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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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Oh my canvas!

Don’t store a blank canvas away, waiting for inspiration!

I’ve been imagining a mouse plague wreaking havoc in my craft cupboard!
My mischievous mice are sculpted in paper and painted with acrylic colour and sealant.
The bodies are recycled paper mulch, cast in plaster moulds which I made using plasticine and Plaster of Paris. The finer details, like ears, feet, eyes and tails are hand-shaped with paper clay.
(Click the top of the pictures below to enlarge)

  • Forming the features
  • Casting moulds
  • Painting
  • Arghh!

Although they’re the size of real house mice, they’re a bit more cartoon-like as I tried to give them little personalities.
The canvas needed a backing (for obvious reasons) so I used bright red to add colour and to highlight the rips. The scariest part of the project was ripping the first hole into a perfectly good canvas!
It’s been a fun project; it makes people smile, but no one wants it hanging on their wall!

  • The final ruined canvas!
Oh my canvas! V.2

A year later and I’ve created this new, more ‘palatable’ version of my canvas destroyers!
Smaller white mice are much cuter, and the partially painted still life including cheese gives them something to munch on.

This piece has been created as a “cautionary tale” of procrastination: What happens when unfinished artwork is stored and forgotten in a cupboard.