As I have been looking into head space within in sculpture, I have decided to look into both how I feel and what I image. When thinking about being inside my head I used music a lot to escape it. The piece started as a painting of what leaving my mind could look like. It remind me of Kendal Murray. I am going to be look into her more.
To create this piece I started by painting the background, at first I was just thinking of having this painting as an experiment. This is to be understand how to paint a fantasy world (as this was my first time). I wanted to be able to create a better background for my plaster skull. Once I had painted this, it then developed into a more relief piece. Due to wanted to have a lot more control within making the mushrooms and landscape, I used clay instead of plaster. The water within the artwork is made from melted crayons.
I am now going to paint and complete the plaster skull I have made.
I manged to bring clay back to be able to make the mushrooms, i started by looking at some reference photos and shaped them. I am so happy with how they turned out.
Making the first one I found a hard as I needed to find a controlled and logical way of making them, once I had made the first mushroom I found my way I liked to do them. This meant that I started to make them faster and tried different styles.
I started getting a lump of clay to make the cap (the top of the mushroom). From this I would then use slip to add in the stem. Once the stem was on I would add the gills (lines under the cap). Then I would add the skirt (little bit coming off the stem.
I used a craft knife and scalpel to make form and markings.
painting the mushrooms…..
I dried the mushrooms on my radiator at my accommodation, I did end up braking one but it was very thin anyway so probably wouldn’t have worked. The ones that did work I manged to paint and I am so happy with how they look.
I painted these by starting painting them white to get a good base colour. Then I went in to the stem with a grey to give it a more natural look and some of them with brown and also black.
Then I started to paint the gills I used white and then I when in with grey and black to show the lighting would be above them. This was just to make the look even better than just having it white.
To finish the look, i went in with white on the cap and then started to add a light brown all over but not tasking care at the very edges as some apart can be white. when the lighter brown was on, I then went in with a slightly darker brown in the middle to give it a better look. As nature is not perfect I then also added random white and black marks to the cap.
This was the main basses of how I made all the mushrooms, I am so happy with them and think they look so realistic. I might be making more but not sure yet.
One of my ideas for the head space project within sculpture is drugs and mental health. A lot (not all) people do sue drugs to help them get through depression and other mental health problems but they are not always linked.
I wanted to develop on from what we did in the beginning of this project where we made head molds for plaster and also made a box within woodwork.
Mushrooms (drugs and metal health)….
when I thought about a way to show metal health and drugs i thought of mushrooms first as not only do people connect them to drugs but it growth of mental health. mushrooms can be found on dead trees, these trees are normal hard wood (e.g. oak and beech trees). They are also found on tree stumps and fallen trees/branches.
These are some photos I took that I found inspirational.
photo was taken by me
photo was taken by me
My Links To Headspace…..
The mushroom would show how that persons mental health had died and now is growing into something more dangerous. This is through how they grown on dead things and they are normally seen as poisonous. Then they would also link to drugs and this would be involved in making your headspace better as you escape the bad thoughts.
Link Back To Before Induction…..
These are some of my ideas I want to try within this idea and see how each on them work. One of them involved the my box ideas as well.
I want to try this idea with clay and also plaster, I think they clay will work better due to being able to stick things to it better.
