Today I’ve been experimenting with casting the inside of vessels and also making sculptured birds out of plastic bottles (originally from the Eden project).
https://www.edenproject.com/learn/for-everyone/how-to-recycle-a-milk-carton-into-a-beautiful-bird
Above are three of the results, I still have to release other casts from their vessels; such as the tin can and other egg carton, but this requires the plaster to be completely dry, so I am going to leave them overnight. The vessel on the left was a non-recyclable crumpet pack. I was focusing on the space left behind, so in this case the plaster has dictated the shape. The severe finish on the top part is just where the plaster ran out, this particular cast was made to use up the batch. The middle example was created from pouring plaster into the egg carton, waiting 5 minutes and then pouring the plaster out – this has left a shell like structure, which was a bit of a happy accident although doesn’t really relate to my aim for this particular session. The last piece on the right is a fruit juice carton, this cast produced a lovely solid shape, I intended it to appear more dented, but again the plaster dictated how the vessel became full. My next step with these is to free the other casts from their vessels once dry and arrange a composition for photographing and ultimately producing a painting.
Following my obsession with the milk carton birds in Design 1, I have discovered that they are originally from the Eden Project. After emptying the contents of my recycling bin – I managed to make four. Two out of two milk cartons, and two out of smaller water bottles (one example shown on the left).
Being fortunate enough to live where I do, sea birds are part of the local environment with migrating geese amongst others, amidst the local bird community. Having worked a lot with the issue of plastic last year, specifically regarding ocean plastic, I liked the idea of experimenting with the milk carton idea in the local environment.
I photographed the vessel birds at three different times today against the colour of the sky. I have taken several photos at different angles which I have produced contact sheets for. I use these to create compositions for a series of small paintings. Not in the style of a trio of ceramic ducks, as seen at Hilda Ogden’s house, on Coronation Street, but more like a series of sea birds in flight, albeit plastic sea birds.
This is in some ways appropriating the idea from The Eden Project, which was initially meant as a child's craft project - the original inspiration came from Claudia Friend, all with the intention of raising awareness about the dangers of plastic, - with as many as ninety percent of sea birds now thought to now contain plastic - this is potentially a way for me to do my bit albeit as paintings, rather than the actual plastic birds.
With all that said, I have prepared three different types of surfaces for this week’s Studio Thursday. A thick water colour paper, sheets from a canvas pad and some collaged newspaper. I have given each of these a grisaille of light blue emulsion, (the colour of my kitchen – matched with a tester card against the sky in the winter) in the hope that this will illuminate the paint going onto the paper from beneath - to give the painting a flavour of the estuary.
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