Pianola Tony, a sweet story swap, and a day at the Dockyard

Story Street #10

Who on earth is Pianola Tony, I hear you ask? You’ll have to read on to find out – and to hear about how I finally visited the WW2 destroyer that’s been inspiring my collages for the last few months. But first – mural news…

If you should find yourself in the heart of Wandsworth over the next two years or so, take a stroll south down Garratt Lane until you reach Swaffield Road – and you’ll find my community mural. It’s launched at last - and what a lovely launch it was.

I bought 16 metres of red satin ribbon in Soho to give the event a sense of occasion – but it was the children who really made the day sing as they pointed to their own work, bubbling with excitement. It was the best surprise that the under 5s I visit at nursery every week came along too (although I think they thought they were coming to my house).

Having stared at hundreds of layers of the artwork on a computer screen for the past few weeks, it was extraordinary to see it all printed up larger than life onto Dibond (weatherproof aluminium). The printers did a fantastic job – and my fears about fuzziness given the 72dpi resolution were quite unfounded.

It all looks sharp as a pin, the colours are eye-popping and the collage looks so real that visitors have been tempted to whip out a Pritt stick and tidy up the ‘loose’ bits…

I was particularly impressed that the installation team from 4Site even painted over the screw heads in the exact right colours to match each part of the mural they appeared in – what impressive attention to detail.

Thankyou very much to everyone involved in this project, which I have loved working on this year: Higgins Homes for sponsoring, Brendan Conway for making it all happen, all five schools, Aspire Nursery, Paradise Co-operative, Kimber Skate Park, South East Rivers Trust and the printers, 4Site. I am so proud of what we have all achieved together.

If you want to see more, I’ve made a seven-minute video with all the details about how it was made, plus a guided tour – do have a look, and please share the link with anyone you know who might be interested:

I was back at the Skate Park later in the month for a fun evening of painting panels – to the sound of local band The Badgers. They were amazing, and all aged only 16!

Evelina story swap

This sweet little story bundle is the result of six Mondays working with children on the ward at Evelina Children’s Hospital – right opposite Big Ben.

I’ve worked at the hospital school several times in the past, and what always strikes me is how isolating it must feel to be stuck in a bed having hours of treatment, sometimes several times a week, tethered to a dialysis machine.

There are quite a few children in the same situation, and although they do know each other to say hello to, the booths are a bit too far apart for any real interaction – and of course, infection controls have to be very stringent.

So I had a think about whether I could invent a project to bring everyone together - and the answer was a story swap. Taking fairy tales as a starting point, then giving them a twist, each child came up with their own story, then illustrated it, adding a little bit each week, using drawing and collage in a concertina book. I then scanned each book and reformatted it so it could be printed onto A3 and folded as a zine – and after a big speed-folding session, we had a set of seven stories for each child that took part. The stories were excellent:

who wouldn’t want to read about ‘The First (and Last) Gingerbread Man in Space’ - what a great title!

The artwork was superb, and I could see that everyone was proud of their work. It was a joy to go round the wards in the last session, looking at all the stories and reviewing each other’s work. There were a lot of 5 stars given!

Jane de Rome drawing day

Earlier in the month I had a poignant but lovely day sketching at Fulham Palace Walled Garden in memory of a Putney School of Art student who died last year. Lots of us got together with some of her family, painting, picnicking, and remembering our dear friend on the inaugural Jane de Rome Memorial Drawing Day.

Here’s my mini-concertina sketchbook – I like taking these out with me for sketching trips, and cutting holes in them first takes away the fear of making the first mark. And they are small enough to fill up in one session… what I tend to do is blob on some watercolour with a big very soft brush, then work into it with coloured pencils, ink pen and watercolour applied with my dipping pen (a very useful technique). I had to re-do Edmund the Palace cat and stick a new one on, he went a bit wrong…

Experimenting with materials

I had a truly heart-warming send-off from Putney School of Art. Just look at this card from friend and fellow tutor Sophie Ambrose – she knows me very well. I will treasure it always, together with other beautiful handmade cards. Thankyou Lucy and Coralie and everyone, I will miss you all!

To take the edge off feeling sad about leaving Putney School of Art I signed up to return straight away – this time as a student. I’ve had an old shoebox of oil paints gathering dust ever since I went on a Winsor & Newton factory tour around 15 years ago.

The tour was marvellous - we got to see the watercolour extruding machine, and a whole special room dedicated to rose madder – rows of calico hammocks with essence of pink dripping through slowly over 6 months.

At the end we were shown into a room stuffed with samples, given a bag and invited to fill it with paint - and now I’m finally ready to use that bounty. I’m very sad to say the Winsor & Newton factor tour no longer exists as they moved production to France – but just to prove it wasn’t all a wonderful dream, I found a video of the tour here (including a glimpse of the rose madder room):

(don’t miss the bit about how they made Indian Yellow). The two-night oil painting course at Putney, taught by Shaun Carey, was just what I needed to get started – I now have a bottle of Zest-It and a neat little clip-on twin dipper to put it in – but oil painting is HARD! However I am determined to persist… I will keep you posted.

Pianola Tony and friends

I always love trying out new materials, so when I recently found out from a student about Panpastels (thanks Jacky) my ears pricked up. They look like a giant eyeshadow and are very satisfyingly stackable.

I was keen to give them a try so I splashed out on a few colours. I was too stingy to buy the little set of sponges you’re supposed to use, so I have been applying them with an old sock. It seems to work OK!

In the last comics class of term, we played a game inspired by Lynda Barry’s marvellous book, Making Comics. I gave it a little twist by asking each student to describe a neighbour – then we all drew each other’s neighbours – but as animals. I honestly think I could make a picture book about each one of these characters. With that in mind I tried some of them with my Panpastels and ink. Here’s a pair of badgers who enjoy regular ‘Margarita Fridays’:

And below is my old neighbour Pianola Tony ambling down the road to his workshop with a cup of tea – I used a rubber on the Panpastel to make the furry marks and plant shapes in the smudgy pastels:

If you’d like to join the comics fun next term, there are still a few spaces left in my online class, which will run on Wednesdays from 20^th September.

You can choose a morning or evening slot – all the details are here:

A day at the dockyard

Remember those shipyard collages I’ve been making based on my Dad’s old photos? (I wrote about them here) HMS Cavalier is now in her permanent home at Chatham Historic Dockyard, and a couple of weeks ago I went for a visit.

It was such a strange feeling seeing that Destroyer silhouette in the distance for the first time – so very familiar from the photos, but never seen by me in real life before. Walking around the ship, recognising bits and pieces from the photos I’ve been collaging, and in particular the very bench I showed in the last newsletter with my Dad’s hard hat on, was a surreal experience.

I took about a million photos and feel as if I have creative material to draw on for a long time to come – it was VERY inspiring. It’s time to stop using my Dad’s photos as reference, and start using my own.

This view down a forbidden stairwell is my favourite – look at that colour palette! I can’t wait to paint the pink chequerboard floor with that round green hatch set into it.

And there’s something tremendously calming about this corner of the ship’s kitchen – I’ll be experimenting with this one too for sure.

I even got to ring the ship’s bell before I disembarked…

Watch this space for more…

I squeezed in a couple of cultural events in July too: can you guess what film I went to see in a rare cinema trip? I am still laughing about the Kens’ horse videos… have you seen it yet?

And can you guess which band we went to see? I was NOT disappointed!

It’s been a VERY busy year so far and I am now feeling rather worn out and frazzled around the edges. What I need is a holiday. So in August I’ll be visiting two very special islands – one in the far, far west of Ireland and the other in the far, far north of Scotland. I’m hoping it will be very peaceful, and if it’s wild and wet too, I don’t mind at all. I’ll be taking my fiddle and sketchbook. I’ll tell you all about it next time.

Have a good summer – and if you’re in Crystal Palace with family, do pick up the ‘body parts’ scavenger hunt I designed for Invisible Palace – visit all the sculptures and see if you can find the appropriate toes, noses and bottoms! You can find out more here:

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