After more than 2 years, Covid finally caught up with me last week.  I felt quite put out at being ejected from the ‘never had Covid’ club but I suppose it was bound to happen sooner or later.  Having had all my jabs, I was fortunate to only have a couple of days of feeling like crap but, of course, the guidelines are that you should avoid being around other people for 5 days, which had more of an impact, since it meant cancelling a life drawing session I was booked to do with Bollington Art Group, and I also had to steer clear of ArtSpace, where it’s been all hands to the pump, getting ready for Barnaby. A flipside to this is that, once I’d stopped sprawling on the couch feeling sorry for myself, I found it was a great opportunity to catch up with various half-formed projects that have been littering my work table for rather longer than they should.  The first of these was actually Barnaby-related.  One of the groups taking part in the parade have asked me to make a goat mask.  I’d already cut it out in card and assembled the rest of the materials. In my head, this wasn’t going to  take very long so it felt like a good thing to tackle while I was stuck at home.  Just as well I had quite a concentrated chunk of time on it.  Trouble is, I enjoyed it too much so I really went to town, builiding up the horns, adding a nose and beard, honing the fit with elastic and velcro straps.  I’m including some work-in-progress pictures here but to see it in all its glory, you’ll have to come along to the Parade on 17 June.  Look out for the Ukrainian Choir…

Patty Callaghan – making a goat mask

Patty Callaghan – making a goat mask