Monday 4 May 2009

Arty face

I enjoy looking around arty and craft exhibitions, but sometimes I fail see what the artist is trying to convey in their piece. I wonder if they try and baffle us, for instance a pile of stones looks like a pile of stones to me, but the artist sees it differently. I occasionally come away with the notion that maybe I could do something like that. I decided to have a go, my raw materials cost virtually nothing, start with an empty cat food box.Paint it yellow, three coats of emulsion from a small sample pot I bought from Woolies for 4p, don't need to paint the back. Collect bits and bobs, plastic bottles, cd, drinks cans, vinyl scraps, curly electrical wire, (I used to have a job making headphones and saved all the offcuts), piece of cord, bits of christmas decorations, nail varnish, and fine wire from the inside of an old video player I dissected. Cut a flap in the back of the box and attach all the bits with the fine wire. And this is the result, a picture to hang on the wall. I have entitled it MY FACE
When I started it I didn't know how it was going to finish up, I had no idea it was going to be a face. I stuck the cord on first with lilac paint. The ears, nose, and mouth is cut from a cd and painted with nail varnish. I boiled the cd for a few minutes to see what would happen to it, the two layers fell apart which made it thin enough to cut with scissors. There is a real earring through the nose. Drinks cans cut with curly scissors, mix the colours. The eyes are blue vinyl, unpainted cd bits, plastics cut from shampoo bottles, and the eyelashes are cut from a decoration you stick on a gift. The hair is the curly electrical wire, and earrings are christmas decorations. On the bottom left hand corner I have put my blood donors badge. I think I might make some more of these and make a collection of faces, all different.

4 comments:

  1. Ilona its BRILLIANT!!! But who on earth boils cd's for goodness sake? You do make me laugh!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Need to find something to do with these bloomin cd's. Tried cutting them with a stanley knife and a saw, breaking them with pliers, holding them over the gas flame, they bend and bubble, sticking a hot nail into them. More experiments are needed, microwave perhaps!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Do NOT try putting a CD in the microwave !!!

    CDs have a metal layer which will behave VERY badly; sparks, smoke and lots of unpleasantness, which can actually cause damage to your microwave oven.

    Seriously, don't even be tempted to do this. Not even if it's a James Blunt CD.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Thanks Kim, it was a tongue in cheek comment, I don't want to be paying for a new microwave, or a new kitchen, I'm just too mean :-)

    ReplyDelete

Some comments will be accepted. I decide which are published.

Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.