Finito! At last.

Alrightee. Finally got to completing my three mixed media spirit gals. Although I've managed to drag out their various constituent parts over several weeks, the actual making part is a lot quicker than 100% paper pulp. The time taking bit is waiting for the plaster to do its hardening thing. Come on come on. Why aren't you dry yet?

But plaster isn't like pulp. Pulp just needs a bit of warmth to suck out the moisture and thin layers dry out super fast. Plaster however, is a chemical reaction and you can't hurry it. You can poke it as many times as you like but it'll stay stubbornly cold and damp to the touch until it's good and ready. Sigh. Come on.

Once it's hard, it needs a roughly 1:1 mix of PVA/white glue and water brushed over to seal it so I can add on pulp or just paint over. Oh, that's another part that means go away and do something else for the rest of the day. I used the acrylic pour technique on all the pieces. Three colours dribbled over the figure then skooshed around to cover the base and sides. But it goes on pretty thick and takes hours and hours to fully dry. Hence, more waiting.

Now the fun part

Once the base colouring was applied it was time to add the texture via costuming to create the effect of waves, flames etc. I delve into my bag of paper remnants looking for mulberry; it has plant fibres running through it and when you tear pieces off, the fibres create really interesting shapes and make a great wild hair effect. Naturally I forgot to add the hair before doing the pours. Not a major issue though - I attached them then did a mix of pour and paint to match up the rest of the figure. I'll remember that next time. Probably.

How do I get the paper to stand out from the figures? My old faithful Paverpol. But it's the end of the pot and it's really sticky and thick so needs a bit of water to make it brushable. It still tears up the paper if I'm not careful (mulberry paper is super delicate and gossamer thin) but then again...more interesting shapes. I paste one side and apply it to the figure and position it more or less how I want it and let it dry before pasting the other side to make sure it's well protected and as strong as paper is ever going to be.

Tweaking and stuff

The final styling is to add acrylic paint to blend different colours of paper together and/or to add highlights and a sense of movement. Adding a 'sea' green and bit of white 'foam' to the ocean girl gave a lift to the poured colour mix since they'd blended a little too well and using yellow on the flame girl gave a nice lighter contrast to the rich, pearlescent orange and darker red. Heavens girl also needed a sun and moon - originally I'd used the same sized polystyrene balls but...nah, didn't look right and besides, the moon really oughta be smaller so I had to make one by layering foil, paper pulp and Paverpol as the sun is the smallest size ball I have. Dipped in sand textured gel, I think it looks fine.

Last but not least, I cut a paper circle to cover the bottom of the base instead of using the usual felt. I have some lovely crumpled paper in orange and turquoise which is a perfect match for two of the pieces and I just painted the off white version in colours to match the cosmic heavens one. Now the whole thing needs a final coat of Paverpol to seal it (after I've just in time remembered to sign the base).

[Insert rubbish photo here: the light is bad this morning and I need to set up my background and lighting again before I can do pix for Folksy and the gallery here, so this is all you get today!]

Ta da! Done. I quite like these. I like that they're fairly well formed but not perfectly so - more than I intended but still - okay. Plenty of other nature spirits that can be done so I can have a bit of fun with that. There's more to do in terms of being less lifelike in how I shape the figures but training myself out of getting it 'right' will need a bit of patience after doing so many of my usual style.

Naturally I have a newer idea (oh, not another one!) to create more Giacometti (sp?) type skinny ones. I have it built in my head and have to think about size, materials, colour finish and so forth but these will likely be a bit smaller yet, with a lower price point. I have my 100% paper pulp ones which are over £100, these spirits that will be under £100 and the skinny malink ones...less than that.

Yeah I know, you're not supposed to do it like that. You often read advice to make your art and point it towards higher prices - forget about people who can't afford it cos they're not your market, right? But I think art should be accessible to everyone. What's the point in making things that people like if they don't have the money to buy? In the end, if I like making them (and bonus if there are people who like them enough and are able to buy them) then that's the real point isn't it?

Random thing that made me think this week; watching a Sparks video for their song Edith Piaf (Said It Better Than Me). Love love the melody, the piano intro, the wonderful animation and the song...so poignant. A man who did nothing with his life and thinks it's too late to ever do anything now...Hoping I can find a local cinema showing the Sparks Brothers documentary this coming week. Fifty years of non stop creativity and originality. What have I done??!! (Cries quietly.) Don't be that person. Still, not dead yet!