Creating "Hedger" the Hedgehog

Last autumn, I was given the wonderful opportunity to join a sculpture class run by a professional sculptor from her studio here in Suffolk, and here is the result!🦔

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We started in September, learning the complete sculpting process from making an armature, modelling our piece from clay, making a mould from plaster of Paris and casting the piece in a mixture of cement and fibreglass.

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Then the lockdowns happened, so we lost our weekly lessons and had to finish our pieces remotely, which for me, entailed carrying out repairs to the cast piece once it had been chipped out of its mould, followed by the final patination process.

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It has been such an enjoyable experience and a real joy to have a small creative project to work on during the last two lockdowns. I would definitely recommend doing anything similar to those considering it!🦔

Nick Crocker

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PS No hedgehogs were harmed in the making of this sculpture!

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Lockdown 1 - Worst of It

By E.P. Sporghesi.

Lockdown 2 - Zombies

By E.P. Sporghesi.

Lockdown 3 - New Normal

By E.P. Sporghesi.

Mountain Ash with Mizzle

Jane Cochrane

Canda Atkinson has been busy during lockdown producing commissioned pet portraits, two of which are Tegan a beloved labradoodle  and Jude, who departed this life far too young. 

I was commissioned by the Bull Hotel to create a painting relating to Edward FitzGerald (EFG) - the translator of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, who had a long association with the Bull Inn.

The painting  is of Quattrain LXVII:

Ah, with the Grape, my fading Life provide, 

And wash my Body whence the Life has died,

And in a Windingsheet of Vine-leaf wrapt, 

So bury me by some sweet Garden-side

Jane Cochrane

Chris Norman hosted the White Lion Friday Nighters' Zoom meetings which included challenges such as this "loo roll art project"

I  made my “2020 covid rug” last year and it’s currently in front of our hearth.  I had a feeling that although the virus was not even headline news when I started the rug, it would be so by the time I’d finished – so I included a virus motif of my own design just creeping into the corner to disrupt the harmony of an idea based on an old Italian carpet design “Fiorenza”.

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Coronavirus Motif

My current work in progress is another rug with a virus motif.  It has a passing reference to the hope that the virus might soon meet its match!  I’m stitching the year motif based on a design I created using the Roman numeral for 2021 (MMXXI). 

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This is the biggest rug I’ve made so far – destined for a bedroom.  It will have about 28,400 individually knotted strands of New Zealand wool when it’s done.  At my current rate I’m hoping to have the knotting done by Easter, and then spend another week or two binding the edges.

Andy Barkley

As Snug as a (Covid) Bug in a Rug?

At the beginning of Lockdown, we all thought that it would be a short-term thing, and in the enforced spell of inactivity, I decided to try knitting a ‘ragdoll’ for my baby granddaughter with no real hope of ever finishing it. Lockdown continued, and the doll was actually finished, leaving me with copious quantities of multi-coloured wool, so I embarked on a multi-coloured puppy.  Lockdown continued even further and, with little inroads having been made on the copious quantity of wool, I amused myself knitting Christmas elves. It became addictive and I now have a sizeable collection of the little chaps. I’m sure they’ll come in useful for something sometime ...

(I have not included the rather disastrous and scary bunny that ended up as a toy gratefully received by my granddaughter's family golden retriever!).

Jakes Davies

Textile Art from the Tin Hut Textiles Group

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The members of the Tin Hut Textiles Group have all managed to stay in touch and have been very busy throughout the lockdowns. The title of our work Moving On, Looking Back reflects the fact that we have had some changes to our group over the last year.

Marion Barnes

I painted these fishing boats in Arniston, South Africa, where the Atlantic meets the Indian Ocean, just before the first lockdown, and then finished and framed them during the course of 2020

David Berridge

Lockdown provided an opportunity to do my first tapestry work for about 50 years. I used to do a bit in school holidays with my mother.

I've just taken the tapestry fire screen out of the loft, polished the glass and frame, and it's now found a home hanging in the hall.

Jane Hawthorne

Lockdown Tapestry to a Danish design

Kirsten Berridge