Unexpected

The surprising piece of work I made for the Tropical Delirium exhibition was a sculpture - I almost never work in 3D, but after I made a little painting of a gardener and a drawing, I really wanted to get rid of the background and just focus on her.

I'd have loved to do a woodcarving or stone carving - but I didn't have the materials, and it might have taken me 10 years to learn the skills!! - so I made her out of paper mache. I made the basic form out of rolled up newspaper pulled into shape with masking tape, and then layer after layer of newspaper and diluted pva glue, and then brown paper to give it a bit more strength. I painted it with acrylics. It was a complete experiment, and I was pretty happy with how it turned out - the finish is fairly rough, if I made another I'd pay more attention to the face, to get it smoother and easier to paint!

Here's the little painting it goes with.