The swan is in the building!

Great excitement over at the premises yesterday, as the new addition to the team arrived.

A 4ft fiberglass swan! It is part of the Jubilee celebrations for the city of Wells.

Swans have been chosen for Wells because of their historical place in the city, where they ring the bell for feeding on the moat surrounding Bishop's Palace.

Similar projects have taken place in cities across the country, where large animals or objects are decorated by artists and then these objects, in my case the swan, are placed around the city to form a trail throughout the months of June to September.

They will each be decorated differently by the individual artist who is then sponsored by local businesses etc. Because I am also a business as well as an artist, I have gone into joint sponsorship with my printers St Andrews Press and one of our local stockists Maddie Browns. It will be displayed in the Market Place throughout the summer and will hopefully get seen by the 1000's of tourists who visit and be enjoyed by the locals too.

In October the various swans will be auctioned off to raise money for charity - so if you fancy a giant spotty swan, start saving!!

It just about fits into the last bit of remaining space I have over at the premises and as you can see, is quite a size.

I intend to collage it using our spotty papers. In conjunction with St Andrews Press, we are getting special UV protection papers printed to withstand the sun that WILL shine this summer. Something similar to that used on billboard posters.

I will have to sand her, prime her and sand again to give her a key before any work can begin.

I love the contours already on the swan and know exactly what I am going to do.

As always I will share with you the progress I make but am not aloud to share the final swan until the grand launch at the end of May. You can read more about it all here

So for now, work carries on as normal over at the premises - orders made up and dispatched and new design projects continue to develop. Every now and then I glance up and get a reminder of the task ahead of me.

I intend to spend a concentrated few days on it during the Easter holidays when I can work freely without the time restraints of school runs etc

For now though, this weekend, I intend to enjoy this glorious weather that has been forecast.

Hope you all have a lovely weekend and the sun shines where you are.