Quality time

My eldest daughter today was away at a friends and I had told my youngest, Bella, that I would set up my mini lathe so that she can have it for herself ( except when I need it to demo). Bella was over the moon as she loves turning and is taking to it very well.

It has been some time since we both had time in the workshop together, I guess other things have gotten in the way.

Today however we went into the work shop at 1200 hrs and came out at 1700hrs, with a bite to eat for lunch of course.

Bella wanted to concentrate on turning between centres in the main and spent most of her time happily turning beads, coves, using the roughing and spindle gouges to just make shapes.

Nothing too serious as for me it is about building confidence and safe working practises over making bowls etc which she has done in the past with 95% of her time today going solo, enabling me to get on with my own work as I kept a watchful eye and open ear on Bella.

Here are some pictures of one of the best days I have had in some time.

Strictly Woodturning Axminster Power Tools

Things are moving fairly rapidly at the moment in that early this week I was contacted by Axminster Tools to ask if I would demonstrate at the Strictly Woodturning event. Of course I proudly accepted and am looking forward to the event and a busy time a head.

Australia Update

Details, flights etc are being finalised.

Thank you to Chris Smith for inviting me, it will be an amazing experience.

A 30 hr journey with 7 hours stopping off in Singapore will be intertesting and a few books will I have no doubt be read on the way.

I will be attending for three days a Collaboration where many woodturners, carvers, and other artists take turns working on various pieces, showing and sharing ideas and methods. The pieces when finished are all signed by those making them and are auctioned with the proceeds going to future collaborations.

This link takes you to the Western Australia Collaboration web site where you can view more details about the event.

Following this three day event I will be taking in the sights and hospitality of Chris and Ali and giving a demo on the 8th of August before returning home on the 10th with lots of pictures to show how it went.

Other than this I am very busy making and getting various demos etc sorted out.

Australia

Within my last thread I mentioned that I am waiting for some news.

The news is that recently I was asked if I would like to demonstrate in Australia, obviously it did not take me long to come to a decision for this but I had to wait for confirmation.

Today I received this confirmation to travel out to arrive on the 2nd of October. More details to come but I am up early today for a 5 hour drive to Norfolk to demonstrate at Turn East so I will update when I get back on Monday.

Macro

 Yesterday I spent a day with my daughters at the local park to chill out.

As ever I took my camera and while sitting at a bench where we ate our lunch I decided to set myself a task of taking pictures of anything within reach without leaving the seat.

The following pictures are some of the many I took, mostly in macro and most objects taken were around 10mm max size.

I find decay and impermenance a very powerful subject. The older I get the more I realise how many things in life are impermenant. Ultimately our existance is the same as the leaf,  we are, merely at a different stage in our journey.

The alge below was not more than 5-10mm wide

Under the bench I found an old pair of broken nail scissors.

The largest crack in the bench/wood below was less than a millimeter 

The largest rounds of the algae below were smaller than 1mm

Montbretia

Montbretia one of my favourite flowers out this time of year that gives a beautiful spray of colour to brighten up even the dullest of days.

Busy times

As I have mentioned in a previous thread I currently have at home my two daughter's from school on the annual summer holiday break. This is for obvious reasons a quiet time for me to spend with my family as working becomes difficult so I take my annual holiday around this time and just juggle everything else after my first priority, my family has been taken care of.

I have been doing a little turning but have been working on some now designs and ideas as well as writing. I have decided to return to basics with my work and to de-clutter so for personal reasons I recently decided to resign my membership to the RPT. Currently I feel I feel I am not suited at this time to any organisations and so have decide to just work in a more isolated way.


My passion is in making and creating and with all the distractions I allow myself to indulge in it is time to step back and return to basics and the enjoyment of the process.

Some great news for me hopefully on the horizon but I will keep this quite until I have confirmation.

As I say I am working on some new pieces based on previous work that I have produced and am re-visiting ideas and methods and re-thinking about the substance in these.

 Photography has also been featuring lately in a big way as I continue to take more and more pictures for reference. The picture at the top is that of a garden spider that was chilling out on a ficus plant just outside my conservatory door. Amazing colours, textures and shapes to work with.