Well I just had to knock up a background and title for the little fella. Cool and blue he goes by the name of ‘Pants Monster. Pants because the only thing holding him up is a pair of britches, and two…well…let’s just say he is pants as a monster. He kind of reminds me of a cross between a Vaughn Bode ‘Cheech Wizard’ character and something out of a 50’s B-Movie, cue the Theremin, the worlds first electronic (and hands free!!) instrument..WooOOOoooooOOOOwOOOOOOooOooooooOOwoooooOO..

Press play for the Theremin intro to Portisheads- “humming”….

I can just imagine an army of these blue dudes pitching up at the White House demanding in time honored fashion,”take me to your leader!” Why were the B-Movie monsters so rubbish yet so good?? Anyways Jet tells me the Pants Monster is made from a silicon type material which reflects and absorbs light just like human skin. The materials are from a Polly Pockets outfit. Polly Pockets are a line of posable dolls about a few inches tall and I am assured the attention to detail such as the folds and seams are all in the right places unlike most kids stuff (I am kind of glad all of this info was brought to my attention sooner rather than later..wouldn’t want to get caught out down the pub anytime this becomes the ‘hot topic’.) I must point out here that Jets daughter finds big bags of these outfits at the second hand store. Its only once safely home that daddy takes them into Frankensteins lab for some creative fun.

Genius!!!  And a worthy entry for the lost property dept.

With nothing better else to do I tagged along for a day of fitting out a school computer room and a promised lunch of home cooked seafood, salad, cheese, bread and wine (there’s no half stepping with my uncle when it comes to food at work!). It was while taking some scrap timber to a skip in the school car park I happened across 3 very old violins in varying states of distress.

As per usual my magpie instincts took ahold and a couple of seconds later I had them stowed safely in the back of my uncles Volvo estate…job done!!  They were by no means the kin of the Stradivarious family (I did check) but they had a rustic charm due to their age and the general wear and tear through being handled by children. One month later I decided to sand the varnish off  the smallest of them. The designs were then drawn and cut into stencils ready to be sprayed with black spraypaint (you get a nice effect with this almost like the design was burnt into the wood). All the highlighted areas were scratched into the wood using a scalpel. The water effect at the bottom of the body is a cut of lace used as a stencil with further scraping of the wood for the white water up top.  I did plan on using the other two violins, but sadly lost them over time from moving home and belongings once too often that year…oh the irony..lost property found and lost once again!

click thumbnail for full image of violin

 

You can find other ‘ lost property exhibits ‘ in the lost property dept link at the top of this page.

Found piece of driftwood. Hunstanton Beach, Norfolk, UK. 1992

It was a particularly cold and windy, winters day (par for the course) when I decided that this was coming straight back home to be dried out and prepped ready for some paint action. It was not until the following spring that I actually got around to doing anything with it. By then fully dried out and the climate in the throes of new beginnings I decided to paint it up as a tribute to the season of spring. Roughly inspired by the sounds of jazz I was listening to back then and the graphical style of Saul Bass (the hands) this piece was painted with one coat of various colors blended together. Once dried I then fine sanded back along the grain to take most of it off leaving nice tints here and there, next up was the main elements painted in Acrylic. It was then decided as an afterthought to include some flowers and leaves that I had laying around (all pressed to perfection), these were varnished into place with about 5-6 coats in total.

16 years later its taken on an antiqued look  with the amount of varnish that was applied.