It’s a scary business this “being an artist”.

This will be the base of the coracle sculpture. Just spent hours gluing it up today.

This has taken ages to produce because there has been a lot of gluing and then painting which has to dry each time. I find the PVA wood glue often does not reach full strength for a day or two.

It has occurred to me in the past how much doing any kind of art is a leap into the unknown. Each day is an experiment which can go wrong. These things we make have never been made before. There is no blue-print to follow. It’s actually surprising how much of it goes right. Of course that is the attraction of being an artist but it can lead to frustration and disappointment too. The disappointments are in the bin as we speak so that no-one will see them.

I haven’t produced anything for the bin in the past week as I’ve worked with sculpture number 5 the “coracle”.

The first inner shell

Making the framework for the second shell

The strategy of painting the outside of the shell so it soaks through to the inside is working well. Here I’ve made the small inner shell and painted it yellow. It’s not obvious from the second photo but I then painted the outside of the shell with a thick coat of dark blue. The third pic shows the second muslin shell in place. I painted this a lighter blue from the outside too.

Deciding which colour is a difficult one because once the paint has soaked through to the inside I can’t change it. I can play a bit with the outer colour and change it before I construct the next shell. Just another example of living on a knife edge and not quite knowing what is going to happen next.

The final shell made with laminated strips formed, it seems, weeks ago.

So far things are going well and there are some nice surprises. The muslin shrinks really well once it has been wetted. It seems to cling to the framework like a taut skin just as it does in a real coracle. The painting from the outside of the muslin has to be fairly wet to soak through. This has given rise to some interesting watercolour effects on the inside.

There are interesting things to find on the edge. I’m just holding on tight and trying not to fall off.