marrow which is what humans lived on before they started cooking barbies.  Ask yourself, why continue to make handaxes when you were not using them anymore for their intended purpose?  Well it turns out then we started to make huge handaxes out of jadeite that were never used but important items to own. Continuity see...

The debate about handaxes goes on and I for one soak it all up but apply liberal pinches of salt to such interpretations and wish I could own one of these things.  They jury is still out about handaxes, but make no mistake they were everywhere, I mean everywhere. 

So here’s a great image from the front of the Wiltshire museum floor plan showing a handle for a descendant of the handaxe. 

Just look at the handle on that dagger!

Now here’s a better picture of the item itself.  You can just make out the gist of the catalogue entry.

Just look at the fine work on that thing.  I didn’t manage to photograph the museum catalogue entry but there’s always a next time.

Just look at this Bronze Age jug.  Usually you don’t see any wood, but this time you do, lots of yummy ancient wood.

And here are some bowls, they might be shields, but if they are, they’re very small, so I’m going with the bowls theory.

Now here’s a picture of a recreated dwelling, you can walk inside and I think it’s so much better than a picture or miniature model ever could be.  It felt very cosy and safe.  

All of this evidence was gathered from around the Stone Henge area, which is dripping in ancient history, echoes, vibrations, shadows and.........magnetism.  Hold that thought!

Now this image above here is very interesting. So this is a model of Stone Henge made about 200 years ago.  What’s interesting is that it shows there were many more slabs of rock around then and there was a whole heap of stuff going on.  What struck me was the configuration of the main slabs, this is exactly as ancient man would have seen it.  I say this because you have to remember Stone Henge was dismantled during World War II.  I’ve always been suspicious of the configuration since I heard that, because it could be a tad ‘neat‘ and ‘mathematical‘ in its reinstatement, if you know what I mean?

Finally here’s a lozenge with its blurb

I adore the Wiltshire Museum and gladly pay my entrance fee.  

Most entrance fees are optional, so some I pay, some I don’t.  This one gets paid. 

It’s a dinky museum but truly stuffed with goodies.