Empire Building

Edward the Elephant, one of the directors of "George The Greenhouse Gallery" has been on a working holiday this week. He has been looking at a number of mystery locations with the intention of expanding his business interests. Here we see him in a buoyant mood having partaken of a light infusion of darjeeling tea and a gargantuan slice of exceptionally good carrot cake. more on teas later. . . .

bye for now !

lost & found

Hello from the comfy armchair of chris n wood.

I produced this little digital doodle whilst trying to remember how adobe illustrator works - its not really an illustration - more a flight of fancy inspired by the legendary Harry Beck who, in 1931, designed the London Underground Map. The photograph in the background is the shot of houseboats at Felixstowe Ferry although said houseboats are lost !

I still can't remember the moves but by importing the illustrator file into Photoshop I was able to restore my enthusiasm if not my memory !

Custers Last Stand !

Sorry for yet another picture of yours truly sans beard !

I just had to show off my cabbage - I was so proud of my cabbages - in fact I still like my greens.

Of late I have developed a liking for other colours too !

As you can see my dress sense was (and still is) a little questionable but clothes in the 1950's were built to last and to prove a point I still have my little red shoes - I don't know what happened to the cabbage. I guess the sword is back on display in the local museum.

Houseboats and complaints

We were at Felixstowe this weekend and in between manic bursts of activity, wielding paint rollers, etc we found the time to nip out, catch some rays and take a few snaps at the afore mentioned haven of tranquility!

Some of us caught more than we were bargaining for and brought back a particularly virulent bug. Urgh !! Enough said about that the better.

I've included this shot for all you mud lovers out there. As it was taken at the end of the afternoon, there wasn't a vast amount of light, resulting in an image that was devoid of colour - so to make the best of a bad job, I took all the colour away ! A bit like yours truly - totally and utterly drained - I really must stop rambling on about the aftermath of the weekend.

The actual weekend was, as usual, "fun" if not a little tiring - at least my beloved car didn't complain. We left early on Sunday to avoid the party people returning home from V Fest - having been caught out last year ! Instead due to a poorly worded road sign we went the wrong way around the lovely M25 and managed to find one one the largest snarl-ups in all history - I love road works and as it was probably one of the hottest days of the year I was not overjoyed ! Still at least for quite a long way we were shaded by a convoy of aging double decker buses.

Why can't people who write road signs say what they mean ? What's the point of road signs anyway ! More on the Highways Agency later ! I have to go now - my stomach is complaining too !

EXHIBIT A

EXHIBIT A

Welcome to our very first exhibition of George The Greenhouse Gallery. This is one of a series of installations that incorporate a not so redundant refrigerator.

I WOULD VERY MUCH LIKE THIS BLOG TO BECOME INTERACTIVE & INVITE CAPTIONS FOR THE EXHIBITS

George the Greenhouse . . . Gallery !

Yes folks that is a fridge ! George was looking a little pale the other day - so I cheered him up by installing said chilling device ! Sadly the box in the corner is no longer a fully functioning cooler but it makes a great cupboard for all those precious bits and pieces that would otherwise get a little damp - I might also keep the odd bottle in there too !

Whilst this is yet another rather odd photo - I rather liked the dappled light on the fridge - I won’t be expecting a call from the Royal Photographic Society though !

If anyone has any suggestions for other “special things” to keep my beers company please let me know.

An epiphany moment ! The “George The Greenhouse Gallery” has just been invented ! HURRAH !! All you aspiring artists, today is the start of the Virtual Gallery known as "George The Greenhouse".

learning the ropes

For the benefit of all you seafarers and those who are curious to see what I look like without a beard ! The cool geezer with the pipe and and tiller in his hand is my father.

This was one of the calmer days at Felixstowe Ferry - note we are not belting along, breaking speed limits, heeling over with large amounts of wet stuff flying through the air and generally creating mayhem . Also note the bad haircut a la pudding basin and the natty choice of safety harness and bib and braces !

Apologies to Mr Picasso

Oh dear I'm going all didactic again !

I began today's diversion because I wanted to illustrate a piece for my website on the subject of assemblage.

As it says in the title, apologies to Mr Picasso, who provided the inspiration! He was not only a creative power-house but a very good sculptor ! There are excellent examples of his 3D work the world over but if you go to Paris a visit to the Pablo Picasso Museum is well worth it. I really like this piece "baboon and young" and set about my paltry rendition with graphite, ink, rotring pen & brush, before scanning the result and tweaking it in Photoshop. The full size black and white original looks better than this tiny orange image though !

Assemblage is a 3D form of collage. Picasso often incorporated everyday objects into his sculptures and in this one he has used two toy Morris cars to form the muzzle of the baboon's face. The rest of the sculpture was made from plaster around a wooden armature. More on sculpture later !

Fine lines

Do I need another project ?

Classics create a wake at Felixstowe Ferry !

Bless me father for I have sinned - it has been two days since my last drawing . . . . I have thought about it - lots ! I've taken about 100 photos over the weekend and have plenty of ideas but despite being dragged around everywhere, the Suffolk sketchbook is still awaiting its inauguration !

I've drawn with my lawn mower - if that counts - at least there are now some splendid parallel lines in the back garden ! Sorry all you budding gardeners out there - as you can see we don't even have a photo of the now immaculate lawn - maybe next week !

Following last weeks manic attempts to tidy the jungle surrounding the "country seat" I decided to go on the weekly pilgrimage to what must be the largest Waste Recycling Centre in Suffolk ! A very picturesque but nonetheless truly scary place, with dozens of huge skips and massive "Heath Robinson"contraptions, whirling around, pounding the offerings to a pulp ! One such machine, resembling a JCB, has a huge spiked ball on the end of it's hydraulically operated arm and when the skips appear full the machine rumbles along and beats the contents of each skip, squashing everything to a tenth of it's former size.

I did my bit by adding 10 bags a garden waste to one of a collection of green skips, then I found the metal bin and dragged the last remnants of the chicken run up the steps and into the skip. It's always fascinating to see what other people have been putting into the skips and the contents of the green bins were no exception. They seemed to me like a list of what not to grow - Leyland Cyprus and Ivy prunings by the ton ! The contents of the metal bin were more exciting - fridges, washing machines, bent & distorted corrugated iron sheets , rusting unwanted tools, bits of broken engines, scaffold poles, all randomly piled together like some bizarre sculpture from the 1970's!

To recover from this burst of activity we went to the Felixstowe Ferry Cafe, arriving sadly too late to eat but we commiserated with a couple of takeaway cups of tea which certainly hit the spot ! We ambled across the road to the waters edge, slurped our tea whilst watching the ebbing tide rush out at its usual brake-neck speed and generally enjoyed the moment. Within seconds, just on cue, a classic Dutch barge hove into sight, with its traditional stumpy mast and varnished leeboards - and for me - what made the moment was the fact that on the horizon was a Thames Spritsail barge with all sail set with the bit between her teeth ! Sadly you'll have to imagine the last bit as the scale of the photo is so small that the Thames barge is the speck at the top, to the right of the marker post. (I'll scale this up for the forthcoming painting) !

Five o'clock shadow, Deben estuary & Bawdsey Manor.

More about Bawdsey later !

It was a long and slippery walk to the pub !

Slaughden Marsh, looking north towards Aldeburgh, East Suffolk.

This is perhaps one of my favorite stamping grounds ! Excellent pubs, probably the best fish and chip shop in the world, fantastic second hand book shop, wonderful architecture and best of all there's usually a bracing breeze on the seafront - hurrah ! Oh and did I mention lots of inspiration for the right side of the brain. More on this later - time & tide waits for no man and if I don't go soon I'll get wet feet !