Sorry the photos are not up to much but I used my phone as there was no camera available today.
Anyway, I have been working on this piece for months now and I'm glad it's all finished!
There were four 'briefs' to choose from. I chose the Fine Art one because it was very 'open' but had to base it on my Environment, which was fine by me because I was still in "buildings" mode from the previous block of lessons, so rather than do a whole rethink, I just kind of carried on.
The "oil drum" is made from a cardboard box. just cut a big disc and a couple of strips, stuck it all together using a hot glue gun and some gummed parcel tape. When dry I painted it with roughly mixed black, brown and green acrylic paint. I wanted an old rusty look and it's turned out pretty well.
The inside of the drum sides were painted plain black. I left the base free as I knew I would be adding the background later.
LEFT SIDE base.
This was done using a set of blueprints/plans that were found in another studio at college by my lecturer, they were perfect for what I was looking for, so I over sprayed with Bronze Cosmic Shimmer inks.
The Flaring tower is done on some off cuts of greyboard which was painted very dark black/brown and then gone over using Terracotta Alcohol inks again to get a rusty look, this half of the drum is supposed to depict a 'sunset' hence the silhouette. The guy ropes for the tower are done by cutting up some old broken earphones for an MP3 player. The cogs are diecuts and the 'pipes' are Allen keys and an old bike spanner which were coloured using Alcohol inks.
RIGHT SIDE
Sky - Encaustic wax.
Building - This is the main building of Forth Valley College (Falkirk Campus) and was painte3d using Gouache paints, I overstamped the front to give a bit of texture with the Chicken Wire Background Stamp from the Artisitc Stamper, there is actually a kind of 'honeycomb' texture to the front of the building and that stamp worked perfectly!
CENTRE
To hide the join i used the Branches diecuts and turned them into trees, and then stained them with Distress inks.
The 3D roses are done using an image of the college logo which was printed out in different sizes, then stamped on the back using the Clockwork Flowers Stamp from The Artistic Stamper, I coloured the flowers using Distress inks and toned them to match the colours of the painting. There are beautiful cherry blossom trees along the front of the main entrance to college so these roses kind of represent that feature.
FINISHING TOUCHES
I used an old set of stencils for the word "OIL" on the front of the drum, and brought in my meltpot and used Black and Interference Blue UTEE mixed together, and pured it over the side of the drum, just left it to run in whatever direction it wanted.
I am thrilled to bits with the way it has turned out ! My lecturer thinks it's brilliant and thinks it's of a very high standard for an NC student, His words not mine and a compliment he paid to whole class I may add.
As I said earlier I have been working on this piece for months, not just the end product but also working in my sketchbook too, and, I'm really pleased with the the way it all came together.
Thanks for taking the time out to pop by,
Take care
Jackie xx
