Commission, Commission....

I've just begun making a private commission for a lovely garden in Kent, based on the Death by Jumbrella piece I did for the Sir Harold Hillier Gardens in Hampshire. This piece will consist of 3 poles, 9 foot (2.74cm) in length, compared to the previous pieces which were 2m high above ground. All 3 of these poles are the same width and depth, roughly 7 x 4.5cm and will all be wrapped in the plastic lacing.

I am very excited about making these pieces, especially as they will be so long and colourful, but for the moment I am concentrating on filling the holes (mostly where sections of the knots have fallen out). I am using a delightful material called "Joy - Plastic Wood" which is apparently "applied like putty - dries like wood". I've never used this before so I'm intrigued to see how it goes, and what happens when I try to sand it down! Some of the holes are really deep so it's going to take me quite a few layers to fill them in! Watch this space....

Also, due to the length of the poles (3.6m) they're a bit difficult to fit in my room so I'm currently having them over my bed, held up at one end by my desk and the other leaning on some storage tubs and a box! It's like an unwanted room-divider! I think I might even have to sand and varnish them like this too as the weather is so bad at the moment that I can't really leave them outside like I did previously! The weather was far better back in April when I made the original piece. Here is a photograph to demonstrate my new room-divider and an image of the potentially wonderful plastic wood:

Yes, my "studio" is in fact my "bedroom". For the moment at least.

It's going to be interesting sleeping with these poles over my bed and trying to switch my alarm onto snooze in the morning....