Bank Holiday Autojumble

1950's Find

What a lovely Bank holiday weekend, What did you do?

We drove the 40 miles to Hinckley in Leicestershire to visit an auto jumble and classic car show.

Some absolutely stunning cars and bikes were on display. One of the best classic car shows I've been to and one of the cheapest at only £3.

The auto jumble was quite large as well and Heather managed to find this Picnic box from 1950,

complete and  original.

This will look great in "Priscilla" when she is finished. 

A small showing of some of the fab cars on display.

Thanks for looking hope you had a great weekend too.

John & Heather xx

Powertex Family Resemblance

Mother and Daughter

Hi all, I recently taught a workshop making wading birds from scratch.

Sometime students new to dimensional sculpting have difficulty with proportion and perspective. 

This could be for any combination of reasons.

So, when I made the sample for this workshop I did the project in 2 sizes, hence the mother and daughter.

I think it helped quite a bit. I find visual, tactile guides so much easier than written instructions.

so here they are mother and daughter wading birds.

Made using Basic materials and Powertex bronze fabric hardener.

Thanks for taking the time to have a look.

John & Heather

Guglia Judgement day #2

Which is Worse?

Life is too short, have a little fun and don't be afraid to laugh at yourself, everyone else does!

Its that time of week again

Which is the worst Guglia/Fugly?

Heather bought me the one on the left a charming bit of modern folk art.

And I treat the lovely lady of my life to the repulsive little Tchothke on the right.

Which do you think is the worst??

Thanks for taking the time to look 

Have a great day 

John & Heather x

Powertex Wading Birds Workshop

All Flocking to Craftstation, Kirkby in Ashfield

Another great day using Powertex at Craftstation

Thanks to Helen for hosting another great day. This time we were sculpting wading birds, made completely from scratch.

I say wading birds because I like to let the ladies do their own interpretation of whatever I am teaching.

Although directed my workshops are far from regimented, which allows the ladies to express themselves.

These birds are around 18" before being mounted.

which makes them a nice sized garden ornament after they have finished their 3 weeks curing.

How fab do these birds look?

Thanks for looking.

John & Heather

Guglia comes to Glossopville

Curse of the "Guglia"

It is no great surprise that I like car boot sales and charity shops, I spend quite a lot of time at both.

On occasion I have been known to buy Heather a little present for her collection.

Well she knows now that if I say I have picked her up a present it is usually something special.

Well...... I have a talent for being mischievous and while on my travels I found this little gem. I know its disgusting hey?

So this is a "Guglia", an awful trinket/souvenir, the type of thing you would get in a seaside tat shop.

Of course things then escalate. So when we both went to the car boot last weekend and we'd finished looking we had an extra 10 minutes to find each other a "Guglia".

This is what Heather found for me.

How Gross!!

And I found Heather this lovely little wooden cat corkscrew, now apparently mine is useful so I lost this challenge ??

which do you think is the worst??

What will the "Guglia" gods throw up this week??

Spiritus Intus Machina (a mixed media canvas)

A mixed Media Commission

Its always nice to get a commission, especially when the brief is "do what you do".

So the idea behind this piece is that no two machines are the same, they have strange little quirks and idiosyncrasies. In essence they have their own spirit.

Hence the title The spirit within the machine. 

I really enjoyed making this piece the main substrate is 6mm mdf. 

I have tried a new colour way on this starting with a black acrylic base, washed with micaceous iron oxide before dry brushing with Sennelier Burnt Sienna and cosmic shimmer Pacific Teal matt chalk paint.

The dimensional frame was constructed using Laser cut industry cogs from my Rosie McStone range.

These come in different styles and sizes.

The focal image uses my Laughing Skull stamp and matching acrylic tile, triple embossed and then painted and shaded , the Aztec style head dress is an recycled piece from a 1960's sun clock.

Dr Glossop will see you now!!

"The Vitalator"

What a fantastic find. I love old interesting gadgets from the last century and this vintage medical appliance is no exception.

It is, The Vitalator. A medical aid utilising high frequency ultra violet light to alleviate, a myriad of ailments, allegedly. 

The attraction for me, is that it is partly made from Bakelite.

How cool that something made in 1938 containing glass attachments can survive?

If only this thing could speak what devilish tales would it tell.

You could buy a number of extra attachments for this device for all parts of the body.

I suppose I am a sucker for anything in a nice wooden box.

Thanks for looking. Do you have any interesting things like this?

Mini Statue Workshop at Crafty Urchins, Cheadle

Elegant Mini Statues Workshop

with John Glossop

This has been our second visit to Crafty Urchins in Cheadle, Staffordshire.

A great little shop run by Sue Tighe. She is both friendly and knowledgeable and will do whatever she can to help you.

Todays workshop was an Elegant Mini Statue. A nice little half day workshop making a scaled down version of my full size Powertex statue.

All eight of these statues turned out fab as you can see from the pictures and all the ladies started off with exactly the same kit.

If you would like to do a workshop like this you can contact Sue at Crafty Urchins direct or drop me a message

thanks for taking the time to look 

John & Heather

Powertex visits Crafters Companion Chesterfield

Powertex Demo Chesterfield

What a fantastic day and thank you to everybody who turned up for a look.

It is quite a rare occurrence these days for me to actually do a demonstration and I must admit its not my forte.

The people who attended were lovely and so enthusiastic about the techniques I was demonstrating.

A big thank you to Heather for manning the shop and setting up the display I may be a little biased but it is the best Powertex display I have seen to date.

Our first workshop there will be in September.

Check out the pictures.

many thanks for taking a look

John & Heather

A Little Vintage R'N'R

The Gaydon Annual Show

Hi all, we took a little time out this weekend for some R'n'R.

I must say it was great to get out see some lovely old light commercials.

There were vans, pick-ups and camper vans galore.

There were a few club outings here including the Ford Transit owners club and the Princess owners clubs.

All in all a great show and we also got the bonus of free entry into the British motor museum.

What more could you want on a sunny Sunday Afternoon?

Missing in Action

John Glossop Missing in Action

Morning world ( or at least the part of it that looks at this post ).

I hope you had a great weekend. I was absent on here most of last week.

This was for a number of reasons all of which are good. This week we have been networking and developing our own products here at Rosie Mcstone Studios.

You guys will be the first to know when they are ready.

Thanks for looking and have a great week.

J&H

Your Life & Mine acoustic video

           The Subtlety of Acoustics

    

Check out my sons band's acoustic version of their single Life Can't Wait.

Wherever you can please support up and coming home grown talent.

You can do this by simply going to live gigs most of which are free or spending £3/£4 on a cd.

Check them out on You tube.

Hope you enjoy.