Take Two Final Project for Lissa Hunter’s online Course

The Theme for this project was Let there be Light. This was originally a trial piece working with paper collage on a coiled place mat. I added teabags, some preserved leaves (preserved in a glycerine and water mix) and then used a white texture paste through a organic stencil. At that stage it looked terrible and I almost binned it. But then I decided to persevere and I painted it with some of my home made walnut ink. The change was dramatic. I continued to add the string with the copper twists and repainted with the ink. I was starting to get quite excited by this stage so I tidied up the edges by using pine needles around the perimeter. The black candle holder is part of an old belt that I coiled around and added beads in the middle. This was stitched on three quarter of the way round to that the battery operated candle could be inserted at the top.

The shield piece was then attached to an old vine from a Japanese honeysuckle that I had sprayed in my garden some time back. The birds bring these seeds in and they become quite rampant so I often have to look at getting rid of them. If I can use their vines in my art work, that is a bonus. To integrate the pieces I created a number of soft wire skeletons with a leaf shape at the end. The leaves are made from hand made paper using corn husks as the base.. These were then coiled onto the vine at the top.

The candle was collaged in a similar way to the placemat and bound in thin copper wire. For safety a battery operated candle was used.