Salaric

I am keeping an art journal – possibly visual poetry journal with the idea of submitting it to Escape Into Life. Here are the pictures I have done so far.

I found these cute bevaled square canvases in a pound shop of all places – so using acrylics I painting a mottled background using stippling. I then used a very liquidy metallic lavender that comes with a dropper! I dropped paint on the canvas and then used the ‘wronge’ end of the paint bruch i.e. the wooden handle to scratch the paint outwards to make flowers. I then painted magenta stalks in. I wanted it to be a diamond mount and painted it as such.

I love seascapes and have done ever since starting Secondary school at about 11 when the art teacher I later had for GCSE’s set me the task painting the abyssal plain. At the time I had just watched the film The Abyss and there were documentaries on TV about fish that glowed with their own light. I would then later spend time in my paleo-biology lectures and the like drawing seascapes on letters to my friends.

Anyway – this one is built up from dots! And it took an age. It is felt tip.

If you want to see a bigger version just click on it.

This picture is drawn with felt tips, I wanted to represent the teaming world of just below the waves. The squid is there because I like squid 😉

To see a larger image just click on the picture.

This is one of my seascapes that I love drawing – I wanted to build the picture up organically. It is drawn in felt tip.

If you want to see a larger version just click on the image.

I love dragons but they appear in such diverse ways through out our different cultures and I know that say the welsh for dragon means worm – so I set out to draw a worm like dragon.

To see a larger version just click on the image.

I think there may already be a photo of this picture on the blog somewhere – but it is just a sort of chimera picture. Something from another dimension, something we have trouble understanding. To see a larger image simply click on the picture.

I love my seascapes and this picture was me thinking about how corals and things would grow in a mathamatically precise world – or say coral in LEMs world of robots. For a larger image just click on the picture.

Done in fine liner – this is my representation of an alien – dessicated and shriveled by a harsh atmosphere. If you want to see a bigger version of the picture simply click on it.

For World Book Day my little girls pre-school was having a Come as a Story Book Character Day so I had to think up a costum. We decided on Alladin and I set to work making an Alladdins lamp complete with genie.

For the lamp I used:

• News paper preferable two colours so you can keep track of layers

• PVA white craft glue

• Scrape card – the sort junk mail comes on!

• Cellotape

• Scissors

• Tissues or loo/toliet roll

• Hot melt glue gun

• Pencil

• Paint brush

• Pots to put water, paint, glue in – old yogurt pots or dip containers are good for this

• One small balloon

• One cup or sturdy pot

First off all I blew up a small balloon to the size I wanted the body of the lamp to be. I then placed this in a cup to stop it rolling around. I laid some of the newspaper on the table as a working surface and then tore up some to make a pile of pink paper and a pile of white paper. Becuase the size of the lamp was quiet small I tried to make sure that my pieces of newspaper where not bigger than 2 cm. This is to give a smoother finish over the curve of the balloon.

I made a mix of PVA white craft glue – mine is quiet thick so I mike it with about five times the amount of water as I have glue. It takes a bit of stirring to get it a good consistancy.

I then dipped the news paper pieces in the glue water mix, smoothed off any excess liquid and placed it on the balloon. Making sure that the tied off end of the balloon was in the cup I covered the large end of the balloon and worked my way down until I had covered about 2/3rds of the balloon. This would give me a bowl shape without the balloon being there – where the sides of the bowl would curve in again.

I made sure the area I wanted was completely covered and waited for an hour before applying the next layer in a different colour of news paper. I waited an hour as otherwise the already existing layer is so wet it slips about underneith the new layer your trying to lay down. You can also only do a maximium of five layers a day otherwise it doesn'[t dry properlly. Once there are a few layers on already you can do upto three layers before leaving it the hour to dry though this did still cuase a kind of crenulation/wavey effect on the papier machie bowl around the balloon.

I did fifteen layers which took three days. I was running tight on time so I popped the balloon on the fourth day but this really wasnt enough time for it all to have dried properlly. This ment that it slighly stuck to the balloon when I popped it – peeling off about three layers in some places inside – this was soon remedied by smoothing the paper back down with a PVA’d finger.

I was then left with I nice bowl shape – this would be the body of the lantern.

Once the inside was completely dried as well I cut a 1 cm strip off of some card in our scrap paper pile and cellotaped it into a ring that was a good size to be the rim at the bottom of the lamp.

I then cellotaped the rim onto the bottom of the bowl/body of the lamp.

I then turned it over so it was standing on the rim and cut a slightly wider strip for the handle, and cut the remaining card into a rectangle to roll into a tall incomplete conical shape for the spout. I wrapped cellotape arround the tube of card so that it stayed in the shape I wanted.

I then cellotaped the spout to one end of the lamp.

I then made two folds either end of the wide strip of card and cellotaped it on the other end as the handle. I struggeled to try and make look not like a teapot :/

I then covered the rim, spout and handle with more papeir machie – this included screwing up some strips into ‘balls’ to act as padding to build up the shape – especially on the top of the spout where it meets the body of the lamp.

Now it was time to make the lid.

My dad drew around on of my cups for a circle which he sliced to the center off then pulled on side of the slite over the other and taped it to make a shallow cone. He also cut a strip of card which he then cut little triangles out off along its whole length giving it a cerated edge.

He then folded the strip round into a loop and folded the triangles in so that they could act as brackets to glue them onto the disc. This will make the inner rim of the lid that fits into the top of the lantern so he had to do some measuring.

I then layered on the paper strips on the lid layering out from the centre. I also build it up on the inside in the way I had the rim on the bottom of the lamp. This ment that on both the top and the bottom of the lamp’s lid I had over hung the edge with paper. I also had to wait for one side to dry before I did the other. I found the shiny card made it a bit difficult to make papier mache stick in the first place. I put five layers on each side of the lid.

Once it was thourally dry I trimmed off all the over hanging paper.

I then checked that it did actually fit the lamp.

I wanted a nice worn matallic texture to the lamp, even though my daughter had decreed it needed to be pink! So I decided to cover it in tissue paper to get a crinckeled texture. I did this by laying the tissue on in one two or three sheets, dry and then adding the watered down PVA with a thick paint brush. Dad had also made a ball of papier mache about 1.5 cm tall which I covered – this would be the bobble/handle for the lid.

Once it was all dry – I used a hot melt glue gun to attatch the bobble.

I then had a white textured lamp ready for painting.

Jean then painted her lamp and the lid pink with a little help.

Once dry we applied gold poster paint with a tissue so that it only went on the raised wrinkels of the lamp.

We then PVA’d it with neat PVA glue as a sort of sealing coat.

The PVA dulled the metallic luster of the gold which was a same but it still had a sort of metalleness about even if it was pink! I also made her a genie to in!