I'd forgotten I made these videos.

Untill I recieved an unexpected and belated comment on utube today. It was asking how long it took to paint the highland cattle?

The answer is I did not paint it all in one go, but if I added all the time together I would say at least a day to make and paint the background and a day to cut out and paint the cattle and ponies.

The Konic Ponies and Longhorn Cattle in the Blean are of great interest to me and Cosmo who can't stop himself barking at them. They both seem pretty laid back about him barking though.
I enjoyed making these ambiguious scenes of painted and real situations together. If I had time I would make more like them of other animals and even plants found within the blean.

A Walk Round The Trail

We spent the late morning and early afternoon walking round the woodland trail with representatives from Access Collaboration Ltd, to see if the proposals, arrangements and features could be improved in any way. Parking concerns were soon smoothed over and the anticipation, exploration and explanation of a realised trail became almost the only topic of our conversations all the way around.

A very nice walk, and the right descision not to bring Cosmo though.

KWT staff and Access Collaboration strolling around The Blean



Unofficial school party from Herne Bay High School





January Sticks









Completion of Insect Homes

We at the Hospital have now completed our bird boxes and the insect homes. As you can imagine there are many rules and regulations about photos, insurance, and placement of these finished works, and the facilities dept will finish the project for us.

But just talking to the staff there in that kind of informal feedback way of conversation while your working, it is apparent that the insect homes have been on display all over the Xmas and new year period. Several people from other organisations have commented on them and thought they were for sale. A kind of cottage industry insect homes supplier.

No this is a one off, but there has obviously been conversations about woodworking with similar organisations.

There were meant to be 5 bird boxes but I think one got used as a Xmas present!

So my it's my opportunity now to formally thank the staff at St. Martins for their generous help and support we would not have done this without it.

Staff showing the camera one of 5 completed bird boxes with relief designs carved into the wood.




Designed for  Bees living in the luxury loft apartments in bamboo canes
wood construction housing for the general insect population living on ground level apartments
Life style options for insects  preferring to live in the soil filled end 2 storey houses with painted windows
all properties have panoramic views of the hospital grounds.
The properties are very well aspected in this prestigious Canterbury location with Canterbury Golf Course minutes flying distance. Similar distances to good large open areas and playing  fields. 
Close by schools include:
Chaucer Technology Collage
Barton Court Grammar School
Canterbury Collage and the University Collage of Art and Design
Pilgrims Way Primary School

Making these ideal family homes for all insects provided completely free using resources from several charities. 

 Photos of the project are scarce but we did take several of the insect homes outside in the hospital grounds.


Completed insect homes in the hospital grounds 



anthropomorphic
projecting human characteristics onto the animal world
insects living in a Georgian Terrace!



Advertising School Workshops

Flier asking for schools participation

We can design motifs which act as a list of all the types of wildlife seen on a school visit to the Woodland.
Or a class can research species in more depth as a classroom based exercise. The overall idea is that each class's research, either class based or 'in the field' is recorded on a tree trunk using motif style designs. These tree trunks will act as a kind of inventory of wildlife found in West Blean.



butterfly



Map Making

I really enjoyed drawing a map showing all the different features which could be created along what has become known as the wheelchair path. Each place coloured red indicates something to look at or engage with.



A map showing ideas for a woodland trail. I never fully realised how much
information and endeavour could be contained in a little diagram?


Accompanied with this map is a visual document showing drawings and  photos indicating what things may look like and a task list with an estimate of how long they may take to make and how much they may cost. It might be a report but one with lots of pictures! I expect new ideas will be put in and some taken out. But the document should make things clear for further fund raising.

I have uploaded a few drawings showing some of the suggested features.

An entrance feature using two pine trees which have grown with naturally curved trunks



seating with  engravings showing whats in the woods along the edges



A maze created by weaving together shoots growing from willow tree stumps.

Seasons Greetings.

Seasons Greetings.

I went for a walk in the woods one evening with my dog. It was not snowing but heavy snow was still around, it was getting darker all the time. The whiteness of the snow kind of reflected everywhere and created its own light. I felt I was walking in a David Attenborough documentory one minute, next I was a character in an East European fairy tale, then while passing through a section of fir trees I felt like Sitting Bull refusing to live on a reservation land and living wild as Indians had always done, through yet another harsh winter. 

The following day I went back to the woods with my camera and four sticks which I had wrapped wool around. I placed these sticks in the trees and photographed them. Then I used the photo as an emailable xmas card.

It is at this point that I had best explain the thing with sticks with wool wrapped around? At the end of each month I collect 4 sticks from the woods and wrap wool around them in colours that I think represent the month just past, one stick for each week so as to record any gradual changes. Then I take them back to the woods and photograph them. I started doing this in July10 and will continue until July11, thus creating a series of photos which record the passing of a year, week by week, month by month. So I used one of my December Sticks photos for a xmas card. 

Taking Your Dog To Work With You.

The only other time I can think of an example of this, was when I visited a very very posh school like Hogwarts in the Weald of Kent. I met two art teachers who greeted me in the car park with a couple of terriers. I could not stop thinking what it would have been like if I had taken a Jack Russel with me back when I was at my compreshensive school? We walked around the school grounds, it was a kind of open air meeeting on the move with dogs. That was exactly what we did the other day except I brought my own dog along! You must be in the right job if you can take your dog to work with you?

We walked around what is called at the moment 'the wheel chair path'. This was with staff from Kent Wildlife Trust, another terrier called Fletcher and Cosmo. We pooled our ideas together to start designing a woodland trail. This already has a new firm walkway  just over a mile long so wheel chair users are encouraged to enjoy the woods. We are now looking to install sensory features and other artworks and points of interest along this route.

the trees are bare now and you can see more clearly how the wood passes from one area to another

We have made a list of 21 features which has some very optomistic ideas and others which are much smaller and easily achievable. Design workshops/field trips will be arranged with some local schools to move this forward and generate community interest in changes happening in the Blean Woodlands.

My next task then is to construct some kind of visualisation of the proposed elements along this trail and how these things can be realised, what they are made of and how they are constructed. Some features will require skills and knowledge from other people or organisations, including volunteers labour to carry out, make and install these things.

I have just picked 3 random numbers between 1-21 and these are my notes for what corresponds to

No.4: The Heron. A symbol of the Herne Bay area. A giant woven sculpure using willow or chestnut. Story teller to visit schools to generate creation stories/ local myths about herons and why they are significant to the area. (My childrens school badge has a heron on even).

No.15: Semi curcular seating area. Cut from secret oak store for special items? Carvings inspired by woodland flora and fauna and the designs generated from school workshops on this bench.

No.20: Entrance feature to wheel chair path created from two odly curved pine tree trunks. The curves enable an arch to be constructed, this would resemble a 'whale bone jaw'. It would be very big.

Cosmo in a freezing cold stream
(even in the winter with ice foating in it he does this!)

Cosmo came home and lazed about for the rest of the day laying across doorways blocking entrances, just generally flaked out after a busy morning looking for squirrels and searching for whatever it is he is looking for