Gallery

Here you’ll find some unusual NFS (not for sale) items displayed and details on some of our corporate project work. Everything from providing a range of themed framed prints for clubs or offices to designing an amazingly unusual dining room table. If you need art prints, posters, a commissioned piece for a special project or to liven up your company’s offices then click the ‘Contact Us’ button on the left and let us know what you are trying to achieve and we’ll do all we can to help.

THE AMAZING DRAGON TABLE

Have you ever dreamed of something amazing?
Here is a dream that was turned into reality by Artists UK using the talents of renowned dragon artist Peter Pracownik and well-known specialist furniture designer Neil Busby

It all started with football. Yes, football, strange as it may sound since you don’t usually find football and dragons mentioned in the same breath, firey or not. A football team might defeat their opponents but they don’t usually barbecue them. On the other hand, although a dragon is arguably the prototype for the world’s first portable flamethrower and pretty heavily built he probably wouldn’t make a good goalkeeper. But, the fact is that there is a certain famous premiership footballer who has a passion for dragons and he decided he wanted to have his dining room based on his favourite theme. Apart from the main motivation of the glory of the game and perfecting one’s skills, football in the premier league also has its financial rewards, so he knew he could make his dream come true if only he could find someone he could trust to undertake the project…

Eventually, he found Neil Busby, a specialist furniture designer with a repertoire of unique creations based around unusual and innovative ideas. There was no doubt Neil could do the job except for one slight snag … Neil had masses of knowledge about making tables but very little idea how to design an authentic dragon. So he in turn went in search of someone who would have access to this field of knowledge. His search, unsurprisingly, brought him to Artists UK and we confirmed that we knew several artists who know as much about dragons as he does about furniture. Our choice in the end was the internationally renowned artist Peter Pracownik. Not only is he steeped in Celtic lore with a library full of reference books but he had also designed dragons for three dimensional modeling. A project brief was drawn up and then Neil and Peter sat down together to plan out how it would work. This is how the first sketch of the dragon turned out and pretty amazing it is in its own right.

Dragon Table Original Design by Peter Pracownik

However, it soon became clear that supporting the huge sheet of glass on four contact points was not the best solution so some revisions to the design were made as shown below.

Dragon Table Proposed Alterations

Dragon Table final plan

Once the final details had been worked out it was then down to Neil to draw up the final plan that would go to the carvers. Shown below are the plans that were drawn up by Neil based on Peter Pracownik’s designs for the dragon dining table and the dragon chair.

Dragon Table Final Design Drawing

Dragon Dining Table Chair Design

He also constructed a place layout showing how the chairs would be arranged round the table with their place settings, as shown below.

Dragon Dining Table Place Setting Plan

Although it is conceivably possible to carve from one piece of timber it is rarely practical with a large project like this so the dragon was carved in parts and then assembled as you can see below where the dragon is being tested for supporting the glass table top. As you will notice, the craftsmanship is so good you can’t see a join anywhere.

Dragon Dining Table Back From Carving

The next step was to add the finishes to turn it into a real dragon. In the following photo the dragon is almost ready for shipping to his new home.

Dragon Table Almost Finished and Ready to Go

The last touch was the addition of the jewelled eyes to give him a truly fiery gaze!

Dragon Head With Jewel Eyes

Here is the dragon table from the front view in the dining room. If he flames now the photographer gets frizzled! Notice the great shadow on the back wall.

Dragon Dining Table Front View

Now there is a photograph below of the dragon table from the back and to one side in the dining room. Here you can really see the stunning craftsmanship of the piece and how realistic and striking the dragon is crouched under the table top.

Dragon Dining Table Back View In Situe

Here is the dragon table from the top in the dining room with the full seating of the twelve dragon motif chairs that complement the table.

Dragon Dining Table and Dragon Chairs In Situe

David Wyatt

Visiting David Wyatt sometime back we took the opportunity to photograph (with his permission obviously!) two of his original paintings that are not usually seen. Here they are for you to enjoy! Clicking on each image will take you to different sections of the Artists UK main website where you’ll see more of David Wyatt’s work including original illustrations (until they are all sold) for the book ‘The Hobbit’ by JRR Tolkien

Original Painting by artist David Wyatt

Original Painting by artist David Wyatt

Images copyright David Wyatt.

We were not so lucky in visiting Stephen Bradbury whose current projects are all rather hush hush. Unfortunately, he’s never got round to the idea of having prints published of the Julian May book covers he is so famous for either. That’s why you sadly don’t find any prints of his work at Artists UK. But, with landscape like this you can see why he always feels inspired –

Inspiring seascape for artist Stephen Bradbury

and another inspiring seascape for artist Stephen Bradbury

and although that is not Mr Bradbury down there on the bench this is him here looking very inspired –

We decided that we would not shock you by showing you the great giant he has captured on the other end of these chains –