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!
alison m williams 