Author: Steve Scott

Categories
Chairs

Ageing Chair

A new career in fakery beckons. I made the chair to go outside but half under shelter, knowing that Ash doesn’t take to wet conditions. A few years later it could be taken for an antique, after a few more coats of Danish oil.
Categories
Chairs

Jigsaw Complete

In the last post I showed a pile of Ash bits left over from chair making. In the end I decided I needed a place to put my clothes at night instead of the old blue dining chair that clashed with room. The seat is made up of four pieces of wood and the legs have just got the traces of my tell-tale bark. Much better, as the cupboard to the right is now in the process of being painted partially white too.
Categories
Chairs Garden

Jigsaw puzzle and no bats

I decided to see if I could make a small bench from pieces left over from chair making, but I haven’t solved the jigsaw puzzle yet. I sat outside the shed and loved the light on the flax, roses and other plants then came inside as it got colder. Instead of closing the curtains I put off the lights and watched for bats, but there were only my own creations flying around. I’ll be generous and assume it was the cold and not the neighbour’s light polution that kept them away.
Categories
Garden

Generate your own Zoom Background

My home made office chair with spare and small copies of bits of work behind and around the walls.
Categories
Garden

Spring Sprung

The more formal Front
A crop of sloes Later?
Willow shoots good or bad?
It is still moving from cold to hot and back again, but the garden is giving little gifts all the time. Ruth’s much loved magnolias, wild sloes flowering and the willow arch, made over winter, showing shoots.

Categories
Garden

Nature and pottering

We had quite a lot of snow recently, which gave us an excuse for staying inside and watching nature. At one point we had 3 female and one male pheasants in the garden. The snow also gave the chance to spot tracks, including evidence of the supected badger that has been digging up the paths for worms. On a nice day I cut some willow from the bottom of the garden and made an arch on the entrance to one of the paths.
Categories
General Furniture

Build, Re-use Adapt

Some of the early furniture I made (in the spare bedroom from wood offcuts) is still in use 40+ years later. Some of it was made from wood taken from even older furniture that was just being thrown away. Some, like these, just gets re-purposed. We are decorating the hall, so adapted the old telephone table/directory store/shoe stand to be a little bench with the shoes underneath. Ruth had the idea of part painting these white and we agreed what would and wouldn’t be done. We are pleased with the result.
Categories
Garden

Getting Outdoors

Growing Log Pile
Logs for next year
Evergreens
Evergreens come into their own
Brash Piles
Brash pile awaiting log sorting to kindling and shredding for the paths.
Asking to be made into cup mats
Each year the garden develops a whole load of log and brash piles, as the trees get pruned. Slowly they then get brought to the top and processed. In the absence of a lot of flowers, the evergreens, skeletal trees and the colours of the logs and brash piles add a nice pictorial element to make you smile.
Categories
Art Briefings

Keep on Trying

Addendum to the text below. Since this I have had all sorts of nuisance health problems, such as a failed hip replacement, but I now know that practice has enabled me to ensure that I generally make a better fist of painting such as this example. So the heading is even more apt four years later.

As we enter Covid Tier 3 and full England Lockdown threatens, I resolve to get back to painting, but I have hit a block. I have just decided I don’t like one I did before and taken it off the wall to redo and the sketch below is the last I did in Wales and I really dislike it.When I did it, Ruth went of for a walk and I set out on my folding bike for this spot. The gears suddenly stopped changing and the battery started threatening to run out faster than expected (I later discovered that the charger had fried three expensive batteries). As I set off it went a bit cooler and the wind really got up. By the time I got to this spot I was a bit cold. As I decided to pick an angle to sit and work from, I realised that, while the view was lovely, it was hard to capture on paper, because of the scales. Determined, I started and the water-filled brush I carry in my little travelling set decided to play up and wasn’t delivering water.I was sat on a 35cm high stool balancing a small sketchbook, a pallette, a source of water and myself as the wind increased. The sketch book kept trying to close and the tiny pallette lid kept doing the same, spilling my paint mixes into each other.Suddenly I realised that the tree I was sat under was an oak and was raining acorns down on where I was sat. and that the numbers were increasing. As I intinctively flinched when one hit me, I sent paint flying over the painting and had to rapidly find the rag to mop it up.I hastily captured some last details and fled the scene.The sad thing is that I know, even after sixty years of practice, I could neve capture that scene to my satisfaction. I am lucky that there are paintings I have done, especially little ones, that make me smile every time I see them, but there are more like this that sit there accusing me.Undaunted, I must pick up my brushes again. Maybe a cup of coffee and a few little jobs first.

Barmouth
Towards Barmouth
Categories
Garden

This Year

Fuchsias from cuttings
Flowerpot Sunflowers
Meadow Beds

It has been a funny year of course but work is well underway preparing for winter and next year. 100m of hedges cut, trees trimmed, meadow beds cut, scarified and extra perennials and seeds added, more cuttings started. Manure has been hauled and is waiting to rejuvenate beds, pumkins have been collected and stored, late vegetables are being picked and used, we have started using the wood cut and stored last year. There is always more to do but looking at the meadow bed as it is now, reminds me of its earlier glory.