• The Kick-About #43 ‘The Night Before Christmas’

    Our last Andy Goldsworthy-themed Kick-About together inspired some winter wonderlands (and some much less wintry offerings too, courtesy of Brisbane-based artist, James Randall). For this, our last creative runaround of 2021, we’re keeping things seasonal, with an illustration by Arthur Rackham for a festive classic. Enjoy this showcase of new works made in a short…

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  • Throwback Friday #86 Katowice (2017)

    An unlikely subject for a photograph perhaps: a couple of drain covers and a thin covering of snow, but this graphical little composition must have caught by eye back in January 2017, when I was out and about in a wintry Katowice, Poland.

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  • Verglas #7 (2021)

    Verglas #7 (2021)

    A final set of studies produced in response to The Kick-About No.42 – more Clematic tangutica seed heads entombed in a hemisphere of ice, but producing some pleasingly painterly impressions and lots and lots of swirl.

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  • Verglas #6 (2021)

    Verglas #6 (2021)

    The seed heads of Clematis tangutica ‘My Angel’ are extraordinary silvered whirligigs. The plant itself is a bit of a thug, quite at odds with its name, scrambling greedily for many metres in our small garden. Right now, from our bathroom window, I can see the seed heads sitting across the fence like a thick…

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  • Verglas #5 (2021)

    Verglas #5 (2021)

    There is a rambling rose in our garden, which produces untidy confetti-style blooms in a tremendous deep pink with golden centres. It’s still flowering even now, though surely not for much longer. As part of my Kick-About 42 experiments, I wondered what I’d get if I plunged a whole bunch of these scruffy roses into…

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  • Verglas #4 (2021)

    Verglas #4 (2021)

    An allium seed head saved from the summer gets the cryogenic suspension treatment, as I tried a bunch of different things in pursuit of producing something arresting for The Kick-About No. 42. In the space of a few images, we go from ‘paperweight’ to something a bit more sci-fi and wriggly, which is always a…

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  • Verglas #3 (2021)

    Verglas #3 (2021)

    Some deep-frozen foliage today, inspired by the prompt for The Kick-About No. 42: a caramel-coloured leaf-tip from an Osmunda regalis, and the reddish plum tones of the Parthenocissus henryana. In its almost jellied-way, the topmost image just reminds me of a Nautilus belauensis, those octopus-like creatures with their striped shells (and the ice block proved…

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  • Throwback Friday #85 Albert Street, Late November (2021)

    A little festive offering today, throwing back but a few short days to the last weekend in November, when we gathered with a few of our neighbours for the grand switching on the Albert Street lights… Well, if not grand exactly, then a nice touch nonetheless, with the residents in our short row of terraced…

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  • Verglas #2 (2021)

    Verglas #2 (2021)

    With Andy Goldsworthy’s Ice Spiral as the prompt for The Kick-About No. 42, I set about producing my own much smaller-scale installations in the bottom drawer of my freezer. Over the course of a few days, I foraged a number of interesting bits to freeze inside blocks of ice, including this umbellifer, a dill plant…

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  • Verglas #1 (2021)

    Verglas #1 (2021)

    Although the weather has turned much colder here in the UK, it’s not yet cold enough here in Whitstable for any shows of ice or snow. With Andy Goldsworthy’s land art piece Ice Spiral as the prompt for this week’s Kick-About No. 42, I knew I’d be out of luck if I was hoping to…

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