It seems like forever and a day since I originally thought about giving my bonnie birds wings, indeed, it seems like forever and a day since I actually started making this one! Based around the same principles as it’s forebears I had to add some additional armature to build the wings both from a practical point of view but also to ensure that they would be strong enough to stand-up to life’s little knocks. This is the end result
I’m reasonably pleased with the finished product although, contrary to what it looks like, I had an abstraction of a Green Finch in mind when I painted it!
You would think that given, aside from chaffinches, that this is the only bird that visits our garden with any regularity that I’d be able to summon up an image in my minds eye and work it up on one of my bonnie birds; it seems my mind is prone to wandering when I pick up a paintbrush and the notion that I might paint anything in the fashion that I originally intended is completely lost!!
It seems that the higher the temperatures get with the incredible – if not late – onset of spring and summer the lower my enthusiasm for doing crafts becomes. Given the choice of doing ‘work’ in the garden or sitting doing crafts it seems that the garden chores win out every-time … not that there isn’t plenty to be getting on with out there!
I’ve not been completely idle though on the craft front with a couple of developmental pieces underway. This one was just done for fun when I was messing about with some left over mache.
The spider in the foreground here was my first, half-hearted attempt at a spider, partially inspired by some fabric spiders I caught a glimpse of on Ann Wood’s blog that Jolene follows, clearly it bears no real resemblance to that spider – it really just provided the kernel of a notion that later developed (and is developing) into an idea.
Following the creation of this rather cartoon-like spider I went on to work on something a bit more life-like with reference to a variety of spider photo’s and biology models that I found around and about on the internet. The end result was this spider pictured below.
I’m still not entirely satisfied with the spider – although I do like the mandible’s – I think the Abdomen (back bit) is too small in relation to the Cephalothorax (front bit). I may work up another version of this, weather permitting, that’s a bit more anatomically correct – although I don’t think I’ve ever made anything that’s not largely abstract … it might be an interesting challenge.
I’ve nearly finished working on a winged version of my bonnie birds, another development piece, and I’ll share that when it’s finished too.
Dan Reeder is a relatively well known papier mache artist and I just thought I’d share this amusing video with you of his presentation at the ignite night in Seattle.
One key point though, papier mache is seriously under-rated, also … I’ve never made a pig :)
Following Jolene’s last post I couldn’t resist the post title, nor – I’m afraid – could I resist including a little musical flashback to my youth … I’ll leave that till the end though!
As Jolene said in her post I have been making more bonnie birds and taking her through the process at the same time, I could be wrong, but I think it falls into the harder than it looks category. Certainly I think it’s taken a bit of practice and development to get them to the stage they’re at now, I only wish I had saved the original prototypes to share with you by way of a comparison with the ones I’m making now … the difference is quite startling!
I’m working on something else now and have saved the prototype of that one so you can see that these things don’t simply materialise without any thought … although that’s often the way these things begin, with a random convergence of whimsical and divergent partial thoughts! Anyway these will be my last Bonnie Birds for a while so that I can concentrate on other things.
Alasdair has been guiding me through the process of making one of his Bonnie Birds…it’s not a process I will be repeating in the near future!
First you have to make the armature, which is quick and easy enough. Then comes the mache, which refuses to stick to the armature. Alasdair’s most helpful advice was to keep squeezing it together until it looked body like…yeah, ok…the more I squeezed, the more determined the stuff was to stick to me and not the armature! Then, and I am not the most patient of people, you have to wait overnight for the body to dry…
…next night you can make the tail in the same way…mache stuck everywhere but where it was supposed to be, and once again we had to leave them overnight to dry. The next night was a repeat performance for the head…I nearly threw it on the fire that night! My beak was huge, then too thin, then it all fell off…argh!
Alasdair assured me that it would all be ok in the end and to just try and get a sort of shape that sort of resembled a bird. I trust him, because he’s my husband, so I persevered, tried my best and created something resembling a bird.
This is Alasdair’s bird after sanding. Mine was too ugly to contemplate at this stage.
The next stage was to sand it all down…I needed to wait for the weekend for this…I won’t bore you with the whys and wherefores. Alasdair insists that sanding is key and other than advising me ‘not to be shy about it’ his other top tip was to mind my fingers!? That exercise went a whole lot better than I imagined it would and I ended up with the shape you see in the finished article. Alasdair was right…all of the mistakes I made earlier were wiped out at this point.
The final stage of painting and varnishing were nerve-racking for me. I’d spent all week making this bird and was about to ruin it all with one wrong brushstroke. Fortunately the Bonnie Bird is a forgiving creature and I was able to rescue it from an overzealous paint job by imagining target practice where the wings should be.
This is me fixing the bits that I missed the first time I varnished it…oops!
As I said, it took me two weeks to make mine from start to finish…Alasdair made five in that same time. See them all in the background laughing at my bird’s short legs and lumpy backside…still I think it’s pretty good for a first (and only) attempt.
I’m not sure if this is an abstraction of the commoner garden blackbird or what happens when bonnie birds start listening to goth music!? Whatever it is I’m rather pleased with the colour combo, I may even go so far as to describe it as being a bit chic … but, to be honest, I’m not entirely sure what that means!
Anyway, the sun’s been out the last few days and so it would have been churlish to not get out there are get a couple of photo’s outside, just for a wee change from my usual white background.
As ever this is available in our shop, there are also some additional images there too :)
Having made a few batches of previous bonnie birds and developed a decorative pattern that I think works for them – see previous posts here – I’ve been keen to develop alternative patterns, something as it turns out is easier said than done.
Here are a few examples of what I’ve come up with thus far, the first is my favourite of the the three and the last (zig-zag) is based on a design suggested by our wee lad:
Maybe it’s been the first rays of spring-time sun but I was compelled to decorate the latest couple of Bonnie Birds in vibrant yellows and reds.
I decided to stick with the simple design for these birds although I’m mulling over a variety of options for future generations of the Bonnie Birds … actually I’d love to do a tartan one but haven’t been able to find any tartan paint I like yet!
This (below) is only the second bird to have the large peacock-esque tail, again I stuck with a relatively simple design that I think works quite well … although it played havoc with my eyes doing it!
Skot is another artist found through DeviantArt where he goes by the name Lord Hoki, living on Austrailia’s East Coast Skot works in a variety of media creating a range of drawn, painted and sculpted objects. Much of his DeviantArt account is taken up with his Hoki range of work such as those pictured below:
Above is just one of a wide range of character sketches featured in Skot’s DeviantArt account. Aside from the sketches there are also fully worked up paintings (see below) in what is probably best described as, full 21st century technicolour:
I really love the blending and highlighting used in this painting, the background providing a wonderful richly textured contrast with the smooth features of the the face itself. It could be that I’m attracted to these works thanks to the eyes – eyes being something of an obsession for me – and what eyes these are! I almost feel like I could fall into them, a real focal point of many of these Hoki works.
If you like these characters painted, then you may well like them painted on t-shirts (below), wear an original work on your chest … I’d pay for that!
It only seems right that the Hoki’s be brought to life in an altogether more 3-dimensional fashion, and so it is we discover Captain Hoki:
The Captain here is a sculpture in papier mache that really fits in with it’s 2-dimensional forebears, the nose and eyes being the main feature with colouring and details in keeping with the designs I’ve already featured here and the others in Skot’s gallery.
Given what’s gone before you may well be forgiven that Skot is something of a one trick pony, yet nothing could be further from the truth and so, before I finish this post I’d like to share a few of Skot’s other works with you.
A pencil sketch entitled “My Dad”, we presume it is … his … not mine!
A couple of bird boxes made from reclaimed and recycled materials … makes me think that the birds we get around where I am are a bit rubbish. Having said that the Buzzards, Grouse and Barn Owls are pretty cool … oh! and we don’t get deadly spiders, snakes or other nasties!!
As ever I can’t recommend enough that you check out this artists gallery which is available here.
Hitchcock’s, The Birds, was one of my favourite films as I grew up, the eerie notion that birds of all shapes and sizes should be overcome with an insatiable lust for human flesh, attacking young and old alike without provocation and otherwise simply sitting and waiting on some playground climbing frame for their next unsuspecting victim …
… actually, no, it’s nothing like that around here … although we do seem to have an increasing number of slightly suspicious looking birds sitting in the windowsill! And so it was that I finished my latest papier mache birds. My latest obsession.
In terms of scale the one in the middle is a tad over 6″ tall at it’s tallest point. I decided to render these ones in shades of green with the now familiar pattern of white dots, I’ve got a couple more under-way as I type this, although I imagine it’ll be a good few days before I finish them – other commitments such as life tends to throw at you … like blocked drains … ugh!
As ever, these are available to buy from our shop.
13 June, 2010 6:33 pm | 
