It's all about the packaging!

Lured by 'French Toast' Turquoise - fused plastic collage & stitching 15 x 15cm

When Patrick returned from Ethiopia he brought me some presents.  Although they were beautiful, I have to admit being as least as excited about the plastic bag.  That bag formed the basis for this collage.  

While Patrick was away I had been doing a big pastel drawing of a 2 meter long still life I had put together in the studio. The dominant colour is red so the red polka dot bag that the Ethiopian earrings came in spoke to me. I also found two balloons this week, fuscia and pink and that was perfect too as there is a fair bit of both those colours in the follow-on six-canvas-painting of the same still life set up. The final main colour in the still life is turqouise and as I gathered my plastic this week it was the plastic I bought because of the packaging that made this collage relate so perfectly to what I've been thinking about in my painting and drawing.  The intention happened somewhere in the middle of selection. 

I was sick while Patrick was away and pretty much ate leftovers every day and night but I did go to the grocery store on one occasion. I shopped purely by colour, though. I found myself walking down the biscuit aisle and chose something I have never bought, never imagined buying and had never tasted - 'french toast'.  It is quite sweet and I wouldn't buy it again, but I did eat it all and so it was obvious I would use the plastic this week! The turqouise wrapper of the 'french toast' is a little shimmery too. 

The collage and the painting have a similar sort of ratio of colour. Gillian Ayres was whispering to me.

Woodchips and Cherry Coke

Woodchips and Cherry Coke fused plastic collage and stitching 11 x 12 cm

While walking the other day, I found a sunbleached cherry coke wrapper.  I also discovered that I had found some plastic the week before, so I dipped into that plastic as well.  And I finished off the chicken's woodchips, so I had that to add to the pile. Exciting things like stripes from a caramel wafer bar (found plastic) and the fuscia of a cherry coke wrapper, do not guarantee an exciting fused plastic collage. Even the lavender of a rocket salad wrapper can die under the iron.

I arranged and ironed and cut and ironed and after a while the plastic was tough and the colour was getting stained from the melted ink.  In the end I cut things down to about 11 x 12 cm, pulled some pictures out of a book I keep around (someone's funny family photos) that I bought in a Stowmarket charity shop, dabbed a bit of color on the faces and clothes and began to sew.

I'll put some UV varnish over it and probably send it out as mail art. This one is a curiosity and was demanding to complete, in the way an over-worked painting can be.

Fishing for Biscuits

Fishing for Biscuits, fused plastic collage with paint and stitching, 21x21 cm

I have had a 'Tanzanian cold'.  Whether it was that, or the fact that I found no plastic by the side of the road, I had a limited amount of plastic to play with last week.  It also took me quite a few days to complete, but maybe that's a good thing? I have been thinking and looking more than usual, over time. 

As I began composing the piece, the colours made me think about Peter Lanyon again - I was soaring through the horizon in a glider.  But after assembling and resassembling, the sea declared itself. There is a bit of blueberry wrapper, the black of a Sainsbury salad bag.  Plastic turned over to make it grey and that shocking blue shimmery blue of a package of biscuits I couldn't stop eating.