We’re back with our 2024 courses now and here’s our first one featuring three brand new students and one veteran. First up Robert has definitely done three of our courses but he claims four so we won’t argue with him. Normally he raids my box of huge cogs and makes something ridiculously heavy but this time he went quite subtle and made an angler fish based around a rock he really liked and using various bits from a bedstead and of course, a few cogs. Louise normally works in fashion but wanted to try metal sculpture and it was obvious she had a creative side to her. Using found objects, panel beating and plasma cutting she created an angelic bird figure which demands your attention. First up in my room was James who came with the idea of wanting to make a smallish robot and went home with a much bigger one. What was nice was that he used up lots of scrap pieces that I’d had in my workshop for years and thought would never get used up. With his new found ability to weld he went on to make another robot which was probably the one he thought about making in the first place. Finally, Darren wanted to make some sort of stags head to go on his shed wall. I don’t think he used one new piece of steel, preferring instead to go with the shapes of the junk metal in my workshop, shelf brackets became the antlers and fire extinguishers the head. It actually turned out bigger than he originally intended and was so impressive it’s on display inside his house rather than on his shed now. Thanks as ever to Billy (David Mayne) my good friend and fellow professor on these courses. If you fancy having a go yourself just drop me an email. You don’t need to have any previous experience and will take away a piece of sculpture made by yourself at the end of the course.