Entomological Elements - Mixed Media Sculpture

Entomological Elements hung in Timeless Textiles Gallery.

My latest big piece of work is "Entomological Elements" - let's call it EE ... It is a mixed media sculpture in response to the theme "Elements" for a current exhibition by the Newcastle Creative Embroiderers and Textile Artists. If you a regular reader of this blog or and Empress Wu Designs Facebook follower, you probably know that my thing is "stick dolls".... dolls made with sticks. EE is just an extension of those , with a piece of local driftwood as its base.

EE is also a celebration of the natural elements depicted by insects from different parts of the world.

EARTH- Common Black Ground Beetle (Pterostichus melanarius) - Europe/Eurasia

AIR - Blue Ulysses Butterfly (Papilio Ulysses) - Australia

WATER- Golden winged skimmer dragonfly (Libellula auripennis) - Central/North America

FIRE - Scarlet Fire Beetle (Pyrochroa coccinea)- Europe

Common Black Ground Beetle - close up : Wilma Simmons

Blue Ulysses Butterfly - close up : Wilma Simmons

Golden winged skimmer dragonfly - close up : Wilma Simmons

Scarlet Fire Beetle- close up: Wilma Simmons

Materials: Paper, paper clay, found driftwood and twigs, fabric, thread, wire, paint and sealant.

Techniques:
The head is sculpted from polymer clay and paper clay and twigs. As shown, I sculpted a fairly basic head in polymer clay and cured it before adding features and the twigs from the skull with paper clay. Once the whole piece was dry, it was then covered in cheesecloth ( or kitchen muslin) and painted with acrylic paint and attached to the drift wood. I prepared the driftwood, first by washing it, and then placing it in the freezer for about 48 hours (to get rid of any of the real bugs and beetles).
The beetles were made from foil armatures covered in fabric and bound with sewing and embroidery stranded cotton , with thread covered wire. The butterflies are machine stitched with wire as are the dragonflies although their bodies are a similar construction to the beetles.
The fabrics used are both commercial and hand dyed cottons

“Move swift as the Wind and closely-formed as the Wood.

Attack like the Fire and be still as the Mountain.”

In the Pink

At Tag Tuesday . Pinky O' Hagan is hosting a tag challenge which asks for 'a bit of pink".... not so difficult if you like pink. I don't use a lot of pink in my work, so it was quite a bit of a challenge when I thought only of pink - my thoughts went to pink roses, pink hearts, pink confectionery !!! Then I referred to this week's colour prompts, #coloricombo by artists Este MacLeod.... pink with sap green, dark tea, and sea green. I'm not sure I got the colours in this palette exactly, but here is my tag, a stylised landscape - The collaged background of the tag has torn pieces of watercolour art rejects, painted magazine pages and a little bit of gift paper. The tree silhouette is decorated with paper dots, cut with a hole puncher.

The Sea - for Tag Tuesday

For the current challenge "The Sea" at Tag Tuesday, I made a couple of painted/ hand drawn tags . These were created from a piece of watercolour paper which had been sprayed with acrylic paint - blue, yellow and quinacridone gold. I then sketched over the top , trying to follow some pattern created by the splatter and then add some felt tip pen lines watercolour pencil to highlight the shapes. The tags represent the fantasies of the hidden city of Atlantis and a mermaid. With this theme in mind, I also add a free motion stitched tag I made earlier this year for 29 Faces -

Fish and Sticks : Art Dolls

This week I've been working on fish and sticks .... The sticks are the message stick art dolls which were very popular, attracting some attention and a few orders at the Wise Women exhibition. Each of the message stick dolls are from the Wise Women series, each with her own personality and message of wisdom, handwritten on a handmade timber tag. I gather the sticks during my walks around my neighbourhood and the tags are made from special bits of timber, some collected by me or my husband or from off cuts gifted to us from another doll making friend whose husband makes bagpipes. These dolls start off very simply with a wrap around a stick, in the general shape of a body. 'Naked" message stick dolls - strips of wadding wrapped around found sticks. Then I usually wrap other layers of fabric, wool, and/or fibres, over which I do some simple embroidery. I sculpt or mould small face masks for these dolls. I really like using "sari ribbon" as w...

Empress Wu Designs with Wilma

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