I have always loved walking through peoples gardens and finding little surprises. Not the garden gnome type surprises but I am a sucker for little fairies, sculptures and organic art which is melting into the garden itself, not obvious, but a delight when discovered. I like discovery art, being able to explore an art piece and find its own treasures within it.
Its the small art that counts, the joy of discovery!
I find that when people walk through my home, they tend to explore and discover little artistic treasures tucked into the shelves. I am by no means a hoarder or collector. I like to make small art which fits into the palm of you hand, mind you it needs to be big enough to hold its own role as home decor.
So here’s a snapshot of recent small art and a small project to create yourself!
Finding Old-man Tree Root
While building the new patio on the home, digging the post holes required the removal of an old tree root. We could see on google maps that this tree had only recently been removed and fortunately the back-hoe was able to pull it quickly and cleanly from the corner of the house.
He gave it a rinse off and exposed a gently entwined root system which held its own beauty .. but what to do with it? The root was spared from the rubbish and put aside to await its future another day.
Spotting the tree root I picked it up, plonked it down .. and there it has remained being the perfect shape, size and form against the brick wall!
Worse case scenario, throw it away.
Making Old-man Tree Root
Many nice comments later, the tree-root has stayed but I wanted to bring it to life and I kept picturing an old face coming from the ground. So one day I grabbed my clay .. and Old-man Tree Root was born! It was hot and sunny but 3 hours later this piece of small art makes a delight to find in our garden.
Materials: Apoxy Sculpt, sculpting tools, some old house paint and oil paint
Step 2: Finger shape the general head, nose, mouth, eye. Spread out clay for hair.
Step 3: Suddenly remember sunscreen and hat, and to find the sculpting tools! Dig around for tools.
Step 4: Tool the hair details, nostrils, lips and eyebrows. Step back a lot, hate it a bit, then attack again! I added ears at this stage.
Step 6: Be impatient and throw some old house paint onto the wet clay .. it could make it look better .. whew it did.
Step 7: Very important .. tool in the natural timber look, add the cracks, the texture, the old weathered look. Simply follow the lines and textures already occurring in the wood.
Finally: Touch up with paint again using just a rough dragged finish, put dark in the cracks and use paint tones which continue the natural color of the timber. In this case I used off white, yellow ochre and burnt umber.
ALWAYS THE ARTIST
Dina
