The blues

Breakfast

Jobs I could do

Jobs I could do

Intro page 3

Intro page 2

Intro page 1

Its working again

Well it took me five weeks but my computer is now working, the server is back on line and the links above should all work again. [Please have a play and let me now if you find any glitches.]

Now that the ball is moving I think all my bad luck over the last few weeks will hopefully disappear, I'll actually get some work done and I'll finally find a decent plumber and get the last leak in the flat sorted .

Water, water everywhere and no a drop to drink

More extracts from my work in progress about the life of a lonely lighthouse keeper.

Plumbers are mean

Unfortunately my hopes for a trouble free September are not going so well.

We spent most of Sunday relaying the floor in my kitchen following the recent leaking to the neighbour downstairs. That night I discovered we had no hot water as the boiler pressure had dropped to zero.

We topped it back up but by next morning it again was at zero. I then refilled it but by the middle of the morning and phone call home confirmed my worst fears. The pressure was again at zero and we still had a leak.

I quickly ran home, only to discover on arrival that I had left my keys behind and I had to phone Ann to drive across the city and let me in. To make matters more difficult the neighbour downstairs has gone on away for three weeks and not left an emergency contact so I have no idea if it really is flooding, just a strong hunch but I can;t take the risk.

In 20 minutes I have undone the 5 hours of work relaying the tiles and floorboards and I have discovered that there is water under the floor. I phone the insurances home emergency number and they send out a plumber who finally arrives late, grumpy, rude and unhelpful. He tells me that until I've lifted ll the floor and identified exactly where the leak is he can't help and he leaves.

I then have to rip up loads more floor boards and finally identify where the leak is coming from. The insurance company contact the rude plumber who finally calls at 10 to say that he is too tired and is going to his bed. "But its still leaking" I tell him. He tells me how to shut off that part of the system, which I do, but it is still leaking. I phone back the insurance who send out another company who arrives at 1am only to advise he doesn't have the correct equipment to carry out the job and will have to come back. He also advises that the leak in the pipe is not causing my pressure to drop and that there must be another problem???? Arrrrgh

This morning after no sign of the plumber I chase up the depot, who advise that they are still trying to agree the costs with the insurance company. I chase up the insurance company who advise that they are happy to pay the price. I phone up the plumber who then admit they don't have any engineers available to do the repair today anyway. I currently await further news from the insurance company about what is going to happen next.

Tomorrow

Tomorrow is a bright new day and all the bad luck of August can be left behind.

Bad luck continues

Something in my flat is dripping into the flat downstairs. I've taken up the floor in the kitchen and moved the washing machine and dishwasher and I've ripped apart my bathroom but sadly I'm yet to find whats causing it.

So add that to the rest of my bad luck:

Server goes wrong - need to redo site
Computer broke - hard drive ruined

Rooflight of flat broke - needs repaired
Ankle broke - well doc says I've got a fracture

I can't wait for August to finish.

Juice

I had a very nice drink of juice the other night - with a great label - check out the the tree trunk turning into a hand holding an orange. Top marks.

Emergency

Sketch for a short comic novel I'm working on about an isolated Lighthouse keeper.

Well - I'm afraid my computer has returned minus my hard drive which has packed in. Meaning I've lost nearly all my work from the last couple of years and lots of my music and more importantly my photos. I've reinstalled what backup files I've got but some of those have packed in as well. Most disappointing of all I've lost the whole of a new project I was about to reveal called 365 days of sky. Last year I took a photo of the sky each day, wherever I was in the world. The result was a beautiful kaleidoscope of blues, greys and whites as the ever changing sky twisted and blurred above me each day. Sadly, it is now, nearly all gone.

There is a chance the retrieval company might be able to get the information back - but their prices start at £500. Doh. Maybe if I go ahead and I do get the images back - I can sell prints of the sky photos to help recover my loses. Here's a couple of the ones I've still got.

St Louis Arch, USA Stockholm, Sweden Glasgow, Scotland

I'll attempt to put the rest of this site back together from the remnants of my back up files.

Still not working

My computer is still in the doctors and so I therefore haven't been able to sort out the server problems. Fingers crossed it comes back on Thursday and I can get back to work.

computers are bad

I'm afraid I've not been able to sort the server problems yet as my own computer is playing up now too. One of the hard drives has disapeared and it looks like it will have to go to the computer doctors.

post of a poster

Colour sketch for a second poster

posters

Hmmm - still not worked out how to fix the links above - i will I'm sure eventually get it sorted. Meanwhile here is a sketch I made working out a colour layout for a poster for our local farmers market. Think I'm going to do it in an old British Rail poster style.

normal service disrupted again

Doh - I've managed to sort the small world experiment website - and correct the server so it directly links http://www.smallworldexperiment.com/ to where the files are stored but its now screwed up the paths to my other files and information. This means that none of the above links to my art, design or film pages are working. This will require a rethink to get working again. Doh.

Normal service will resume once I get the hang of it.

Normal service will resume

Hello all - not a nice thing to discover when you wake up in the morning but I'm afraid that the above web links to my other work (and my other websites) are not working for some reason at the moment.

Unfortunte timing given my exhibition opens tonight but never mind. At least the pages and images stored in my blog are still working, so why not have wander through those and let me know what you think. You can use the labels on the right to navigate.

Also the small world experiment website is going through a redesign - please let me know what you think and add your comments and stories.

EDIT: Whoo hoo, good news the server is working again - everything back up and running.

what a fine smoking jacket

larger

You have to go.

This blog is a year old today. Happy birthday blog - I was going to post a picture of a birthday balloon but instead here is a sad post about what happens when you eat too much birthday cake, jelly and other party foods.

Science geeks

Science Geeks

The Plockton Exhibiton opens on Friday - and the word on the street is that its going to be very good. Obviously chuffed to have work in the show and also equally chuffed that our book is on sale there and doing very well. For those of you who haven't yet had a chance to purchase "Hole in my Pocket - Sketchbooks volume 1" then fear not as there is still a supply left in stock - though not sure how many more print runs there will be with work now progressing on volume 2. Wy not check out the extracts and if you still want a copy then send us an email.

cover

extract 1

extract 2

extract 3

extract 4

back cover

more things i made

Battle Elephant

The Storytelling Machine

Just recieved this copy of an image of the Storytelling Machine in postion. Hard to make it out, but it does look suitablly old and spooky.

Plockton ideas

Where the animals hide (2007)

Inital colour test sketch for a painting inspired by the book "The testement of Gideon Mack." Will try and complete this and a further series of 6 paintings by this time next week.

Hmmm can't decide if pen and ink overlaid looks good or not http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1277/589423855_fab8a2ee37_o.jpg

Wormy

I'll be showing work as part of the Plockton Gallery show from the 14th of July. Plockton is a beautiful place like a pirates cove and the gallery has a fantastic array of work every year. I'm really looking forward to being part of it. For more info - direcitons openings times etc follow the link. www.plocktongallery.co.uk

The man with a cardboard box for a head

Explorations

On Monday night we went to hear a talk by explorer extraordinaire Sir Ranolph Fiennes. He gave a rather excellent account of several of his amazing explorations around the world - the main one being his trip around the Earth on its axis. Starting in the UK heading south through Antarctica and the south pole, then back up the other side, though the north pole and back home to UK. The whole talk was illustrated with amazing photos of some of the places he had been and some rather disturbing images, explained in a Sir Ranpolph's very dry black sense of humor showing some of the disasters/ injuries and diseases that befell them on the three year journey. These injuries included the skin on the soles of the teams feet going gangrenous and falling off, blisters on hands freezing up to the size of tennis balls, loosing fingers by not being careful when going to the toilet and people cracking their heads and their eyes filling with blood. To give an idea of the tone of the talk Sir Ranolph finished this segment by saying that after the eye blood problem his team mate just wouldn't stop whinging.

After the talk we stayed around for the free wine and some of the best canopy treats ever . The little tiny raspberry cheese cake was one of the tastiest things I've eaten. All in all a very interesting night - even including bumping into the most boring man in the world during the networking. Not realising why you recognise him until its to late and you have engaged him in conversation. Lucky I ran out of cake and did a runner, leaving the others to entertain him.

Shetland is open

Hmmm it was the opening of the new Shetland gallery and museum yesterday for which I designed the above storytelling machine. Sadly I didn't get to go to the opening or I could have met up with Charlie and his mrs and the Queen of Norway. Instead I had to make do with listening to a tour of the new museum on Front Row on Radio 4. Big Charles gave it two thumbs up.

Sadly also meant we never got any really good photos of the piece finally put together but it still looked pretty cool in its construction phase. Take a gander here.