Tag: art

Small explorations

Hello,

This week has been a busy one and I’ve been at work for the whole of the last 2 weekends so I’ve been trying to fit in a little bit of artyness here and there. I’ve been thinking about how I can make smaller pieces and some wearable art as quite often I’m so busy trying to juggle work, home, family and social life, I just don’t have a lot of time to create full scale paintings. I also think it would be good to make larger quantities of my work on a small scale to be more accessible to people. So I’ve mainly been focusing on beginning some miniatures and doing a little experimentation with that in mind.

My lovely friend Jade also reminded me that during my creative lull I did actually make a small piece that she liked and that I’d given her, and I hadn’t photographed it, so I can share that now.

I don’t think I gave this one a name. It was something I made quite quickly, and evolved from pure play and experimenting. There aren’t many materials used, just a used baby wipe, some tissue paper and a little leftover cement sand from when I had some building work done which I then painted over. It’s darker than my usual work, but that might be because I was in a slightly darker place when I made it!

Here are the little pieces I’ve been playing with this week:

I thought they’d be suitable for very little frames, I quite like the idea of doing a range of ‘small specimens’ which could be displayed together like little curiosities, or perhaps turning them into greetings cards. They’re just the beginnings of an idea that I’d quite like to continue developing.

The last one isn’t finished but I love the idea of using the little soy sauce fish bottles from sushi packs. I’ve been saving them for years and plan to make a large piece with a shoal of them in all different colours at some point. I did use one in one of my paintings ‘Ariels playground’ and just think they add a bit of playfulness whilst using something that would usually be discarded. Heaven only knows how many of these things must get thrown away every day. I wonder how many of these plastic fish are bobbing around with the real ones…

I sliced this one in half with a scalpel then stuck some iridescent film I found in my craft stash inside and sealed it in with some pearly pink paint before glueing it to the card. I’ll probably add something round the edges to seal it in before painting the rest. I’ll try and get it finished this week.

Then I’ve also tinkered with another small work in progress that’s been hanging around in my studio for ages. I think it’s a bit weird looking, and not one of my favourite pieces but it exists, so I will finish it! It already has a name: Clocktopus!

Not really sure where this will end up at the moment but I think it has a tiny amount of potential!

Lastly I’ve decided to use up some celestial bits I had left over from another project on this frame I rescued from the bin at my local charity shop, all I’ve done is position the pieces at the moment but I think this might be a relatively easy piece to upcycle, we shall see if I can get it done before I speak to you next week!

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Getting back to it…

Hello, after a rather lengthy hiatus I’ve been trying to get some art making going again lately and thought I ought to come back here to record what I’ve been up to.

After my Dad passed away in late 2024, I seemed to lose most of my creative mojo (aside from the few weeks very soon after his death when I became strangely obsessed with nail art and bought every supply under the sun with the intention of becoming a fully fledged nail technician- funny how grief can affect you!). Recently though, I’ve started to feel those nagging creative urges knocking on doors inside my brain again.

This painting was the first artistic thing I’d done in ages. It’s a little dark and slightly creepy but I guess maybe that had to be released! Oh and I needed a new peg bag, so naturally thought I could start a new business making all sorts of different themed ones… Until I actually made one and realised just how long it took me to make a simple one and the idea became less appealing!

I’ve been busy selling things on eBay to try to alleviate the cost of living crisis a little and some of those things have had to have some minor repairs or spruce-ups so I’ve been putting some of my skills to use there. However, it’s not quite the same as getting all my textural junk and paints out and just playing and creating to see what happens!

I was looking through some of my friend Chris’ amazing artwork recently and I was struck by both how creatively talented and prolific he is, and it spurred me on to start, so I owe him a thank you!

My Mum has also inspired me lately because she has decided not to start any new projects until she’s finished all her many and varied unfinished crafty things, so I resolved to pick up some things I was working on before and start thinking about how to finish them.

I began with a lovely circular wooden framed mirror that I’d bought from a car boot sale last summer which wasn’t in the best condition as it was quite scratched. I decided I would give it a complete overhaul and cover the wood entirely with something textural. I’d sanded the wood really well in the hopes that whatever I applied would stick, masked off the mirror with leftover washi tape and started to cover it with some bits I had lying around near my workspace – a couple of wet wipes and tissue I’d used to clean things from previous projects, some twist ties, foam play clay that my friend gave me as her daughter didn’t use it and some texture paste I made with leftover tile grout. I’d gotten about halfway round the frame adding bits and pieces and then left it gathering dust on my easel for months!

Here’s some studio chaos and work in progress:

I got quite excited about it once I got going again and it probably only took two or three days to finish. The best bit for me is once I’ve built up all the texture and can start colouring it, because then it starts to come alive. Little areas of interest pop out and can then be tinkered with, perhaps adding a few other textured bits here and there. Anyway, here it is 😊

I’m actually more pleased than usual with how this piece turned out! It’s got me wondering what other ordinary objects might lend themselves to this sort of treatment!

I’ve already begun working on the next unfinished piece, (a small square canvas that I’d already painted over with a peculiar doodly thing that I hated!) so hopefully there will be something else to show for the coming week.

I’m also having a lot of thoughts lately about the use of AI in art, so I might muse about that some more and share some of my ponderings!

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