Hillbilly costume

I had the pleasure of attending a Hillbilly party last weekend, And thought I would go all out with my costume. With some time on my hands, I created this 'hillbilly mask' - inbred big ears, big lips, furrowed brow, complete with extra finger. It took a whole day and a half of my life. I made it with mod-roc and papier mache. 

Text Project

By taking quirky and inspiring mottos and sayings, mixing them with my own process of entering a dazed state of making through repetitive actions, this is my Text Project. I often have a market stall the Tobacco Factory Sunday markets, and various school fetes throughout Bristol.

Each piece is completely unique, with the lines drawn free-hand and each letter is hand cut. I use vivid-colored card for each design and a good quality mount. A simple yet elegant design for the home, and all made lovingly in Bristol

I have lots of popular pieces in stock. As well as this, I offer a bespoke service, so feel free to commission me.

I charge £6 for each 4” tall letter, and the mounting is at cost-price, i.e. an A3 sized piece would cost around £8 to mount. I arrange framing through Niche Frames, Bristol who can offer a large and varied range of framing options. 

If you live out of Bristol, the cost of postage and packaging will be around £10 depending on the size of piece you select, although i prefer to hand-deliver as the work is easily damaged in the post. I will deliver for free if you live in the Bristol area! 

if there is anything you‘d like to ask, feel free: 

hello@lucybarfoot.co.uk

Eggs, Cider, Finger

I like these photographs. I took them. 

New Collages

Sailing again

I have been volunteering for Bristol Sailability, who enable young disabled people to sail. It is run from Baltic Wharf, Bristol. And Sailability are looking for more volunteers.

Recent Sketchbook Drawings

I have been doing some drawing in parks, on pavements and at the harbour. Using this lovely ink - Encre Sennelier: "shellac based ink with a transparent satin finish". bought on the Graphotism website, which i really recommend for any kind of art material. They have lovely color-wheels to help you select color.  I use a squeezy pen - a caricature artist at a wedding gave this pen to me after I enquired about his pen - kind chap. It has a long pointed brush which fills with more ink when you squeeze the pen. The cartridge is filled with black ink, but I dipped the end in the yellow ink, allowing the black to seep through a little.

A Greeting

"Hello, how are you"


"Great thank you, and you?"


"Oh not too bad, not too bad at all"


"You're good then?"


"Yes"

Paper Mâché birds and heads

I have been making some bird and people heads.



Made from paper-mâché - PVA glue & water with newspaper dipped into it. I make a sturdy cardboard base by wrapping some around a jar, and then cover with a couple of layers of paper-mâché to make it go really dry when hard.


Man's not finished

Flamingo's finished: 

Apple Process

Here's a short video I made for my final degree work at uni. I hired a spraybooth and sprayed 1,300 Gala apples a specific pink color of car lacquer. The process took a whole two weeks - three layers, and it was important to keep the stalks unpainted - so the applying and peeling off of masking tape was the most laborious part. 

You can read more about what I made and why on the gallery section of my website.

Drawings in the Pub

 

Hello - Let's Do Nice Things

'Let's Do Nice Things' has a website, it's here. 

I made this at the Art Club at Shop, Christmas Steps, which was part of 'Let's do Nice Things' takeover last week. I made things what I was told to make. 

Tuesdays Collages

Drying the poppies

Most of my notebooks have poppy petals in them. I press them, wait about a month for them to throughly dry then peel them from the pages of notepads and sketchbooks, and add the dried petals to my stash. Some of this batch went a little mouldy, but they look beautiful with it.

Summer Wedding

Hello me

I helped out with a wedding recently, a semi wedding stylist if you will. Main jobs were making cake stands and designing the look of the cake table, (the bride asked every one in her book club to bake a cake each, instead of the regular wedding cake) creating the place settings and designing the table plan.

Table Plan

I hand-cut everyone's initial and stuck them onto the plan with velcro - this made it easy to make last-minute changes to the seating plan if guests couldn't make it. They chose trestle tables - with couples sat both opposite and next to each other. I was hoping that the plan would spell out something, but it didn't - not enough vowels. I would like to make something out of the letters, as a post-wedding present. 

Cake table

The whole day was a dream. Bristol Florists Bella and Fifi worked hard on the flowers, they were gorgeous too - some wild flowers, all seasonal and locally grown.

Looking for a photographer in Bristol? All the above photographs were taken by Bruce, here's his portfolio. He also photographs the Invisible Circus lots, so if you've ever been to one of those nights, you should have a look and see if you can spot yourself in the galleries. 

I Ache

Three Nice Things in Bristol

One: Bentleg - Lets Do Nice Things 

Pop up galleries, life drawing, film showing (Miranda July's 'Me andYou and Everyone we Know' on Mon 26th July at Shop the Shop)

Two: Shop 

A lovely community interest company, vintage clothing and stuff and lots of community arts events. They say: "Shop envisages a world where businesses value people and sociability over profits – and creativity is acknowledged as and encouraged to be an essential part of life. SHOP exists to provide a retailing experience which focuses on conscious consumption and prioritises fair prices and original fashion. This consumption provides the financial means to use the shop space as an arts venue for the benefit of the whole community."


Three: The Happy City Initiative


They say: "Whoever you are, whatever your background, Happy City is here to help you make the most of your street, your community, your neighbourhood, your city. Maybe you’ve got a bright idea and need help making it happen? Perhaps you’ve got a little time to spare or some knowledge or experience to share? You might have an established organisation, looking for inspiration, ideas and people keen to help out…

Happy City exists to spread happiness. To bring people together, making connections between communities so people like you can make the change you want to happen. We don’t promise funding or formality. But you can be sure there’ll be no fat cats, forms to fill out or hoops to jump through. Just normal people like you, working together and using what we’ve already got to make our city better, brighter and happier than ever before."

Now Say Hello Back - MAKING LONDON MORE SOCIABLE ONE HELLO AT A TIME

In lots of places, lots of people are doing some extraordinary things. This morning, after a good long Skype with my sister in New Zealand, I knew I wanted to do some blogging, find some new stuff, get on twitter, snoop around the internet a bit. So here's a great thing I found:

Now Say Hello is a one-man mission to make London more sociable via a bicycle.  Bruno Clarke cycles a lot and has created a point-scoring system for human interaction whilst on his journeys:

Me saying hello – 1 point
Getting a response – 5 points (unless it’s aggressive or rude)
Getting a conversation – 10 points
Getting a joke – 20 points


He's noting down his efforts and scores on the blog, like this:

Saturday 10th July

60 points – ok so it’s a slightly made up number, but I think it’s fairly representative of the day.  I cycled 117 kilometres to Brighton with many a country hello and nod along the way.  Was a lovely ride.  It’s no Tour de France, but I was still pretty please for a lone effort on a hot day.

Thursday 8th July

5 points – after my fellow cyclists, a lady in red, was barked at by an enfuriated oncoming rider, we shared a little “well good morning to him too” as I cycled past.  A jolly end to an aggressive start.  Some people just get on the wrong side of their saddle don’t they.

I'm inspired by this and want to start my own mission - both whilst cycling around Bristol and walking around, and I'll even count when I'm in my car - most people have their windows wound down in the sun.

Join in yourself. Lets collate results.

Follow on Now Say Hello on Twitter - @nowsayhello
Follow on me on Twitter - @lucybarfoot

Heat-press Faces

I  made this a good 4 years ago now, little man heat-pressed onto cotton. I would love a heat-press machine! The special paper transfers its colour onto paper or fabric and has makes these lovely faded colours

Clothing Labels from the Scrapstore

A recent find from The Scrapstore. Off cuts of clothing labels - Just call me Ishmael being my favourite. I might sew that into some of my clothes.

Cacti

Car Fuses