... on the Curious Bruise.

Left:: I was cutting some wire yesterday and I accidently poked my left index finger with the end. It bled quite a bit but you can hardly see the puncture, now.

Right:: This is the bruise that has come up on the other side of that finger. How about that!?

... on the broken w.

Look what just happened when I was photographing 'wheelie'. I'm inclined to think it's a sign I shouldn't list 'wheelie' but I'm going to ignore it.

How did I break it!? For the purposes of photography I Blu-Tack the letters to my wall, as it's only temporary. For large letters like 'w' I use three little knobs of it - which of course, now that I think about it, can put undue pressure on the middle of the letter when I'm pressing it onto the wall. It acts a bit like breaking a stick over your knee, and from now on I'll be using two knobs max.

... on mould and fungus.

A Photoshop restoration. This slide of my parents and brother was dark and had mould/fungus growing all over it, but I really loved the photo and set myself the challenge of restoring it digitally.

My mum told me to airbrush out her bra strap but that's one of the things I love the most about this photo, so I didn't.

... on hope.

This was my first Plaster Wall Word. These first letters were pretty rough, and unsealed. I glued them on using contact cement and 5 years later they're still stuck firmly.

I chose 'hope' because I wanted something on my wall that would remind me that however bad I was feeling about something, it was a pretty good idea to have some kind of notion that the future could be good.

New 'hope' (carved way more carefully, and sealed!) may be found here.

... on unexpected lettering.

The office I work in had moved to an industrial area. On the chain-link fence was an old sign, which looked like all the lettering had worn off it. It was just a rusty orange piece of tin that I thought would be great to make into some Beastie Sea Creatures.

I knew I had to have it, so I gave G*** my pliers and got him to snip it off for me one night. He put it down the side of my desk during his night-shift and I transferred it, wrapped in paper, to my car the next day.

When I got home that night I tore off the paper and gleefully ran my hand over the lovely surface, imagining it as a Lobster Beastie, definitely a Crabby Beastie. I turned the sign over to check out the other side - to find this beautiful weathered lettering: the sign had been facing 'out' through the fence, not 'in' as I'd assumed!

How can I possibly take my tin-snips to something so beautiful?

... on little sharp bits of tin.

Dave came around the other day, and saw these little offcuts from making a Beastie sitting on my table. "Em!" he said, poking dubiously. "Have you cut your toenails again?!"