A quiet walk

After our chilly visit from Arctic winds, the weather has returned to it's usual mild subduedety. The countryside is quiet, tastefully dressed in dull greens and drab browns, with the odd natural bauble standing bright against the grey.




I have a new stopping place on my regular walk.





Through the gloom, you might just be able to see some plump little birdy figures behind the fence...





I stood by the gate and clicked at them and after a while they came nodding up, clucking comfortably - all except the one by the laurel bush, who, after some scratching around, suddenly dived into its green depths, and was later heard triumphantly laying an egg with much cackling (I think that's what she was doing, it's the kind of sound I'd make if I had to lay an egg...)






For once my camera wasn't enough: there are only so many snaps you can take. So next time I am going to bring out my sketchbook - I used to love drawing chickens, they are such satisfying shapes. I wished them good day, and headed offroad, across the fields and towards the village, where I found a sad (and fat) little corpse. This shrew was still soft and warm; I wondered if it had been caught as I came over the footpath, and abandoned at my approach? It was a clean and efficient kill, one wound to the stomach.




I'm always interested in dead creatures - it's a chance to get a real look at them and mentally soak up their forms and features, which is often more useful than a barrage of photographs when drawing toys or characterised animals. Aware that this was someone's meal, I left it where I found it - maybe the hunter was impatiently lurking in a bush or perched in a nearby tree, waiting for me to stop interfering and leave it's lunch alone.



I always feel a pang when I come across this kind of thing, but carnivorous wild animals don't have the option of vegetarianism, and the real natural world is not a Disney film. In the cycle of life, and especially in the middle of winter, things must eat other things.

Winding down

The studio brakes have been applied - massive levers and cogs are slowly grinding to a screeching halt as I close up for a week or two of pottering and planning. The last toy in my shop has been sold - to a nice lady not a million miles away from us. (Minxie was so relieved to have found a new home for Christmas). There are but two tree ornaments left for sale; too late for overseas shipping, but if bought by Saturday, probably ok for the UK.

Pinky Brown for sale

SOLD

For once I feel rather laid back, especially now that I have posted out my seventy-odd Christmas cards. I dragged my dusty Gocco out, and put it into action, after watching various Youtube videos. Everyone in them made it look remarkably (if not miraculously) clean and easy. How difficult could it be? I think the knowledge that Gocco supplies are rapidly running out - and even more rapidly rising in price - made me a bit nervous. I had six precious bulbs...I burnt the screen once, but wasn't sure if it had taken or not. First mistake - trying to peel the original photocopy off the screen. Leave it to cool. So just to be safe, I extravagantly used another two bulbs. Which worked too well. I ended up with lots of little blips and spots, because I overexposed the screen. Ho hum. Anyway, a Christmas card had to be printed, so I squidged on the ink, as seen in the videos, and made my first test print. I was quite excited as the numerous articles and blogs I've read about Gocco makes it sound like some wonder machine. However, on my first pressing, no triumphant angels rose with a chorus of Hallejuhas, nor did celestial bells ring out across the night sky . It is, after all, just a little printer.

It was patchy. After a few more goes, the print quality improved, however even though I had faithfully followed the ''how to' videos, there was too much ink, and next time (if there is a next time) I am just going to put it on more thinly with a palette knife. Another thing you don't read about is how stickily persistent the inks are. I split my tube of black and trying to get it off was a nightmare. Washing up liquid did the trick and a bit of white spirits, but I recommend NOT breaking your ink tube, even though they are quite flimsy. Oh, and don't forget, when you are re-inking the screen, put a bit of paper under, or this will happen -

So I persevered, and finally, with an aching back and grubby hands, I had produced a lot of ok-ish cards. Was it less labour intensive and cleaner than other printing methods I've used? Yes, a little.

They looked better once I'd tarted them up a bit.

As I only have two bulbs left, I had a look round various online sites and almost fainted over the prices. Funnily enough, as supplies costs are rocketing, the prices of Gocco machines on eBay seem to have halved since I bought mine. So maybe the rising costs and impending demise are putting people off investing in one. But I am sure there are ways round this. After all, the Gocco is just a dinky little printer. It's drawbacks are that apparently you can only use Gocco products with it. (Which must have been a license to print money at the height of its popularity). This brings all kinds of drawbacks; you can't clean the screens with white spirits (which deteriorates them) you 'have' to use the pathetically small tube of Riso cleaner. You 'have' to use Riso inks, or it won't print properly. The flash bulbs are only made by Riso and now are not even being manufactured any more. And so on. But what if you decided to use the basic machine without all this? What if you simply made your own screens? All you have to do is copy the basic design of the Riso frames with a piece of stiff card, staple silk screen mesh to it, tape the sides, attach a piece of acetate and paint the mesh with photo emulsion - which requires no flash bulbs to expose the screen? In theory what you then have is a screen you can use in far more ways than the specific Gocco product. You have a screen which is more robust, can be used with cheaper, mainstream screen inks, and also can be re-used for fabric printing. It's a bit more labour intensive than the original function - but it's a heck of lot cheaper and still uses less space than a normal screen printing set up. It's the design and action of the Gocco machine itself which is special, not necessarily the materials.

I'm going to give this a go next year; if anyone else out there with a Gocco can add to or refine my solutions, please chip in and spread the word around. Remember - it's just a printer!

Thank you ever so much to Softies Central for featuring Sleepy Sam - I feel as if I've been on the cover of Vogue!

Handmade black hole

CANCER HOROSCOPE DECEMBER 11th 2008

Even if you have already thrown your hands up in despair and let go of your agenda, it's still entirely possible that everything will turn out okay. You may be working overtime to come up with a contingency plan in case things become even more uncertain. Unfortunately, the more you plot and scheme, the crazier it could get. Adjust your expectations, let go and move on.

I heard on the news that scientists have discovered a black hole at the center of our Galaxy or Universe - somewhere big and spacey, anyway. They should have pointed their telescopes at our village, because I can state with certainty that there is a black hole here into which my days are being sucked with frightening velocity.
One of the nicest things to happen this week was the arrival of Jerome. Andy was nosying over my shoulder as I opened the bag, and exclaimed 'ahh, that's nice!' And so he is. He is more than nice, he is splendidly lovely, and he was a very generous gift from Green Phoenix, who makes utterly gorgeous desirables. At the moment he is hanging in my studio, as we are very old fashioned and don't bring our little tree in until Christmas Eve, when he will have a best branch. Thank you so much Nikki - we will treasure him.





My black hole was entirely of my own making - I started making Christmas ornaments and they sold frighteningly well. Faster then I could make them...and as usual, I had dozens of designs and only one pair of hands.








I've been investing in findings and wire, which is a whole new world to muddle my poor head with; wire gauges, split pins and filigree basket beads...luckily I still have a great set of wire tools which Andy's dad gave me way back in 1993, when I had a brief period of making puppets. Or rather, starting them and not finishing them. So for all you crafters who worry about hoarding supplies - don't chuck anything out, you will eventually find a use for whatever it is, even if it is fifteen years later.




However, as anyone who's served time in retail knows, December is Too Late to be stocking up for this year's holiday. So my nice 2009 Country Homes and Interiors calendar starts with my New Year's resolution;




I am so completely off the ball with everything that I forgot to announce the launch of a really beautifully designed new online magazine in PDF form, UK Handmade, (download size 3.41 MB) which is crammed with Good Things and familiar artist/designer names in the Etsy/online crafting world. Toby of Natural Attrill is in there, and interesting articles on fashion, cookery, jewellery, accessories, becoming a small business, lifestyle and somewhere near the end, a rather waffly self penned article I submitted about my discovery of needle felt. When I first heard about it, I hadn't realised just how professional it was going to look; it really is a good looking magazine, and is simply begging to be made into print form. UK Handmade also has a main website with a forum which always welcomes new members.

Did I say that Valentine's Day starts next week? It does in this house; I'm not being caught out like that again and I have so many ideas for little heart-lovey things of gold and silver and felt...

First of December

How lovely to wake on the first of December to some sunshine at last. Having been practically nowhere during November, I was desperate to get out and about. I roused Hercules and we hared off to the woods.




The pale sun shone bravely, like an invalid friend trying to rally himself. The footpaths were punctuated with ice moons; horse hoof puddles frozen solid. All around me birds flustered through the bare hedgerow, though the usual battalions of pesky grey squirrels were nowhere to be seen - no doubt hibernating in their warm dreys. Although there was not much apparently happening, it was joy merely to be out in the fresh, chilly air.




The hazel catkins are almost out - fat little tubes which will burst open in the bitterest of winds. The trees are already preparing for the coming new year - many of them showing tight brown shells, protecting the tiny buds inside. Spring is not too far off. Despite outward appearances.

Spicy pheasant

Little warning to start - underneath this blog post there is a pretty detailed and graphic description of how these birds were prepped, so if you don't like that kind of thing, don't scroll further than the end of this post.


Andy returned from work with these, courtesy of a friendly beater. Unfortunately, not everyone who takes part in organized shoots wants to take their kill home, even though it costs them for each one shot. So these didn't entirely die in vain, and we can't afford to turn down free food. Besides which, I think I can modestly say I have invented the pheasant casserole to end all pheasant casseroles. It really needs starting the night before eating. Our birds hung in the cold, stone outhouse for about ten days, and were still in excellent condition, if a little gamey. When Andy had done the business of chopping the birds up, I was left with the business parts...




Once they were trimmed, washed and checked for stray pellets, I popped them in a Tupperware box and added - a generous slug of Worcestershire Sauce, about a tablespoon of dried herbs, two crushed cloves of garlic, a big squish of tomato puree and another good slug of soy sauce. Then I put the lid on tightly, and gave it a vigorous shaking until the parts were all covered. It was left to marinade for at least three hours.





Then they went into the crock of my faithful slow cooker, along with a tin of chopped plum tomatoes and a tin of haricot beans + the liquor (I would have preferred borlottie or chick peas, but we had run out. You need a good, meaty bean). I also added a tablespoon of brown sugar (molasses would be even better, but I only had soft Demerara) and a bay leaf. The cooker was turned on at LOW at 11pm when we went to bed, and left overnight, until 9, when I went for my walk. It was turned on again at about 12 noon - and at five it was nice and tender (pheasant can be a tough old bird, which is why I leave it in for so long). I chopped the breasts and stripped the legs, trying to remove as many bones as possible. You could also just leave the parts whole as they are, and serve them like that. I left it all for a further hour, before we ate. It was, if I might say so, pretty darned good. What you are left with is a rich, sticky casserole, with deep, sweet flavours - just the thing for a cold winter's day. Soy sauce makes an excellent condiment with this, and a whole grain bread would be the perfect companion. If your birds were shot, do look out for undetected pellets.





And there was enough left over for leftover lunch today.

Recipe for Spicy Pheasant
(adaptable) halve amounts if only one bird
A brace of pheasant, using the legs and breasts
One tin of chopped tomatoes
One tin of hearty beans/pulses - borlotti, chickpeas, haricot

Marinade
About 3-4 tablespoons Worcestershire Sauce
2-3 big tablespoons of mature chutney (I used my own two year old plum)
1 tablespoon dried mixed herbs
About 3-4 tablespoons Tomato Puree
About 3-4 tablespoons Soy Sauce

Later additions
One large bay leaf
Tablespoon soft brown sugar or molasses sugar

Shake bird parts in the marinade, in a tightly lidded box or sealed bag. Leave to souse for at least 3 hours. Put into slow cooker with your choice of beans, the tomatoes, bay leaf and sugar. Cook on lowest setting for at least ten hours, depending on your cooker. You want the meat falling off the bone. I did mine for fifteen (ish) hours.

See also -
Basic pheasant stew
Sticky pheasant

Underneath this nice recipe is a step by step guide to prepping birds quickly, it contains graphic pictures of the bird being cut up, so you have been warned.

Quick prep pheasant

WARNING - contains GRAPHIC pictures and descriptions of birds being cut up, which you may not like if you are squeamish about these things. It is dedicated to all the people who arrive at this blog looking advice on how to prepare a pheasant - it is unbelieveable how many of you there are!


Every so often in the season we get given a brace of these. Or sometimes we happen upon a not-too-squished roadkill bird. When we first started out with pheasant which did not come handily prepared, we plucked and gutted them (a joyless task). But actually, the best bits are the breasts and legs - the rest is quite scrawny and barely worth saving. This fine pair were hanging for about ten days in our cold stone shed, and smelled quite gamey, though they were in good condition. (Don't be put off by the smell, it's deceptively honky). So this is a quick, easy, clean way of butchering your bird - use as sharp a knife as you can get, and be careful with it. First get a black bin liner to work in, else the feathers get everywhere. Lay the bird on its back, and pluck the chest feathers off to expose the skin.




The skin is like a little jacket which holds everything in - what you need to do is gently make a shallow incision from the base of the throat down to the bottom, taking care not to dig into the flesh - you are only cutting the skin, so that you can peel it back. It will come away quite easily. Avoid opening up the crop (which often has the remains of the last meal inside) situated like a little sac near the base of the neck.




When you have exposed the breasts, it will look more familar, like your Sunday roast. All you need do now is cut each one away from the bone.




Then move on to the legs, taking care not to piece any innards.





It takes about 15 minutes to do both birds, and if you have done it in a sack, you can tidy up easily. You are left with a good selection of bits, which just need trimming.





Remove excess feathers, and if you like, singe the fine bits off over a tea light. Wash it all under a cold tap and then use as required. See also -

Basic pheasant stew
Sticky pheasant
Spicy pheasant (this is a great one)

On motivation

Thank you to everyone who was so kind about my recent efforts and recommended a bit of a rest. I tried, I really did, but I got bored.

I think I am incapable of taking any kind of real break. I find that just a few hours off doing something extravagant like - ooh, reading for half an hour, pottering in my studio or even just getting out of the village once a week (if I'm lucky) is enough to recharge my batteries. We live a pretty basic, simple life and it makes you appreciate the little things more. My big indulgence last week was to sit and actually watch 'The Devil's Whore' without needle felting something or scribbling in my sketch book, my normal evening occupations. Having lived most of my life without a TV, I find it hard to just sit and gawp at 'the goggle box', so at the end of the day when I am trying to wind down, I tend to just listen to it and get some work done at the same time. But there are always one or two programmes I give my absolute and undivided attention to and then I enjoy them so much I feel as if I've had a tonic. At the moment, 'The Devil's Whore' gets a big fat ten out of ten from me. Marvellous stuff. (I'm still mourning the end of Valentine Warner's series 'What to eat Now'). So once my bits and bobs were sent up to Scotland for the Christmas Show, I set to organising some decent packaging for my various things, finding blank accessories to felt onto, sourcing findings and fripperies for baubles and banging out more ideas in my sketchbooks. Yes, I do need more than one. I use them all. Really.

I've read a few posts in Blogland about working from home: getting motivated, organising time and not procrastinating. It can be hard, but nowadays I can't imagine not getting up in the morning and 'going to work' - even if it is just next door from the bedroom. As far as I am concerned, there is no choice: I was born with nothing. I've had little security or comfort blankets, be it financial or family support - and that can have two reactions. Either you grow up without anything and that is the way things are; knowing nothing else, you expect little better. Or you work your socks off 24/7. The statistics for someone from my background are frightening. One or more of these things are proven to have a detrimental effect on a child's adult life and I grew up with all of the following; being brought up in poverty, growing up with neither parents working, having one or more parents who are depressed/invalid/alcoholic, being fostered, having a chaotic home life (I had moved five times by the time I was six years old. To date I have moved at least 16 times and that doesn't include temporary foster homes) losing one or more parents in childhood, growing up in care, and leaving home at a young age, in my case, sixteen. Not unsurprisingly, most young people who have to deal with issues like these find it hard to cope on their own. They tend to get abandoned by the 'care' system anyway when they are 18, and so the whole tragic cycle usually starts again. I am only thankful that my parents (especially my mother) for the short time I had them, were decent, intelligent and honest or I might have been truly lost.





Any one of those early life situations add to the chances of your becoming some kind of addict, getting into drugs, becoming involved with crime or ending up in prison, early pregnancy, depression, becoming benefit dependent, not going on to higher education, poor mental and physical health...in short, if you've been handed a bad deck of cards, you learn to play your very best with them, or you lose the game. At first, trying to live independently when I was still pretty much a child, I played the cards carelessly and was on a bad losing streak. Apart from the early pregnancy and ending up in jail, I fell victim to many of the pitfalls mentioned. Then I looked carefully at my hand of cards, and realised that if I didn't make a big effort I'd drop out of the game altogether. And no one would really notice. Life, unfortunately, is not fair and if I didn't help myself, no one else would. Once I started applying myself, things started to improve, though it was never easy; with little outside help, anything I did - such getting to University - took a proportionally larger effort than it did most people. I almost gave up in the first year. Thank God I didn't.




Since then I've played the game badly sometimes, but I disciplined myself to get at least some work done every day and gradually that became ingrained habit. I started to get commercial jobs with hard deadlines; no choice about not getting it done, you just pull all the stops out to finish it on time. Now I find that even without a deadline, I am driven. It helps that I have no other income - there is no bigger incentive for getting up off your arse, than the knowledge that if you don't bring in even the smallest amount of money, there is no housekeeping. From waking up to bedtime, my day is spent pretty much on full throttle - as any full time artist knows, creating things takes up only one third of the process - you also have to factor in - upkeep of sites and shops, research, self promotion, networking, designing, posting out orders, sourcing materials, planning ahead, starting new projects, preparing for print, record keeping, photographing - the list goes on. It eats up the hours, but all that matters is ploughing on to try to make something of my life. The most crucial of these is to get our very own home, because I have never once lived in a house that belonged to me or my parents. So the next 'to-do' is to move back home to Devon. It's been thirty years since I vowed I would return one day, as my new foster parents drove me away over the border to a new life. And Andy needs chickens and pigs. A permanent vegetable patch. Maybe a dog. We both want to put down roots.





When I was twelve and clearing out what had been my home only two months previously, I found this poem amongst my dad's few belongings. He was a good writer and artist, but he never really did anything with his gifts. He drank instead. It is etched on my memory: when things are really bad inside me and I am feeling very low, (which, believe it or not, is still quite often) I repeat it to myself. It was one of the reasons I made him and my mother a silent promise that I would become an artist for them.

'I have wasted the years and gathered no gold:
I have sometimes been hungry -
and often been cold.
They laugh at me, pity and scorn -
as I lie at my ease.
But I've heard the rain whisper to me as it falls,
And I've taught the old budgie to answer my calls.
And the things that I've missed
just don't matter at all -
Besides these.'
Bill Parker 1915 - 1979

I cannot even type it out without breaking down.

Which ramble brings me to why I work all day, nearly every day. Because I don't want to be yet another predictable statistic of failure. I don't want to die disappointed with myself, as my father did. That, my friends, is my motivation.

Toy collection

It's funny how a picture can look really wrong, until the final cropping is done. Bearing in mind that I will be making these artworks up into cards, I added a big extra wodge for the scans - which got cut off when the time came to frame up. When the magic circle mount was added and it made compositional sense.

'Sea Horse with Button Moon'

As I was getting near deadline, I revisited a favourite theme - 'We Three Kings' - rooster style. This is the first version from 2004 -

The second version from 2006 -





And the third version for the Green Gallery, 2008 -



Rounding off the batch of toy sculptures - Sherbettina -





- and the 'blob' who turned into Bonbon the rabbit -

Last Friday was D-Day; most of it spent scanning all artworks for my records and future usage, as well as taking a thousand photos of the animals. Before I packed the paintings up, I couldn't resist seeing how they all looked together...

Then I emptied my toy shelf -

(all except poor Minxie, who is on her own again)

- to see how it all worked as a package. And was rather pleased. After years of hard work, I finally feel as if I have created my own identity. I am a toy artist. Which is where I always wanted to be.

Yes, there are only five toys here - I was a little late with the final one, and poor Tommy was hastily needled over the weekend.

Hey! What about me???

With some relief I sent the toys off, on Monday last. And celebrated my new status of No Deadlines by getting the cottage straight - girl's got to relax somehow! And while I would love to put my feet up and do a bit of reading, I find myself back to full steam, planning new lines of needle felt bits and bobs and finally indulging in a little dream I had a loooooong time ago...