Thursday, February 14, 2008

Second excursion for the week - tired!

Drawing day forty

Drawing day forty-one

We had another class excursion yesterday, this time into the National Gallery of Victoria International and some small galleries in Flinders Lane, to research our current painting project: found objects. Saw some amazing work, which set up such a set of ripples in my brain that I woke at 6am (most unlike me and neither pleasant nor welcome since I was so wide awake there was no chance of dozing off again) with three ideas in my head that I had to write down before I forgot them (to do with screenprinting text onto fabric and using it to make one of my drawings-a-day into a soft sculpture).

With the unexpectedly early start, I'd made today's drawing by 8.15am and had to time to reflect on what I'd need for painting class today (as opposed to the usual mad rush as I recall all the things I've forgotten to prepare the previous evening). Painting is a misnomer this year, as we can use that class for sculpture or photography or pretty much whatever takes our fancy (not printmaking so much, as we have that all day Wednesday). I'm mostly planning to work on sculpture, and there is no shortage of existing found objects in my house already. But did I use them? No, 'course not! I decided I wanted to disassemble soft toys and use the carcasses to make a "dress", using the larger pieces of pelt to patch together for the body of the garment, with feet and tails adorning the hemline and perhaps some sort of stole affair to utilise the heads and accessories. I'm using mostly pastel creatures, playing on a lost innocence theme. I think I'll line it in scarlet.

I scored a bonanza at St Vinnies op shop earlier this week, when I found two GINORMOUS sacks of soft toys for a mere $3 per sack - so ginormous that they stand chest high on me. Those things were heavy, I almost gave myself a hernia dragging them up the street to the car, heaving one into the boot and the other into the back seat (they were too big to both fit in the boot!). I took this as a sign from the Powers-That-Be that I was meant to do this project :)

The reactions of others to this work-in-progress is veeeee-ry interesting, ranging from horror and disbelief as I wield the scissors and behead, gut and disect teddy bears and bunnies (and a Snoopy!), to evil laughter.

I have two more definite found object works in mind, one involving bread tags and the other small cardboard boxes and Alice-through-the-looking-glass. I am having fun (wicked grin)

1 comment:

Jean said...

The stuffed animal outfit sounds oh so rightesously wicked, Elizabeth. I can't wait to see a photo!!