shoes shoes shoes!!!
How can I ever complain about my job when I get paid to go to full day work shops where I learn about new art materials and I’m introduced to new ideas on making stuff ALL DAY long!!? Today was one such day where I went to the Zart Art workshop which was all about SHOES as inspiration! It was presented by Tania Di Berardino, a practising textile artist, dye technician, and art and paper consultant with Zart Art. Here are some pics of some of the pieces I made and a little description about what was used and how it was constructed..
This was the first peice we worked on and it was based on our shoes telling a story. The red card in the box (which is actually a book/box) opens up in consatina style to reveal blank pages.. these pages can be used as a scrap book or for a letter or anything related to telling a story. The book/box was decorated using origami and metallic paper.
Using POSCA paint markers we covered a 20×20cm peice of 5mm thick styrofoam board in whatever patterns our imaginations could dream up. We then drew a picture of a shoe on the board (I used the back of the board so I could see my drawing) and then cut out the shape using a reallllly sharp scalpel. The cut out pieces were then arranged and attached using mini pins on another peice of board in an interesting composition.
This is the soft cut carving block that I used to create the shoe print below. The carving block basically feels like an eraser and you use linocutting tools to carve out your design, just as you would with a normal lino print. The best thing about this stuff is that it’s soooo soft, you can use both sides AND it’s really easy to clean and dry. The block then gets inked up and printed. Today I was introduced to the term Chine Colle which, I believe means ‘fine collage’. We used mounting board and then ripped bits of tissue paper to create a collage design that would be used as the background of our soft cut carving print. Here’s how my looked in the end;
Using a template provided, we traced it onto Pasteboard and then cut it out. We then stuck the template together using masking tape to form this mini shoe. The template was then covered in tissue paper, decorative papers and sequins. The theme was fantasy.. I think mine’s just pink. Working in such a small scale (the shoe is about 6cm long) proved to be QUITE tricky and for a moment I understood the moans of some of the kiddies at school who lament..”I cannn’ttt doo iiiit! It’s too hard!”
Totally constructed out of paper based on a trace of our own shoe. The toe part was made out of honeycomb paper (you cut it to shape and it opens out like.. a honeycomb) which I had never used before, so that was fun!
All in a days work. Here are some more pics of some other participants’ work. What a fun day!
