Tic Challis

Club Demo Thursday 12th December 2024

Tic is not only well known an artist, especially using airbrush for paintings and pyrography for wood, but also for her love of upcycling and all things quirky. Her focus for this demo was items for sale at craft fairs and she started by making a body shape on the lathe that she could then cut at an angle, twist and then glue to form an animal body.

For our demo she was making a crow and so painted it black and it was ready for the add-on bits.The feet ere made from bent dinner forks which were inserted into slots cut into the body with a Dremel cutter. See picture below. Tic also makes her own animal eyes with bolt heads or resin in a silicon mould over a Bain Marie as the gentle heat helps air bubbles to disperse. She uses many different backings ranging from buttons to bits of material. She mounts them with a small screw which is glued on with CA.

Then Tic showed how she makes the wings and tail using a paper template, thin leather and a material backing. Using her antique hand powered sewing machine, she stitched the paper to the leather and then cut off the excess before turning over and stiching the backing material along the same stitch lines. The paper acts as a stiffener.

The same technique is used for the tail and they are all attached to the body using screws with small washers. Tic mounts them on a wooden block or on a gnarly branch. Notice the eyes are made from slotted coach bolts with screw cups and the slots painted black.

Tic talked about her large collection of ideas books in which she draws a quick sketch of any new idea that she comes across and showed us an example book and her talent as an artist. Her motto is ‘Always make a note or a drawing’.

Tic brought along many examples of her work as can be seen in these pictures. Her pyrography skill on the owl is amazing, just getting the pattern even would defeat most people. She also loves dragons and they feature heavily in her work in all mediums. The gren one has the body of a twisted yew branch.

Tic handed round other animal heads like the crocodile in the foreground and explained how she creates movin jaws using a strip of leather as the hinge.

Thank you Tic for a very informative evening.