Encore du papier

I applied the last layers of papier maché to my boxes. This sort of thing takes a long time to complete because each layer has to (at least almost) dry in-between layers.
But, for my final application, I used light-coloured paper, to give a smoother finish for painting.

It looks at bit dull and grey, but with a bit of decoration, it will be much smarter.

Here are the two boxes when dry:

I'm not entirely happy with the finish. Papier maché doesn't always work perfectly and in this case, some of it didn't adhere to the box very well, but it has produced a workable, stacking box system, which I can add to as I get more boxes, so it will do.

I painted the boxes purple, with some leftover emulsion, so here they are finished:

Le maché du papier

There's a woeful lack of storage in the Junksmith's studio, so when the last two veg boxes came in these stackable cardboard boxes, I knew it was time to indulge in a spot of papier maché.

The first thing I did was to cut out a piece from the front of the box, like so:

Then, I cut some pieces of gum-strip sealing tape (which I usually use to stretch paper) and went round all the edges, smoothing the surface: 

 

This makes the papier maché easier to apply.

Then I mixed up my glue. In a washing-up bowl (an old one, mind - I'm not going to use it for the dishes later!) I poured enough hot water to fill it to just under half. Then I added about a cup of powdered wallpaper paste (I've had half a packet hanging around for about four years, so I was glad of something to do with it!) And about the same amount of PVA glue. I mixed it all thoroughly and tore off a number of strips of newspaper.

Newspaper an tissue paper make the best papier maché because the paper breaks down quickly in water, but I do use other papers too.

Carefully, I then covered the entire box in soaked strips of newspaper, taking care to keep the hoes for stacking and lifting open.

It took quite a while, but I didn't want to rush it. It's important to get a nice smooth finish, so it is best to take the time over it.

Eventually, I had a fully covered box. 

When wet, it was quite wobbly and fragile, so I put it safely in the corner of the studio to dry.

Then I did the other one:

That was yesterday. Today, they were both almost dry, so I applied another layer. 

When they are dry, hopefully tomorrow, I will be able to add one more layer and then finish them off.

To make the two boxes nice and strong, I am aiming for about 6 layers of newspaper. Each application  gives me two layers of paper, with each strip overlapping. As I intend to keep things in the boxes and stack them on top of one another (and I'm hoping for more boxes in the future) I don't want them falling apart or warping under the weight, so all this work is worth it. They should last for ages when they're done.

Tonight thy look like this:

Watch this space.

The Sketchbooks

I stuck the tiny, rather sad-looking newspaper gondola inside the 'tragedy' mask this morning and added a bit of text (in Italian) to the piece, then left it all to dry.

I spent the rest of the day tidying up my sketchbooks, mending pages which had fallen out under the weight of all that creativity and making sure I had recorded all my ideas and research.
I find a sketchbook (mine are more like scrapbooks!) really invaluable in the creative process. It is like a portable brain where i can store anything I find, or think of, in relation to my project. I find I need a separate sketchbook for each project, otherwise my already scatterbrain gets quite a bit more muddled!

I'm going to share some of my ideas for making sketchbooks interesting and creatively pleasing. I enjoy preparing the sketchbook pages almost as much as the projects themselves.

1) Fold-out pages.
I'm infamous for my fold-out pages. I love to increase the visual area as much as possible and, coupled with my penchant for folding paper, I've created some interesting pages in my sketchbooks.
The simplest fold-out is a single fold. Take a piece of paper slightly smaller than your page and stuck one edge to the edge of your page. Instantly, both sides of the page are twice the size and you can fold it in when the book is stored.

The Bifold is an extension of this: Take a larger piece of paper and attach in the same way. Then fold out twice:

You can either fold it out concertina-style, or fold the edge in on itself.

I usually attach tabs to my fold-out pages. Anyone looking through the sketchbook can easily see that there is a fold-out and handle it with ease.

I also employ the same techniques if I have a picture or photo which is a bit too large for the page:

And sometimes i can create an optical illusion that way too!

Another fold-out is a multi-fold, where a longer and wider piece of paper is attached to a page. This then folds out in more than one direction. Oh, the fun that can be had with this!

Enough of fold-outs. You get the point. It's worth experimenting with.

2) Extra Pages

I sometime add pages, either by stitching or tying them in, or by taking the book apart and attaching a new page:

Extra pages can be added to the spine, or to the edge of a page, thereby creating a fold-out.

3) Decorated backgrounds

A decorated background can make a sketchbook page a lot more interesting. The only limit to this is creativity. I have used collage, paint, fabric, charcoal, pencil, photographs... etc, etc. Here are a few I made earlier:

There are numerous other things you can do with sketchbooks. They are perfect for exploring creative ideas, both in content and presentation.

Venetian Tragedy

Today, I am decorating the inside of my third mask - the Tragedy mask.
For my theme, I have looked a little at what everyday life for Venetians is like. There are a number of issues they face, but I have chosen to focus on one: flooding. It is common-place in Venice. So much so, that if you mention it to anyone, they shrug and say it happens every year, but the slow damage to the ancient city is an unfortunate and inevitable consequence of living in a city of water with the global climate changes we are all undergoing.

So, I first take the inside of my third mask, a printed map showing the Venetian flood zones and an italian newspaper.
I tore up a sheet of newspaper, removing pictures and headlines: I only want random text.

Soaking the newspaper in glue, I pasted the inside of the mask. After it had mostly dried (I used a hairdryer) I tore a piece of the map to fit inside my mask, not quite covering the whole area. Then, keeping as much water as possible off the front of the map, while pasting the back, I fitted the map inside the mask and sealed it down.

While this was all drying, I set to work on the foreground of my decor.

I cut an 8 inch square of newspaper (with dense print on both sides) and carefully made an origami gondola.

This wasn't the first paper gondola I had created. I had a practice run a couple of weeks ago with an old map:

but I wanted to use newspaper. My 8 inch paper gondola was too big, so I made another one with a 6 inch square piece of newspaper.

It was more fiddly to work with and I was glad I'd had a practice.

I was a little fragile, so to ensure it would withstand gallery conditions, I needed to glue all the flaps down and varnish it (carefully!)

I also varnished the inside of the mask, while I was about it.

When they are dry, I will stick them together, but that is a job for tomorrow...

Lions and Artists

The Comedy Mask
Last night, I made five tiny portraits of famous Venetians.
I chose five men who are all well-known and easily recognisable:
Claudio Monteverdi (composer)
Carlo Goldini (playwright)
Guacamo Casanova (author - and notorious lothario!)
Giovani Antonio Canaletto (artist) and
Tiziano Vecelli (other wise known as Titian) and I think we know what he's famous for!
They are about an inch square and I used PhotoShop to put them in little frames. Then I applied a good layer of varnish to them before I went to bed.
This morning I cut them out and painted a thin ring of gold around the edge - et voila! Five portraits to hang in my miniature Venetian Gallery.

So, along with the curtains I made yesterday and the piece of manuscript I kept back from when I made the background (varnished in preparation) and a strip of red felt (for a red-carpeted staircase)  I was ready to mock-up the inside of my 'comedy' mask to see how it would look.

There was just one more thing I wanted to add. The phrase "Ladies and Gentlemen, please take your seats. The performance is about to start" translated into Italian and added to the edges.

I use Google Translator for this as my Italian is minimal at best and I didn't want to get my grammar or spelling wrong!

So, I printed off the phrase, treated the torn paper to a tea bath and waited for it to dry.

Finally, I made and a couple of curtain ties made from gold wire and brass feather charms (which were lying around in the studio.) Then I put it all together.

The Lion of Venice

I applied the background felt yesterday with PVA glue. I like PVA. It is a good glue, but I probably use it too much and could have used a different material to paste the felt to the inside of this mask. It has worked, but it took ages to dry.

However, today it was ready for me to trim the excess felt from the edges and start applying the details.

I used self-adhesive black felt for the nose, eyes and mouth. It was much easier to use this than to fiddle about with gluing tiny pieces of felt into place, not to mention time-saving.

Now, I thought this looked OK, but I wanted it to look more lion-like, so I rummaged around for something to create that lovely white furry bit lions have around their mouths.

I never throw anything away if I think it might be useful (which is nearly everything!) and I'm glad of that because I had a nice scrap of untreated fleece. Not the stuff you make hoodies out of, this is the real deal, straight off a sheep (probably about 20 years ago!)

I glued it on (with Copydex this time - not PVA!) and then stuck a lion's mane of faux fur around the edge. 

And finally, the first two masks are complete.

Behind the Masks

Today, my masks are dry and I am ready to work on the inside.
I am using 'behind the mask' as my inspiration for this piece. The masks will be hung from a washing line in the gallery (there are a lot of washing lines in Venice, stretched across the narrow streets.)
For my first mask (the one with the long nose and chin,) I'm having a bit of fun. The other two will be quite serious, so this one will offer a light-hearted interlude. It will hang in the middle.
There are a lot of cats in Venice. The Venetians care for them, feed them and treat them well. I want to use this mask to represent the feline population of Venice, who have a long heritage: San Marco's symbol is a winged lion, so my mask will contain a lion.
My aim is to make the inside of the mask like a lion's face, but in reverse, so it could be worn (or at least tried-on) by a viewer, wrapping the lion's face around their own.

I began with brown felt. I measured the inside of the mask and cut an oval shape large enough to fit inside the mask. 

Then, using PVA glue (I get through so much of that stuff!) I stuck it inside, snipping slits where necessary to fit it in and around.

With diluted PVA, I edged the felt into the mask and soaked it to fit it in. I also cut out the eye holes and a T shape for the nose, which I also stuck down with liberal application of glue. I pegged around the edge to hold it down, but even though today is sunny and I have sat the mask in the window, I will not be able to do any more today. I will come back to mask 1 tomorrow.

Mask 2.

This mask (the 'comedy' mask I talked about yesterday) will represent the culture, art and main tourist attractions of Venice. I have prepared apiece of paper which is a photocopy of a piece of opera music. I screwed it up and soaked it in tea. The paper's integrity started to break down as soon as it got wet, which worked very well for me because I wanted it to look as old and crumbly as possible. I have practiced a few times in my sketchbook, so I knew what I was expecting.

I gently dampened the back of the paper and laid it into the mask. Using my trusty diluted PVA and a large brush, I coaxed the paper into all the nooks and crannies and tore away eye holes and a gap for the nose, laying the torn off pieces back onto the main area and soaking it all well with my mixture.

This too will need to dry, so I will get on with the other elements of this mask.

The Opera House in Venice is called La Fenice, which means the Phoenix. I'm using it as the inspiration for the inside of my 'comedy' mask. Traditionally, 'comedy' does not mean funny, as it does today. It simply implies entertainment of a lighter nature than 'tragedy' (which is all angst and death - tragedy!)

So for 'comedy' I'm doing art, music, theatre, all the culture people go to Venice to enjoy.

The music score forms the backdrop. Now I need theatre curtains.

I measured and cut a kebab stick to the length I wanted for a curtain pole.

Then painted it gold.

Now, for the curtains. I found a scrap of red fabric (it was once the frill off a skirt) and cut it to the right length. Then I made some tiny curtains from it, while waiting for my gold paint to dry. Then stitched them onto the pole.

At this point, my music paper was dry so I took the opportunity to varnish the inside of the mask with quick-drying matt varnish. This stuff takes an hour to touch-dry and four hours before I can put another coat on, so after an hour I varnish the outside of the mask. It will take about 10 hours to put two coats inside and out, and for them to dry out sufficiently, so this mask is going to take a while to get to the next stage.

Tomorrow, I will finish adding the decoration to the first two masks.

Venetian Masks

The beautiful city of Venice is providing the inspiration for my current artistic project.

I have researched the city, it's history, art, culture, geography, environmental issues, language, etc... and of course I was drawn towards the carnivale and the elaborate costumes and masks worn by Venetians and visitors every year.

I decided to try my hand at making some mask and decided to use Modroc for this, at it is very easy to model with, dries relatively quick, is strong and light.

Mr H kindly sat still whilst I modelled a total of three masks from his face. I asked him to pull different expressions with each mask, to make the building-up a little easier fo me.

For the first one I exaggerated the prominent features - particularly the nose and chin, just by building up with plaster.

The second mask utilised a 'sad' expression and I exaggerated the contours for a 'tragedy' mask.

The third and final mask uses a smile for a 'comedy' mask.

I cut out the eye and nose holes and painted all three masks with an undercoat of emulsion paint.

Then added a coat of base coat (it is more brown than the photo shows) and areas of gold paint, before coating the whole mask(s) in acrylic crackle medium.

I used a hairdryer to get each layer dry because, this time of year, it's so cold, I could've waited weeks to get them finished and I have a deadline of this Thursday to hang them in the gallery space.

At this stage, they were starting to look like something from an old music hall. I was reminded of wooden masks and puppets from the early 20th century, so I knew I was on my way to creating what I was after.

Thinned 'plaid' colour acrylic paint was added in long sweeping strokes and, with the use of a hair dryer, the cracks started to appear:

With a bit more distressing, just to make them look right, I was ready to tackle the inside.