Through The Forest in 365 Days: October 2011

Tuesday, 25 October 2011

Tree 78 - Jagged pencil

Back to pencil here. I was trying to use a different mark making style, which worked to some small degree. When I look at it though I think it looks very similar to some of the other trees that I have made. Which demonstrates to me how easy it is to slip into a pattern, even on a project like this.

Tree 77 - Cut out silhouette

I have an old lamp that doesn't work any more but it has this wonderful opaque glass. I used it for this tree and I think the misty effect is really nice.

Tree 76 - Cut-out camouflage tree

Can you see it?

Tree 75 - Wire gauze

Tree 75 - View 1

Tree 75 - View 2

I started making this, in that way I often do, not really sure what I was doing or where I was going with it. I think it turned out quite well. I mean it's actually free standing yay! I like how you can see through it as well, almost like a ghost tree.

Monday, 24 October 2011

Tree 74 - Gold paint on acrylic

This one is quite simple but a nice effect. I like trees like this because they inspire me to explore the medium/effect in more detail for other projects.

Tree 73 - Fimo Polymer clay

Tree 73 - Polymer clay tree front view

Tree 73 - Polymer clay tree ariel view

This is another childhood hobby that filtered away. Although I know that the reason I did not work more with fimo is because there weren't any shops near us that sold it and this was before the internet made finding supplies a piece of cake. I was staying with my cousin on holiday and she had some blocks of it. I thought it was so amazing that when you cooked it in the oven it would keep the shape you made. I would often make different things in plasticine but one bump and it would damage your wee model. Fimo was the answer to this frustration. I loved it and you know what I discovered after making this tree? I still do!

Tree 72 - White Pen on Coloured paper

I really like this tree. Another medium I haven't really explored. I have always stuck with a dark pencil on white paper. It is nice to make a change and not as scary as I would have first thought.

Tree 71 - Drawing from scribbles

When I asked my better half to help me with this one he gave me that one eye squinting and one eye bulging 'Wha..?' look. He had never heard of it before. I thought this was a common kids game but I guess It may have only been in our house. We used to take sheets of paper, make a random scribble on them and then swap them. The idea was that you would then try and pick out images from the scribble the way you might pick images out from clouds in the sky. So I got him to do some scribbles for me and tried to find some trees in them.

Tree 70 - Flour and hot chocolate

This was one of those last minute trees that this project is all about. Finding inspiration. It was very late and I was really tired and wandering around the flat looking for some inspiration. I spotted tree 55 (hot chocolate and flour in a jar)in the kitchen. I looked at it and thought 'I should really try and reuse that stuff somehow...' and then I just saw myself making this. I got the coloured paper, sprinkled the flour/chocolate and just began to draw with the edge of the spoon. It was great.

Tree 69 - Glass paint on perspex

I haven't used glass paint before. It's difficult but fun! I might have to find reason to mess around with it some more.

Tree 68 -

Tree 68 - Route tree version 1

Tree 68 - Route tree version 2

This tree was another of those last minute trees done very late at night that was a good idea but tiredness and bad organisation meant that it did not work out well. When I make trees like this I am tempted to redo them another day but I am not going to. To me it would be like cheating and defeating the idea of doing this project in the first place. So I am posting them as they are, the good, the bad and the ugly.

So the idea was a tree that was also a kind of route map for a journey. I thought I had a map of Great Britain and Ireland to make this but could not find it. Doh! I did find this map of Fort William left over from our holiday though. However it did not have many roads to follow, hence the odd shape. I remarked the lines to bulk out the shape and try and make it easier to see but a road map of Europe or America would work much better.

Tree 67 - Marker pen on coloured paper

I got some pro-marker pens for Christmas a couple of years ago. I haven't used them a lot but they are really cool if you know what you’re doing. You can get different depths of colour with the same marker by layering on top of previous marks. Ahem. Perhaps this is not the best demonstration of that feature but it is good practice.

Tree 66 - Post-its and chalk pastel

I had a bunch of different sized post-it notes that I wanted to try using. When I finished I regretted using white paper as the background. It was just too much glare so I attempted a fix with chalk pastel. It's a bit ruff but a real improvement.

Tree 65 - Bath squeegy and sponge

Ok, I admit it. This tree took less than 5mins to make. " I'sn't that a bit of a cop out?" asked my better half when he saw it. I don't believe so. It may not have taken long to make but it still took time to find/think of it. (Hey I have make 365 trees give me a break!) In all seriousness though I like it. To me it is a good example of how keeping things simple can work well.

Tree 64 - Embroidery

I did a little bit of embroidery at school and I quite liked it but it was one of those things that fell by the wayside for one reason or another. I thought that this tree should be easy enough given that I'd dabbled in it once before. I found out though that embroidery is not like riding a bike. If you haven't picked up a needle in years it's not likely to be a breeze. Still in the end it didn't turn out too badly after all. Now I have to head to the shop to buy a box of 100 plasters. The one I have here seems to be empty somehow.

Tree 63 - Ribbons on Card

I wasn't sure this one was going to work. It took a lot longer than I imagined it would and in the beginning the ribbon started to desintegrate, which worried me a bit. Then at one stage I thought I was going to run out of ribbon altogether but luckily I had just enough to finish and it all came together.

Tree 62 - Carving in Plasticine

Tree 61 - Clear sticky tape

I had so much fun messing with tape on the last tree I thought I'd work with it some more. Fortunately, this time was much more successful at least it is to me.

Tree 60 - Balloons and Brown Paper

This was one of those ideas that seemed like a good idea in my head until I started to make it. Then it started to seem like some kind of farcical comedy sketch. I had some long balloons for the tree trunk but they were a glaring white, so I had the bright idea of using some brown wrapping tape to look like bark. Of course I ran out of tape before I finished and then tried to remove what I had already layered on. The inevitable happened - POP! - the trunk burst. Oh well brown wrapping paper it is then. (Sheepish grin)