plasticine is an undervalued art material

in art •  7 years ago  (edited)

I have made a lot of works of plasticine.

It is easy to work with, but it is quite difficult to manage the resulting works.

But I have seen it used by others too, in very impressive ways.
Some of my own efforts are as follows

plasticube_01_niv_24_sat_lum_niv.jpg

This work is built on heavy mixed media paper, about A3, or 30 x 42 cms, 12 by 17 inches approx and needs to be protected by framing for display.

plasticube_02_shadows_02_small.jpg
The same work with different lighting

The real problem comes with sculptures made of plasticine.

They are not so easy to put behind glass!

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This was my contribution to a street level art initiative in Madrid, called franqueados.

The work wasn't really in the street, this was just a foto op. It was in the shop behind it in this photo, which sells high class teas. If you are in Madrid, please visit la tienda Valle in calle San Bernardo.

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this is the owner of the shop, Julian, having fun with plasticine and yours truly
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we started dragging it all over the place
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I made a few others too
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and the person in charge of franqueados asked me to make a display window for a theatre festival.

This is what I came up with. What do you think?

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As usual I confirm that all images are my property, all images are of my own artwork.

Thanks for visiting

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This post received a 3.9% upvote from @randowhale thanks to @diggerdugg! For more information, click here!

i like it!! The Muse is strong with you... Just don't go cutting your ear off, like that Van Gogh Fellow !!

or that chopper reed. lol muchly

The coffee table one looks unreal. And the piece for the store is very otherworldly, love it and thanks for sharing. <3

Thanks so much Sammo,
I am so glad I came on this morning to see who was around.
which one do you mean as the coffee table one?

The yellow and black one, similar to red and white one?

The yellow and black one, it made me think of BEEES or maybe wasps. :)

yes, definitely an influence

This blown me away @spaingaroo . Amazing! Forgive my ignorance but I didn't know we can use plasticine to create such fantastic art. Very creative and unique!

Thank you very much @coloringiship.
It's a double edged sword though. Easy to make, easy to break
I haven't been able to solve that problem, except by putting things behind glass.

I am making fabric sculptures now, as at least they don't break easily.

when I have some money and studio space, stone and metal I suppose

lol
big hugs

I can relate on the studio space. We are living with someone while building our house and till then I have to make do with a small desk in a corner. I can't paint on canvas because I have no space to keep them so most of my work are on paper or small wood panels. I checked out your site, your art is fantastic :). I am giving you a follow :)

You sir are a very very patient man. With mad skills. How many layers in that white box how heavy is that? So many questions! thanks for sharing this! ~Mr Dingo

they are all a bit radically heavy .

hey how come I wasn't already following you?
I thought I was.

I am now.

back to those things.
The ones with legs are all built on top of a 'skeleton' of 19mm chipboard so even before the plasticine goes on they are heavy.
The green one has twenty kilos of plasticine. I thought it would only take fifteen

I spent about 500 euros on wholesale plasticine, although I still have lots
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the white one has less, about seven kilos of white, plus the colours.

This is a mugs game...

haha

thanks for your comments btw, cheered me up no end

You're welcome, I only comment on stuff I like. My daughter is an art student so new and interesting techniques are good for conversation. And this is certainty the most creative thing I've seen done with plasticine.

Wow interesting work, remember me a Jesus Soto work, a Venezuelan plastic artist, i recomend see hes work

I looked at some of his works, and you are correct, I found it very interesting.
Would love to see some of that in the flesh.

un abrazo @michelcamacaro

Really nice post mate!!! My fav is for the yellow and black one. Do you have a brief description on what exactly plasticine is for us who dont know :)
Keep more of these posts coming! Great work!

I mean the commercial product Plasticine
It's usually thought of as something for children.

Each manufacturer has their own recipies, but at the core it's a type of paste made from flour and oil and water and probably a few chemicals too. But it is for kids, so it is relatively non-toxic
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It's great to work with, if you heat it up in the microwave it can be used very soft, (it'll become a liquid if you are not careful, but when it's cold it becomes firmer.

the main drawback is, it never goes hard. It doesn't cure and always remains vulnerable to damage.
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on the wall behind the pink box is a work in plasticine that I did in 2004 and is protected with many layers of latex.
It is possible to protect them, but they still remains vulnerable to impact damage (as does a painting too, of course)

thanks for showing an interest, and if you want to know more, hit me up
big hugs

Cool man thats really awesome! so would it be similar to play-dough?
It would be cool to do a table and inlay in in a wood frame and top it with a nice glass top to help with damage prob :)
Nice idea with the latex coatings but i still see what you mean about impact damages.

I think play-doh is quite similar, but I am not sure if it's perishable. It might go mouldy.

I don't really know one way or the other.

Are you in Australia? ?cause I know that brand-name from there.

Plasticine seems to be relatively good that way

I'll come back in a bit. I am doing too many things at once, but I have more to add

Now THAT's something different. I have never seen anything like your sculptures. Thanks for leaving your substantial comments on my work. Sparked my interest to see your blog right away. Excellent and very unusual work!

thanks Reinhard, (I really wanna add a T to the end of your name.
one of my middle names is Leichhardt, so it just seems to follow)

I thank you for the compliment, I like to think my work is unusual yes sir. (as do we all of course)

my guiding quote is

"be faithful to thine own self"
"what another would do so well as you do not do.
That way, and only that way, make yourself indispensable"

said to have said Gide to the artist

but they are not very saleable, as you can imagine.

:)

oh well, them's the breaks

Wonderful quote and a good guiding thought for an artist.

I can imagine, that you work is hard to move around and to sell. But I don't see it in someone's living room. It belongs in museums, were they have the resources, to keep it out of harm while giving access for a broad audience!

I really like the branchy one.

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you mean this one I assume.

Thanks for coming by my good fellow.

I am running out of steam now, so will see you tomorrow

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Nice! I've never heard of this medium, but I really liked what you created with it. My favorite was the very first image. What really made it mesmerizing was the blue highlights. Was that a result of the lighting?

the lighting just brings up the relief.
The blue is actually blue plasticine (I never knew that there are people who don't use the word plasticine, but now there's two of you on here already. )

It's a type of "clay" for children to use mainly.
I love it but it's very impractical, heavy and relatively expensive

so to get back to the point, I used four colours of plasticine in total.

The 'shading' is done by mixing in complementary colours, in three proportions, so as to produce the three tones.

so blue into the red, and purple into the white. (of course one tone is unadulterated colour.

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Absolutely fantastic. I've seen plenty of plasticine paintings, but I highly appreciate seeing someone using plasticine in a public display - knowing that it is a fragile medium. I enjoy using it for the innately playful appeal in my illustrations.

sorry I am so clueless, that I hadn't seen your comment. Thanks for stopping by and for commenting.
The green one was only in the street like that for a few photographs, although we left it for a while to watch people. It had spent a couple of weeks just inside a shop window, also accesible to the public. Very little damage. negligible really.
The hard thing is cleaning them, if they get dirty, they need to be remade.

I'll check out your channel