This is the beginning of anything you want....
Quote found on inspiration.entrepreneur.com And it is....I was excited to work with salt dough. I mean, it's like clay right? Who doesn't like to work with clay? I have always wanted to take the time to actually make Christmas ornaments with this stuff. You know, the cute little ornaments that my kids and I would make together and then paint together. Except....I just couldn't ever find the time to actually "do it," but rather would just buy the pre-made white clay ornaments that were just waiting to be painted.
For this project, I originally thought "Ah, now I can finally make those ornaments that I've always wanted to try!" I had great intentions of doing just that when I signed up to have Salt Dough be my third visual arts piece. After completing my Aboriginal piece with my Tree of Life, I realized that 1. I just wasn't done with trees, and 2. I wanted to stretch myself and do something more original. I wanted to try and do something that I haven't done before, nor seen done (even though I'm sure it has been done by somebody somewhere).
My kids are grown and there isn't a chance that they would be able to sit and paint ornaments with me now anyway, right? Besides, it is still October and I am not in the mood for Christmas yet. So....I began to think of something I could do with the dough that was different. Since I had such a good time making the tree for my last piece, I started thinking about how I could incorporate trees into this project.
I gathered the materials and made the dough. Easy enough, it is exactly what you see in the picture. Grabbed my canvas board and sat down to work.
I wasn't sure exactly how to start, so I just started rolling out thin pieces of dough and placing them onto the canvas board. I had decided to make a tree of course. I figured I would try to make a 3-D picture, that was my overall idea. I anticipated having to glue the dough to the board after the tree had dried. I wasn't sure how everything was going to go together yet at this point, or even if it would. I made the tree and was surprised that it was actually quite easy, and after it dried, it stuck! (That was a little plus.) Being that it is October, I decided to paint the tree and background to make it spooky. It's Halloween, let's have some fun! I was playing around with different techniques and discovered that this was going to be the practice run because I had an entirely new and better idea!
I don't jump into anything and I thought about this for a couple of days. I somewhat had an idea of what I was going to try and do but had to think about it. As I was thinking, the idea once again started to grow even bigger. It was time to roll!
This time it was going to be a continuous scene I was going to sculpt on three different canvas boards. I learned from the scary tree trial run that I needed to paint my background first. This will make my life SOOOO much easier. I used a sponge brush and wet the canvases down. After that, I selected the colors for my background/sky and began to paint. The colors bled perfectly with the pre-wet canvas and I couldn't be more pleased. I was so happy with the way my sky/background was turning out, I wanted to paint everything!
Next I began to construct my scene. I wanted to make a pond scene with trees and cat tails. I had some issues with my dough and had to make another batch, which again created a completely different set of issues. Because I had the first batch stored, it became too wet to work with, I couldn't get the ratio right when I added flour, so... I scrapped it. The second batch was probably too dry. At least it was by the time I was done sculpting. It just didn't go as easily as the scary tree. I was really hoping I wouldn't pick my pictures up after it dried only to have it fall off in pieces. One thing at a time....
I used a butter knife as my carving tool. I don't own any tools....yet, so what was I to do but try to improvise?
Anyway, I tried many different ways to sculpt the dough just how I wanted it. I was doing detailed work and nothing was working before the discovery of this little gem...butter knives aren't just for butter... I found it was easier to put some dough on the canvas and carve it around the way I wanted it to be with this magical little tool. It worked like a charm.
I then took my work to class and touched up the background. I was becoming concerned because parts of my trees and cat tails were starting to "flake off." What to do, what to do... Well, I wanted to paint the dough first before anything else. Thought about black, but decided white would look best with my "stormy sky." So I painted all the dough, waited for it to dry, and then crossed my fingers that it would stay together. It was still a little "flakey....." Okay, it needs something to make it stick together... it needed some glue! Mod Podge is really glue right?
TADA! It worked! I painted only the dough with the Mod Podge. I covered it thickly and made sure it was underneath as well to seal it to the canvas board. TADA TADA TADA! It stuck it stuck! So happy with this piece! I will be doing other scenes in the very near future. It was very relaxing, and I had so much fun watching it evolve. Who knew I could accomplish something like this?!
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