I have been working intensely in my laboratory this week on a speciality art piece to celebrate Lisa & Phil Gardner’s first wedding anniversary. As discussed before on this very blog, Phil rose to international fame for flogging pictures of his pet cat in the shower to scurrilous newsrooms and paper moguls the world over. Still living high on the hog with a constant stream of royalty cheques amassing in his Swiss bank account and operating from a penthouse apartment close to one of Brighton’s trendiest stockbroker belts and braces charity shops he claims the cat grooming and abuse is all behind him, but.......
Early on knew this would be a difficult build and shoot realising quite soon after getting into MK’s Bowl boot sale last Sunday that a relaxed muscle action man was more difficult to find than rocking horse doo doo (and that had been a right stinker a couple of weeks ago) As luck would have it I did find a fully poseable Retinal Screener Ken action figure and decided to go with that and a very large dose of poetic licence. Once home I was able to remove Screener Kens head with a sympathetic hack saw / chisel and appoint all my time on the finer facial details adding at one point 3 eyes due to an over enthusiastic super glue moment but finally plumping for the more traditional 2 eye and permanent marker eyebrow combination. Due to pressing time constraints and a world shortage of miniature Persian cats I was forced to move into the unchartered territory of Photoshop. Luckily I was able to call on one of the finest Derby & Milton Keynes based exponents of photoshopeee Kirsty Cheshire Photography .Within hours she confirmed that she had enough Photoshop to do the job and soon produced this.
Whilst this art business is mainly about swanning around in smocks with a glass of wine in your hand, there still is some sweat, passion and even disappointment like when the greeting card police came in and confiscated some of the early test shots (like this one) for being too risqué.
If it’s good enough for Botticelli then it’s good enough for me
I prefer to think that I'm milking the cash cow rather than high on the hog. But your work of art was indeed a work of genius. Even if you had to get Kirsty to be the Gilbert to your George.
ReplyDeleteI'll show Amelie that test shot and see what she makes of it...
Your ‘mannequin gimp’ image has now been added to the list of (celebrities) that I have immortalised like Beggs and princess Diana, Eddie the Eagle and some baldy bloke and Fidel Castro. As you can see it is quite an exclusive club.
ReplyDelete