Melvin the garden goblin

I haven't posted any of my creatures for a while, I've been really busy with a few different projects. I recently had a stall at a couple of Christmas fairs, for which I made a load of little Christmas pixies...

 

I've also been working on some commissions for different people. But here's a creature I 'discovered' a while ago in a nearby garden; he's a goblin called Melvin!

This guy's a garden goblin; a grumpy and tough individual that lives hidden in a nearby backyard. He likes nothing better than a fight, and is very protective of his territory, regularly beating up cats, birds, gnomes and anything else silly enough to get in his way. He doesn't use weapons, just his hands and teeth. He gave me a vicious kick in the shins, until I persuaded his I was friendly. His ginger hair reminds me of Ludo out of 'Labyrinth', but he's nowhere near as friendly, he's a moody little bugger!

Junk lady mixed media sculpture

This is my latest creation, a new junk lady. I love making these characters, but they do take a while to finish. They're like little scrap books, constructed using lots of junk and found materials, with hand sculpted feet, hands and head. I made her for my friend Kamila, who is moving to Czech, to remind her of the uk (so all the junk is uk related).

I love to imagine these little goblins going around gardens and streets at night, collecting our thrown away  discarded items, like little magpies. Anyone who's seen the movie Labyrinth will recognise the idea of a junk lady goblin, there's a great puppet in that movie, that lives on a junk heap. I've always loved that character from the movie, so combined the idea with childhood memories of "little people", I came up with these up-to-date fairytale creatures.

. There was always something evocative about stories about little people, such as The Borrowers or Man by Raymond Briggs. I also love the artist Slinkachu, who designs little people and hides them around London. I think this must be an archetypal ideas, because it seems to appear in culture across the world and throughout history. Every culture has little people, either good or bad, they symbolise vulnerability, fragility of nature and the mystery of our environments.

 In the future I would love to build more of these, maybe ones from different areas; such as the beach or forest. Hopefully this would make people think about what exactly is being dumped and where, how our environment is becoming more and more defined by what we have left there and how much damage has been done. The whimsical fairies and elves of old, running through woodland, would most likely struggle to survive, and jusk like foxes or squirrels would probably have to adapt and urbanise.

art dol

FAUN ART DOLL

Nora's Faun

Here's a quick preview of a commision I made. He's a faun, made for Nora who's really cool and likes all the same weird stuff as me! Hope you like him Nora, he's on his way now :)