Where have all the lost kites gone?

As a child I seem to remember it was a pretty standard feature of the countryside and parks to see old tattered tangled kites hanging in trees, alongside deflated footballs, the odd plimsole... Is it just me, or do trees these days seem remarkably bare of these things?
I have some theories, exasperated by walking the dog through woods crying out for a few oddities to be dangled in the branches, this morning.

The Wallop ponderings of the day then;

1. Children are taller these days. Or have evolved longer arms.
2. Children do not play out. Ever. especially near trees due to health and safety tree-might-fall-on-them issues.
3. Kites are not for children anymore. They have DS lites. Kites are for dads. Dads don't abandon them when they get stuck in trees because they're ridiculously expensive titanium clad whizzy ones from 'Iwantoneofthose.com' or some such and dads would rather chainsaw (probably also purchased from the same site) the tree down than leave their 'toy' for some snotty nosed kid to get hold of.

Regardless of the reason for their disappearance. I'd like to see more kites. Think I may force, ahem ... sorry, encourage my kids to make one this weekend even if just for the right of passage in watching it crash several times before getting stuck in a tree. For old times sake.

Todays Rubbish Picture is 'Lost Kite' and consists of frozen pea packaging, a Weetos box, a garden centre catalogue which was very timely shoved through my letter box just as I was looking for some more 'green'. The little girl is dressed in the lid of a Dunkin Doughnuts drive through box and a fetching pair of Ellas kitchen smoothie pouch boots.

Walkin' walkin' walkin'

Today I have received all the paperwork for the Crusaid Walk for life, a 10k walk around London raising money and awareness for HIV and Aids charity, Crusaid which I signed up for last week on a whimsical notion of doing good and keeping fit. Not only will I be walking it myself, but I have also roped in my family, including my 3 children who have absolutely no concept of how long 10 k actually is and are, at present, very excited....
I'm beginning to wonder now however, how many steps we will manage before the 'are we nearly there yet' begins.... but hopefully it will be a lovely day, we shall see the sights of London that we normally just whizz by in the car / bus or miss completely by travelling underground and it will be fun ! really... it will....

Crusaid is a wonderful charity which deserves as much support as possible, so if you're in the London area why not come along and join in? The Walk for Life is on June 7th. Or if you'd rather not suffer the blisters yourself (or hear my groans as I alternatly cajole / carry my children along the route) - you can always do a good turn and sponsor us instead without ever having to leave your computer!

Do a wonderful thing today and Sponsor family Wall here, whether it be tuppence and a cheery message to say hello, to a hefty donation from a mysterious millionaire who likes rubbish art and lurks secretly on my blog - we'd be delighted and very grateful for your support.

Today's featured blog picture in honour of the occasion, is 'Love those rubbish shoes' and is made from recycled chocolate wrappers, jelly baby boxes, (I was having a sugar crisis that day) plus an old copy of Living etc magzine and some quorn packaging.

Happy St. Georges day

Todays Rubbish Picture is in honour of it being St. George's day today.
This dragon was produced entirely out of a frozen peas packet, (which it turns out are very fiddly to cut into tiny scales!) sweet wrappers, the cover of The Gaurdians' weekly TV Guide magazine and he's sat upon dogfoodbox mountain!

It was produced for a little boy Theo, for his birthday, and as a little extra, I made sure there were some blue tinted photographs of the young man himself incorporated into the sky.
He's now immortalized in Rubbish!

Spring views...

Another day, another Rubbish picture. Todays is inspired by Spring and the view out of my window.... the leaves are finally on the trees, the sky is blue and as my apprentice loves to point out, the bunnies are so happy they just can't stop cuddling each other...

Running dogs

I have a very dull dog. Don't get me wrong he's beautiful, he's friendly, he's quiet, he's great with kids and is very low maintenance. I love him to bits and in most ways, he is the perfect pet in fact. But in the interest stakes.... he'd rate pretty low.
He sleeps a lot does our Ned. You give him a ball, he might raise one eyebrow at you briefly, you give him a chewy, he'll bury it for later....when he's less tired.
My dog does....nothing. Official. He sleeps for approximately 23.5 hours of the day.
So why is it I wonder that Ned has his very own fan club of adoring friends and neighbours? Why do complete strangers chat to me every single morning whilst we're out on a daily walk (The 0.5 hour of the day not accounted for above)
It's because Ned is a whippet that's why. People, I have discovered, just love whippets (or maybe people actually love greyhounds and a whippet is just a mini me greyhound so it kind of counts). These dogs have something about them that makes folk go 'awwwww'.

Testament to that is the new range of Rubbish Pictures I am making up at the moment to restock my Folksy shop. Folksy allows you to manage your items. Once you have added an item you can see how many hits it has had. Within minutes of this latest rubbish picture entitled 'running whippet', Seven people had checked it out and one had even been so kind as to make it one of their favourite items. More than one per minute?! How very lovely and it proves my theory , you just gotta love a whippet.
The first few of the new series of pictures will focus on the running variety as that is when they're at their most impressive, but I think I may have to add at least one or two at some point, of their natural state which is illustrated by Ned right now. Spark out. With a big doggy smile on his chops.

Wallop Relaunches

Wallop has been here, there and all over the place of late. I have been juggling illustration projects, graphic design projects, branching out into Rubbish Pictures and trying to keep up with this Blog and of course, all the scribbles and doodles that just get done as a hobby too...It's about time then, that the whole lot got sorted out and put back into one spot and so I'm very happy to announce that Wallop the website has relaunched officially today! The site now includes a new fonts for fun area where my fonts can be downloaded for free, the usual illustration gallery, with stills of previous projects as well as examples of animation. Oodles of Doodles gets it's own area of the website where you can flip the pages of the virtual sketchbook and see all the odds and ends and doodles that would otherwise just get lost in a sea of sketchbooks and scraps of paper that litters the floor of my workroom. Rubbish Pictures now gets it's own area too - with a gallery of images produced so far, and a link to my Folksy shop, and last but not least this very blog is now filtering through to appear on the site. (Which might look a little odd on this occasion, as the site will be featured....on the site.... but hopefully it'll work out well in the long run.
Bish bosh. All eggs back in one basket. All fingers back in one pie. A one stop shop stopping at this shop. All metaphors back in one metaphor erm ...thing. You get the picture.
Hope you enjoy it. If you're not already looking at the site right now, go check it out at www.wallop.co.uk

A rubbish Easter

Happy Easter!
Can't blog now...
Wallopsville is drowning in chocolate

Beach Huts

Hooray - I sold a Rubbish Chicken this week! Which left a little hole in my Folksy shop, just big enough for this latest Rubbish Picture of beach huts. My stash of blue rubbish bits has now been replenished, since the dog bit through the kids paddling pool. It's a nice translucent blue plastic and will be very handy in seaside scenes. Sorry kids. Your loss my gain!

'Rubbish artists'

Tim Noble and Sue Webster are just the first of many amazing British artists who I have come across whilst stumbling around on the web looking for....rubbish.
Their apparent heaps of debris collected from London Streets becomes something magical and gobsmackingly real as a silhouette from a strategically positioned light.
Their work is just stunning and completely inspirational for a fellow rubbish artist.

Not just me and the Wombles...

I used to think it was just me and the Wombles who made stuff out of rubbish, but I went to see Mark Watson doing a show the other night. He's a very amusing fella so I brought his book and lo and behold, it turns out he's not only very amusing but also may well also be a link to a whole load of other womble-esque characters out there in the big wide world.
Mark Watson is crap at the environment. Official.

He even runs 'CATE'. The project started with the intention of 'saving the world, despite not being very good at it'. It aims to promote amateur environmentalism. I thought Rubbish Pictures was a pretty obscure way of being eco friendly but it seems there are a few more of us out there than first thought, trying to do our bit in our own little, slightly odd, way.... CATE encourages ordinary folk to small challenges, little things to change in your everyday life that will result in some environmental benefit. So if you want to know how to pimp your plant pot or create a bubble wrap dress - or just want to nose at slightly odd people doing amazing things in the name of saving the world. Go check out CATE.