onsdag den 6. marts 2013

Mermaids and oceans...

Somebody told me recently: "You know, your work is great, but the technique takes too long and is complicated!" And last month another person asked med if I could simplify the technique, så children in the second grade could use it...

Hmmf! Complicated? Too long? Yeah, right... That's what I thought at first. But then sometimes it's nice to try new boundaries. So maybe I should try and see if I could come with something easier to do, but which would still look awesome.

Efter some thinking, I came down to some possibilities and and decided to try two of them. My parameters were:

- requires few materials and tools available everywhere, so to speak.
- the level of dificulty should not be too high - imagine what 8 year old children's skills. Nothing that needs precision or lots of instruction.
- keep it simple!!!

Textiles on canvas

I cut small pieces of fabric skraps - who hasn't got plenty of it? :-) - and glued them on a 20 x 20 cm canvas. The idea seemed simple, but it actually required more ability than I expected. For the first, it takes time, and then it's messy - the glue in the brush keeps atracting pieces I had glued in the first layer... So maybe the best would to let it dry in between layers - but very few children like working on something for many days... I did get the grip of it, and I was quite amased to see the result. But I'm not sure every eight-year-old-child would enjoy it! Her are the mermaids that came out of it: 


When the whole piece was dry, I drew the mermaids with a black permanent ink marker and with a golden marker. I should add that since I was running out of glue, I mixed it with a pearl medium for acrylic ink. That's why the coulors seem a bit washed away. I quite like the result.


Plastic and textiles

The next technique was much easier and quicker. I simply cut the fabric skraps on a sheet of laminating plast, covered it and came it through a laminator. Fun, easy and very nice result! It's easier to show rather than explaining. See the pictures: 


Lots of tiny fabric skraps...




... closing the laminating plast...



... and the laminator does magic!


And this is how it looks efter the laminator...



... and efter I drew the mermaid with a marker!




Surprise: the backside looks diferent! 
So why not draw some sea life on it? 


And should you wonder how you get those small skraps, well, her is a very short video so you can see how I do it! :-)