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Rainy Day Dash

I’ve been playing with epoxy resin, experimenting with moulds, textures and effects. Much as I’ve enjoyed mixing colours in it, crystal clear resin has inspired my latest picture.

‘Rainy Day Dash’ is a 3D paper collage with wet weather effects.

  1. Gloss paint is used on the umbrellas for a wet look.  
  2. At the front, two layers of people are adhered to clear acrylic strips and placed over mirror paper so their reflections simulate walking on a wet path.
  3. A thin wavy textured layer of resin was created and used to line the street to look like water.
  4. Tiny resin raindrops were applied to the inside of the frame glass within the mat.

Click the photos below to see the stages of its creation.

  • Creating the paper street
  • Colouring reflections
  • Laying textured resin film
  • Adding people
  • 2 layers of walkers on mirror
  • Creating raindrops

While each stage looked promising enough for me to continue, when the whole piece came together I was a little disappointed and think that I tried to do too much – it’s a bit ‘messy’ (in my opinion). Usually I photograph the final work without glass to avoid reflection issues, which I’ve done for this last image , but obviously the glass in this piece forms a crucial part of it, so the final feature photo at the top doesn’t really do it justice.

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Voyage

This new project is one of the most ambitious I’ve crafted. I was unsure of where to categorize it in my ‘gallery’ as it includes papercraft, recycled materials and woodcraft. It’s also the largest piece I’ve made – the frame is 50cm square.

The body of the ship and the seagulls are moulded with paper clay, and the waves formed from torn sheets of paper painted with watercolours. The masts are cut with a scroll saw from scraps of wood and jointed together. The sails are recycled cotton, cut from an old sheet. I tried different experiments to shape the sails as though a strong wind was blowing, before finally using a heavy starch, together with shaped paper supports behind them. The rigging ropes are made from unraveled cotton cord.

The frame is only 4cm deep, so once again I had to massage and adapt my original concept to fit, without losing its 3D perspective. (The original design was a 3-masted ship!)

While I can always identify aspects that could be better, overall I’m quite happy with the final project.

[Click near the top of the pictures to enlarge]

  • Making the Masts
  • Attaching Sails
  • Construction & Rigging
  • Making Waves!
  • Assemblage
  • Side view of layers
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Poppies

I made this little vase of poppies during a demonstration to show how the layered paper sculptures are constructed and how the recycled diffuser film is used.

Once again, it’s all made of shaped paper and I’ve used three layers to give depth, with the diffuser sheet cut to the shape of water in the vase.  I decided to back the picture with glass, which allows light to shine through the vase and water.  I’m quite pleased with this effect. Unfortunately, all the glass, film and acrylic reflections make photographing these incredibly difficult when all the layers are together!

  • The paper vase
  • Front layer (with film)
  • Centre layer on acrylic sheet
  • Back layer on paper
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Coral Reef

This is my third paper sculpture project using LCD backlight diffuser film to create an underwater effect. Just like Lily Pond and Fish Bowl, this piece is constructed in layers, using a transparent acrylic sheet to ‘float’ the objects in the centre.
Most of the structure is a collage of photographs, cut and shaped into 3D images together with paper models of coral, fish and the yacht.
These pieces are very difficult to photograph due to the film picking up the smallest reflections, but the images below of the construction will give a clearer view. [Click the top half of the photos to enlarge.] I hope I have an opportunity to exhibit these 3 pieces at some stage as they look quite different “in the flesh”!

  • Making paper models
  • Constructing the background
  • The centre transparency
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Fish Bowl

This is the sequel to “Lily Pond’.
It’s my second experiment using an LCD backlight diffuser sheet from an old laptop which blurs objects directly behind it, giving it an underwater effect. The artwork is constructed from cut and sculptured paper and put together in 3 layers with a clear acetate sheet in the centre. This time I’ve made the fish 3 dimensional, although they are somewhat hidden by the ‘underwater’ blurring.

  • Constructing the centre layer
  • Goldfish close-up
  • Fish close-up

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Lily Pond

I’ve been digging through my salvaged materials to ReCreate a new art ‘sculpture’.

‘Lily Pond’ is made predominantly from ring-folder dividers (see picture below).  It incorporates paper cutting and shaping, constructed in three layers, with the centre layer supported on a piece of clear overhead projector film.

The ‘secret ingredient’ that creates the underwater effect?  An LCD backlight diffuser sheet that comes from behind an old dismantled laptop screen!  This film is mirror-like on one side, but the other side warps, magnifies and blurs objects directly behind it, making the layered art look underwater. (Click on the close-ups above to enlarge)

It’s weird, because viewing it from the side you can see nothing behind the film – you have to view it front-on, but that makes it very unusual and a bit mysterious.  I’m planning to explore the possibilities further with more ‘underwater’ experiments.  Stay tuned!

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The Recycled Paper Boutique

This ‘boutique’ shop window was inspired by memories of dressing paper dolls as a child, together with my love of op-shops and sewing, although creating paper clothing is much more challenging than fabric!  

The mannequins are shaped with a scroll saw from offcuts of mdf (medium density fibreboard). While mannequins don’t usually have hair, I’ve used wood shavings as hair made their hats look and fit so much better.

Paper scraps from office stationery, wrapping paper, craft offcuts etc, are shredded and mulched into paper pulp. The clothing is then constructed by experimenting with a variety of paper sculpture techniques;  cast paper formed in plaster moulds (to give shape to the bodices and accessories), fluting and shaping the skirts by gently pulling wet pulp sheets onto fabric pieces and leaving them to dry, and by layering sheets of different coloured pulps together.

  • Mannequins
  • Moulded & shaped paper
  • Mirrored ‘shop window’

I’ve used mirror paper in the background to give the impression of a shop window, and also to show off the back of the models.

This piece was created for a Fringe exhibition in 2022 at Gallery 1855 called “Fashion – Make a Statement”.

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ReCreating what falls from trees (2)

Two new creations have emerged since my last post, and while I don’t always have my eyes glued to ground when I’m out walking, I see so much potential in the shape and form of natural debris!
I keep the twigs, bark and chips in their natural form as much as possible. I gently scrub them, lightly sand them (where possible) and finish with a light sealer, particularly on the more fragile pieces after constructing the bird shapes with wood glue.

(Click on the top half of the pictures to enlarge)

  • Some of the Raw Materials
  • “Two Stick Figures”
  • “Stick-y Beaks”
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ReCreating what falls from trees

When I’m out walking I often find things on the ground that give me ideas. I’ve been experimenting with leaves and twigs. Although they are strictly ‘found’ objects, they are also ‘recycled’, once their life on the tree is over, and are just begging to be ReCreated!

Click the top half of the images to see them in detail.

Camouflage
  1. Camouflage
    This first piece uses leaves from an ash tree which have a remarkable resemblance to bird and wing shapes. I’ve arranged them on a twig ‘tree’, using fibres from a fallen palm branch to create a tiny nest. The leaves are press-dried and coated with a thin sealer which I’m hoping will retain their natural autumn colours. This piece is made in two layers to give an added dimension, which I can never resist. The birds are perfectly camouflaged among the leaves!
  • The back layer
  • The front layer
  • Bird detail
  • Nest detail
Leaf Litter

2. Leaf Litter
This second piece also uses leaves and twigs, but this time I’ve bent and twisted the twigs to shape them into birds. This has been a fun project as little personalities seem to emerge as I experiment in constructing the birds. Tiny leaves are used in the nest ‘litter’.

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Autumn Glory

Winter is a perfect season for hours of experiments with art. The days grow cold and dim, but not before the glorious splash of autumn that is such an inspiration!  Watching the sun illuminate the leaves of maple trees, I wanted to capture their colour, glow and delicacy, and to contrast it with the dark, solid trunks.

It’s been fun to further develop my love of layering and 3D art, as well as using mainly recycled elements. I’ve cut to size glass and clear acrylic from old picture frames found in op-shops and used recycled paper for the sculptured trunks and branches.

The picture is created in five transparent layers (see diagram below).  The trunks are made from moulded paper pulp, supported on cardboard armatures and painted with sealer and acrylic paints.  The leaves are painted with alcohol inks onto the glass and acrylic layers. The effect is finished with tiny cut and embossed paper vellum maple leaves on the lower branches and falling to the ground.


  • Construction layers
  • Creating the sculpture mould
  • Sculpture layers
  • Inks used to paint the glass and acrylic layers
  • Layering the leaves
  • Adding tiny paper leaves

The biggest challenge was the transparency, especially the glass backing.  The picture had to look (almost) as neat from the back as the front!  The transparency also created problems in gluing on the tiny leaves as even after trialing 5 types of glue, it can still be detected in certain light, so I had to work very carefully. The deep solid wooden frame, together with 2 layers of glass also make the picture heavier than average. It’s also very difficult to photograph art that is behind glass!

The picture looks particularly nice with some light behind it, but still quite effective on a white or light coloured wall. [Click the images below to see close up details]