Air Dry Clay Dish

I've made a few different dishes out of Sculpey before but decided to play around with air dry clay for this project. The main reason for this is I had the idea to paint a scene on a dish which I would want to seal with spray varnish, which doesn't always work well with Sculpey.

I bought a small glass dish from a charity shop for 45p to use as a mould for my clay dish. I rolled out some air dry clay and pressed it into the glass dish. I trimmed the edges with a craft knife and went over them with a wet finger to make them smooth.

I gave the clay a couple of days to dry out before painting it. I painted a base layer of white emulsion first and then used acrylic paint to create the scene, which was based on one of my photos from Cromer. Considering I've painted on baubles before, painting on this slightly curved surface was no problem.

 To finish the dish a spray both sides with varnish and then it was ready to hold some shinys!

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This Week I...

...went on holiday to Cromer with my family.

I spent a lot of time in the amusement arcades, love those 2p machines, but we also visited Norwich and Sherringham, went on a tour of the pier theatre... 

...went to 'Miniature World' which had a lot of model railway layouts with hidden Tardis' (Tardi?)

We rented a place that sleeps 8 allowing friends and family to come and go throughout  the week.

On Wednesday my friends and I had a great time on the beach, for all of about 10 minutes, until it started chucking it down and we took shelter under some wooden stairs. It was an adventure!

How's your summer been?

Classroom Display Beach Painting

The topic for this term in my class is the seaside so the class teacher asked me if I would do a big painting for a classroom display. Since it was the Easter holidays I agreed.

The painting is 2.13 x 1.29m so outside was the best place to do it, and luckily the weather was quite warm and sunny on the day I chose.

We had decided that I would do the painting on fabric so it would be easy to roll, so I found and old sheet to use. Since it was for school I used their poster paints and I continue to be amazed what I can produce with the stuff (like with the winter painting I did for the classroom).

The is the biggest painting I've ever done and it was a bit tricky as I couldn't see the whole thing all as once as it was bigger than the table I was working on. I could have put more detail in but since it's only for a classroom display and I'd already spent over 6 hours on it I decided this was a good place to stop.

Sidenote: I binged-listened through the first half of Serial while painting it. I know, late to the party, but I'm all caught up now!

Once we were back to school I stapled the painting to the wall, trimmed the edges and attached the border.

And this is what it looks like now with all the topic words and other seasidey things added.

Painting: 6 x 4

This is another painting painted for the 6x4" exhibition, and I think it's the one I'm going to pick.

The image is Cromer beach and although I have a lot of photos of this beach to choose from, I picked this one because I like how the shape of the waves against the sand almost mirrors the shape of the cliffs.

I like how the delicate colours in this painting make it look like a faded photograph, especially since it's the exact size of one. 

Painting: 6 x 4

I've recently been invited to take part in a group exhibition at a local gallery. The idea of the exhibition is that all of the piece of art are only 6x4". That's the size of a printed photograph.

I don't have anything that small so this week I've been producing a few different paintings so I've got some to pick from for the exhibition. This is the first one. It's based on a photo taken at Wells beach from the time I went to 5 beaches in one day.

Painting: Adding Texture

Here's my newest painting. But it didn't always look like this.

It started out like this. I worked on it over the summer but couldn't get it to look right so eventually I admitted defeat and gave up.

Since I wouldn't be doing anything else with the canvas I decided to use it for something a bit experimental; adding texture.

I painted over the first painting with emulsion paint mixed with a bit of plaster. I used this mix to create the shapes of the new image I had in mind.

For the sandy part of the image I added actual sand to the paint/plaster mix...

...which I applied with a palette knife.

This is the textured canvas before I started painting on it. Once it had dried  I couldn't wait to get started on it.

I really love how this painting turned out and I'm inspired to add more texture to my future paintings.

Painting: Little Boy on the Beach

Here's the next painting to come out of my mega beach trip.

It is oil on canvas and 50 x 40 cm.

After doing this painting, and the one before that, I have come to the conclusion that I don't really like painting sand. The sand castles were fine because they're an actual object but a whole bunch of just sand gets boring to paint.

That painting is based on this photo I took at Wells. Yes, I take photos of other peoples children. But he's unidentifiable and just look at the bobble hat!
My problem is that my friends are all girls my age so if I stick to painting people I know there isn't much variety. I took a lot of photos of other people's dogs too because people love paintings of dogs but I don't have one.

Fun fact: I did a lot of this painting whilst listening to Dolly Parton's autobiography read by Dolly herself, as I found it in full on Youtube. Definitely worth a listen, and probably better than reading the book as Dolly laughs and sings and puts all the emotion in as she reads.

Painting: Dogs on the Beach

I've already starting using some of the photos we took on our beach crawl for paintings. This is the first one. It still needs a bit of tweaking, but it's good enough to share at the moment.

When I did this painting I had to look to Google for the dog in the picture, so on this trip I made sure to get a few snaps of dogs running around.

This is the original photo. It's actually one my Mum took. I have a couple of rules about which photos I paint from; either I took them, or I was there when they were taken, so that I have some connection to the image

This Week I...

On Tuesday my parents and I hit up 5 beaches along the north Norfolk coast so that I could take photos from which to paint from. In fact all three of us took our cameras and got snappy.

We took photos at 4 beaches. The fifth was all about 2p machines and cake.

It was pretty cold and the wind was brutal. But the less than perfect weather made for more interesting photos. You could look one way and see a bright blue sky, then turn the other and see dark, grey clouds. 

And I got a new Facebook profile picture out of it. Thanks Dad!

Also this week I taught a couple of Easter art classes at the Letchworth Arts Centre which included making bunnies out of clay!

How was your week? Are those of you who benefit from the Easter school holidays enjoying it?

Painting: Repurposed Canvas

A new cheap shop opened up near me called B&M and a few weeks ago me and my Mum went to check it. We love all those shops; Poundland, Home Bargains, Family Bargains.

#thrifty

We ended up spending almost 2 hours in B&M. Totally the best time.

One of the things I bought was this printed canvas for £2.99.

It's 35x90cm!

It would be perfect for me to do a really decent painting on.

Except for that one issue of there already being something on it.

Which took me to another great place. The Scrap Store, of course, where I picked up this can of emulsion paint that still had a couple of inches of paint in, which was all I needed.

Using a roller to get the smoothest texture I painted over the graphic on the canvas.

It took about 4/5 coats but then it was good to go.

And here's what I've done with it.

I used one of my own photos but switched out the figure for some Google image people.

All of my own photos feature people my age so for some variety I had to look elsewhere.

Painting: Figure on the Beach

My latest painting is another that comes from the beach trip I took with my friends at the end of August.

It's also becoming a tradition to create a painting on a narrow canvas of myself at the beach. See here.

I like less traditionally shaped canvases as they allow my to play around with cropping and create a different composition to the original photo.

This is another photo from that trip which I think would make a great painting, but I don't think it would sell as well...

Painting: Girl on the Beach

In between working I've managed to finish this painting I showed you the start of.

It's my friend Lizzi at the beach.

The painting is based on a photo I took when we took a trip to the beach at the end of August.

Lizzi's always a good sport and doesn't mind me taking lots of photos.

So there might be a few more paintings from this occasion to be made.

This Week I...

...was out and about.

Two of my cousins were staying with us for a few days after camp so we took them to Cambridge for the day on Monday.

The weather was lovely and we enjoying watching people punting, including those who almost crashed into each other.

On Thursday me and my friends went to the beach! I love me some beach.

It was raining on the drive there but the sun came out when we arrived.

While my friends were napping or reading magazines I set about digging a hole because that's what you're supposed to at the beach.

Then we won big on the 2p machines and finished the day with some fish and chips.

How's your summer going?

Are you a lounger or a digger at the beach?

Painting: Beach Feet

Here's my latest painting. It's a big'un.

I knew all that detailed sea would be a challenge so I decided to draw out the image using the grid method (which you can kinda see in this photo).

When I was doing art at school lots of people did this with their paintings, but I preferred to free hand it. The grid was useful for drawing out the picture, but when it came to painting I didn't really use it.

At least I know not to bother next time.

The painting is a cropped version of this photos of my friend Natalie being pushed into the sea. Nice.

Painting: Dog Walker on the Beach

During my last week in Norwich, back in June, I took a spontaneous trip to the beach with some friends who were visiting to see my degree show.

As with all my beach trips I take a lot of photos with the intention of turning some of them into paintings.

This is one of those paintings.

I altered the image from the photo slightly, as I found I couldn't paint the girls face very well so I just painted her hair going across it. Sorted.

Also, in reality there was no dog, but my Dad thought it might be nice to add one in and create more of a story to the painting.

So off I went to Google to find a suitable dog. I also added a red lead in the girls hand to fit with the story.

Now, according to one of my friends - the one who appears in this painting actually - just posting a new painting isn't enough content for one blog post.

So here are some more photos from the trip to give her more to look at.

As you can see it wasn't the nicest day for the beach, but that's what happens when it's spontaneous!

We went to Cromer by the way. Standard.

We searched for crabs.

And eventually found one.

Fun times were had by all.