St Madoes - stone carving workshop

I was asked to run a stone carving workshop at the opening of the new St Madoes centre.
I'd put forward a proposal to carve the stone that will be in their garden area but wasn't chosen for that. Not unhappy, the workshop went so well.

 All happy carvers and a great day out.

The Frigate Unicorn - Dundee

The HMS Frigate Unicorn is almost 200 year old!

"HMS Unicorn is considered to be the best preserved of all historic wooden ships in the world from her era.

She is now the World’s last intact warship from the days of sail, one of the six oldest ships in the world and Scotland’s only representative of the sailing navy."

http://www.frigateunicorn.org

This is a fascinating ship to visit and I've been lucky to have been shown all over, even where visitors don't get to go. There are still initials and names of the original shipwrights in some places.

Ships of this era carried with them small animals to provide fresh food on  long journeys. These would include pigs, sheep, goats and chickens. The Unicorn management team wanted to inform the public by putting animals, a large stove and hurdles on the ship. I was commissioned to paint some life sized animals in the same style as the painted sailors already on the ship.

It was a great deal of work but enjoyable, so here they are.

 

  

 

SCRAPANTICS - the move

WE MOVED!!!

An incredible feat of will power, fabulous helpers, a van, good weather and a shopping trolley.

From small acorns, mighty oaks will grow.

Luckily the move consisted of leaving our wee unit on one side of the carpark to a much bigger unit on the other side of the carpark and round the corner.

The original store

 What you see in this photo is almost all there was, such a small unit but a brilliant way to start.
Our fabulous helpers were mainly my mum and sister, they were quite outstanding, although I did try to stop mum lifting things that were too heavy, quite often without success.

The front of our new store - now highly visible from the road instead of hidden away at the back of a carpark.

The boat was one of about 5 half boats on scooters from a play at the Dundee Rep Theatre. Great fun to play with and all went to good homes.