Hi again all you lovely folk! Another week has whizzed by, the two tiny tinsel trees are up in my tiny human’s room, and I’m on my third box of mince pies. Here’s my shop and a reminder that in a week’s time, I’ll be setting up my space at the Bath Humbug Art Market for the 9th - 15th December.

Stop teasing us….

Ok. I know you’re all dying to hear what went on behind-the-scenes on my TV debut. And lets be honest, it was probably my finale too, as I don’t imagine there’s a huge call for an early middle-aged, feminist moth enthusiast egg tempera specialist, who plays with plasticine in her spare time. But you never know….the plasticine angle was clearly to my benefit when a producer from Antiques Road trip called back in April to ask if Catherine and Ishy could pop by and have a go at a bit of plasticine stop-motion aka claymation. Now, I was a bit baffled as to why I’d be the go-to on this…but as it turns out, if you search for the very niche topic of ‘stop-motion plasticine animation workshops in the Bath area’, that is actually something I provide! Forget Aardman - that’s Bristol’s thing! You want to come to a tiny Wiltshire town that no-one has heard of…well, I’m almost famous here!

My finest modelling-clay related moment

This absolute gem from 8 years ago is probably my peak moment in the world of claymation - produced with the team at CC Animation for CBBC’s YouTube channel, I spent a very full-on few months drawing up a storyboard, designing and making the characters, sets and props and then animating it all. Yep, just me. This was before I had a child. A lot of hours went into this. A lot. I was obsessed. But I had an absolute blast doing it. From the tiny aprons, cookbooks and cakes, to the kitchen cupboards, baking Oscar and imaging what Mary Berry’s wallpaper might look like…this was the kind of play we all dream about in our work life. I learnt a lot from doing this. Mostly about how absolutely soul-crushing it is when you accidentally jolt the set after 4 hours of animating a sequence and you have to start again. Animation is HARD.

BTS from GBBO for CBBC. Phew!

So I said yes!

I have no great desire to be on telly. I’m usually a bumbling wreck in my everyday life, but nothing ventured, nothing gained - I’m trying to be a bit braver, make new connections, and heck…make my daughter proud. So I said of course I’d love for them to come, but as I haven’t seen my studio floor in many months I’m not sure how they were all going to fit….

But TV crews have inevitably seen it all before - they are consummate professionals and cramming two camera operators, two presenters, me and another guy (who we shoved in the back room out the way, leaving two more outside) into my tiny (but I must add at this point, very tidy indeed) studio was absolutely no problem at all!

Here they are, with their not insignificant film cameras..

I’d spent the previous day building a little set of an antique shop, and as I knew they would only be here for an afternoon, I figured that trying to get them to build a model from scratch and do an animation might be a bit of a challenge (see above for the insane amount of time which is involved in making a stop-motion animation) so I made a mini-Catherine and Ishy to surprise them…they loved it!

Having ginormous film cameras pointed at your face might sound a bit intimidating, but I honestly had a brilliant time just going with the flow - the presenters were natural, friendly and chatty - I just had to talk with them and not the looming black boxes on the camera operator’s shoulder! Turns out I’m a natural, dahling!

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We cracked out the pasta machine (every claymation animator’s essential piece of kit), the two presenters rolled out some beautiful outfits for the figures, whilst I rambled inanely about the in’s and out’s of animating (thank you editors of the programme for streamlining my enthusiasm) and then we had not a lot of time to make a very very short, rough and ready animation…the perfectionist in me had to be left in the car park as we whizzed through the process (have I mentioned the inordinate amount of hours it usually takes to make an animation? Oh, I have? Well, just in case I wasn’t clear - time goes all metaphysics and your days become an animation’s seconds) but I can only applaud everyone’s efforts that day!

After they left, my tiny human then absolutely loved playing with the set, which apparently I’d made just for her, (as I had to be discreet about the show until it was out…)

So, if you can…watch it here. (You’ll need iplayer and a tv license) Spoiler…my three minutes of glory starts at 23mins. It was super fun to see my studio and paintings (however briefly) on telly. It was fun to be on telly for something fun. I can’t imagine Aardman will come knocking, but if they do, I’ll make them a cuppa and chat modelling clay any day!

Thanks for making it to the end again… you’re brill! Let me know what you thought of the show if you’re able to watch…..Speak to you next week!

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