A short film…

and it’s all about moi!

Thanks to Echo Video for wanting to make it:

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Kids in the Shed!!

60 kids from Hertford Infants School at the workshop.

Mr Watt’s shed gets it’s first occupants!

Wonky metalwork explained….

…to an attentive audience:

then the walk back to school, and they’re all exhausted!

See the Kingfisher class blog at:

http://kingfisherclassblog.wordpress.com/2014/03/18/visit-to-jon-millss-workshop/

Hey Kids!!

Here’s me giving a talk to Hertford Infants school assembly.

A quick history of my career to date, from automata and furniture, to public art and demo’s of the Mr Watt eBooks.

What a receptive and appreciative audience!

(with thanks to: All at Hertford Infants School & Branwen Lorigan branwenlorigan@googlemail.com ‘Arts, Education & Creative Economy’)

Ghost Train pic

Thanks to Clive Baldwin for this shot of the ghost train ~ and here are some others if you haven’t made it to the bottom of the Jenny Lind Locomotive post yet.

30 years of making in 25 minutes

I spluttered my way through a history of my ‘career’ at the Brighton Mini Makers Faire… and now it’s available for all to see…uh-oh.

 

must get my hair cut

And now… the eBook goes live! eeee!

Hooray!!

At last, Apple have finally given the all-clear on the Arts Council funded  “Mr Watt Grumpy Man of Metal” ebook; almost 9 months have been spent putting the film, animations, demonstrations and stories together; here’s the official link to buy it for your iPad, or to just check out some sample pages:

https://itunes.apple.com/gb/book/mr.-watt-grumpy-man-metal/id683754981?mt=11

Here’s a link to the cover art:

https://vimeo.com/74460468

And here’s a link to a promotional video

https://vimeo.com/69967366

stick-kid bridge

About 4 years I ago I was asked to produce a design based on “people” to go on the sides of a new footbridge in Andover, which Persimmon Homes had to provide as part of their new housing development scheme. At the time I had recently sold “Stickman” (to Darren Shan the teenage horror writer), and as the site for the bridge was flanked by trees, I proposed making a series of running “stick kids” running from one side to the other, and using the bridge as a sort of backdrop to a simple cartoon/illustration.

The job was duly forgotten for a few years and then suddenly the phone call comes, engineers are poring over details, deadlines appear to be tight and stressful and work has to start in order not to miss road closures and cranes etc etc. First off – get a load of tubes of varying diameters rolled to various radii:

All tubes have to be sorted and cut to various lengths depending on the limbs that they are representing. There are going to be 14 figures in total, 7 boys on one side and 7 girls on the other. The bridge fabricator will be welding in 3 horizontal rails across each side of the bridge; these will be my datum and I will make a jig based on the centre-lines of these 3 support rails.

Once cut to the correct lengths, each section is heated up and ‘knocked about’ to make it more stick-like:

and then all ends capped to keep the rain out. Here’s all the components of one figure:

Original sketch is used to scale up the figures, and then assembly can take place on the jig:

I’m hoping that the shorts/skirts and hands/feet will read as camouflage-like splashes of colour. The boys will be a yellowy orange, girls light green (with opposite coloured shorts/skirts).

The figures at each end will have a dog on a lead as well (powder-coated yellow):

Picture also shows all of the fixing clamps that will be used to bolt the 14 figures to the support rails.

Now the work is all stacked up awaiting finishing/powder-coating, which will (hopefully) be timed to coincide with the one week road closure and crane etc. in July.

And finally: 2 days spent by the roadside, bolting the powder-coated figures on to the bridge structure. A great work team from CTS Bridges Huddersfield (thanks Phil, Phil and Mark!) and everything fitted. Road closure’s on Friday, and the crane will lift it all up and into position.

The final figure being lifted up and over and in to position: