On my kitchen table.

After weeks and weeks of staving off the dreaded colds and flu that have been going around, I have finally succumbed. Today has found me feeling decidedly under par so I have opted to keep busy with things that don't require too much concentration.

This is a pic of my casting set up. It takes place on the kitchen table and is pretty low tech.

I have a little camper stove-top that I use to heat up an old saucepan full of pewter left-overs that are too big for my trusty ladle. I use the "Fat-Boy" to heat up said ladle.

These are the sorts of pieces that go into the saucepan - mostly the bottoms of beer mugs that have been cut up and used in other ways. I like to use every scrap I can - not sure if that makes me environmentally conscientious or a regular old tight-arse. Either way it makes me happy to reclaim as much material as I can from these fairly obsolete objects!

Every now and then I go on a mold-making spree. I am getting better at it as I go along too.

Here are a few of the lovelies prior to clean up. That can be a bit laborious but it is nice to have a whole swathe of finished bits to use, so it is well worth the effort. I am a pretty big fan of processes that don't require super specialised tools and equipment. For instance, I like relief printmaking because it can be done without a press and torch fired enameling 'cos it can be done without a kiln. I rather like the idea of creativity blossoming in a domestic setting. My children sat at this table and created their colourful drawings, play-doh sculptures and wrote stories and essays and poems right here. I like to think that the timber has soaked up some of that creative energy and like a tree releasing carbon, will slowly over time continuously  release creativity into the air ... a bit fanciful maybe, but a nice thought huh?

And this is what the end product looks like. Do you work at your kitchen table too?