PAINTINGS

my abstract landscape paintings are something that i have been doing for many years now, i started out in 2004 to support myself through my art foundation. but the sudden high demand of my work was very unexpected and developed my ability to work on my own and gain great experience in running my own business. it also boosted my confidence and was great to know my work was being looked at all round the world. unfortunately this took to much of my time away from my real love of designing so i had to stop in 2007 to fully concentrate on my work and my degree course in furniture design. but i believe i will come back to painting one day.

CONCRETE CHEESE BOARD

this was my first competition that i entered, and was the first chance i had to design for real clients. i decided to explore new materials that had not previously been used in cutting boards. this lead me to using concrete, but i had to do extensive testing and experimenting to develop the concrete mix so it was strong enough, and had a good finish. to further draw upon the natural characteristics of the material i applied a silicon layer that acted as a barrier to stop the water penetrating and darkening the concrete when wet. this meant that when the board was cleaned or wiped down the decorative element (in this case the logo of the cheese company that we were working for) would appear. this started off my love affair with concrete and i have many new projects waiting to get started that will continue to explore the properties of this great material.

CRISSCROSS

up to now this has been my most complicated and most demanding design that i have had to make by hand. the whole chair is made of 18mm mdf that has around 60 half lap joints that are all in different compound angles meaning that everyone had to be cut by hand, but it was a labour of love and i feel the days spent on making it was well worth it. the idea behind the design was to use a material in a different way, this is why i came up with the idea of using the edges of the mdf rather that the faces. the surface has a layer of 6mm neoprene rubber to make it more comftable, which i can assure you is alot more comftable that it looks.

IN + OUT

this was my first project on my degree, we were set the task of designing a set of salt and pepper shakers, i developed this idea by changing the way in which ceramics are made using slip casting. i would slip cast a simple tube then afterwards manipulate it into a new form, so that each one was completely unique. the way in which you use them is also changed, there is only one hole so you fill it up from the same place you dispense the salt from. this is done in the same method a sand time glass works, to fill the shakers the top is filled with salt and it then pours through into the main chamber.