Pieter Boel's Head of a Dog revisited

         This is reposted from April 2020. I can truthfully say, doing this helped me through lockdown.

 I finally started on a project I have been thinking about, for a long time. A year or so ago,I trained as a Peer Facilitator at Dulwich Picture Gallery, as part of a project called 'Together through Art,' which was targeted at Mental Health Service Users, in their 50s.

In the DPG collection of Old Master paintings is this Head of a dog by Flemish artist, Pieter Boel. I think it is an old dog. That makes it all the more poignant, for me. I have a lovely book of dog portraits by a favourite artist of my mother's called Cecil Aldin. He says always start with the eyes.
The blue cast is just the camera on my  phone.
When I was an Art Student at Middlesex University in the early 1980s, I went through a phase of making art about greyhounds.

It is nice to see my efforts win the supreme seal of approval.

As you do, I googled to see what was already happening in the world of Fine Art crochet. Check out this guy, Pat Ahern!  Amazing work!      https://www.facebook.com/padurn/

Also,check out  https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2011/04/jo-hamiltons-crochet-portraits/

I think he works completely freeform, without a support as such. That is somewhat hardcore, for me, so I am using a piece of old hessian (sackcloth) I had hanging around.

Doesn't look much at the moment,but hopefully, as time goes on, there will be progress...watch this space!

I think we are done now, pretty much. I've really enjoyed spending time with Pieter Boel's dog.

As he did, I suspect. But for different reasons.

Now we are done. I think.

? Disposable Vapes

 DISCLAIMER: Anyone who attempts to disassemble a disposable vape does so at their own risk. The author takes no responsibilty for any harm caused by doing so.

Now and then I do daft things, like experiment with disposable vapes.I'm an ex smoker, I know all the facts about the addictiveness of nicotine, but the little tubes look so cute, the flavours so enticing...

I find them incredibly addictive. Then I started to wonder, can they be recycled?To market something as 'disposable' is not all that responsible, surely?

Only one way to find out.Equipped with a set of IKEA tools, plastic gloves and some old vapes,I carried out an investigation.Here are my results.

The ends are made of plastic and can be removed with strong pliers.

The 'innards' can be shaken or pushed out; they comprise a vial containing nicotine soaked wadding, and a lithium battery

These bits could be recycled once you dispose of the wadding , with batteries and with plastic waste

That leaves a coloured metal hollow tube.Edges are quite sharp, but there has to be a use for these?

I've moved on to the little rectangular vapes known as Lost Marys.These can be dis-assembled in similar fashion, leaving the sleeve which is aluminium covered in a colourful coating.The Trade marks can be removed by rubbing them with sandpaper. I tried hammering them flat, and ended up with squares of coloured aluminium.I drilled a hole in one corner and turned them into a wind chime. I used old curtain rings to suspend them from, using fine nylon cord. You could use fishing line instead.

The tubular ones would work as wind chimes too , it would be possible to punch a hole either side using an awl, with a wooden dowel running through the middle.But I don't have the necessary tools for that.

Yet.