Making an Autumn Leaf Bowl

My autumn creations being made from fallen leaves.

I’m really enjoying my art evening class course. We’ve moved away from paper, bleach, coffee and fabric dyes to clay. The idea is that over the next five weeks we will come away with a sculptured work of art depicting something moving. I originally was going to do a study of one of our dogs. I needed images from  360 degree angles but as soon as I point the camera at either of them they run off thinking I’m going to shoot them (that’s my theory anyway) So I am opting for something that stays in one place when it’s photographed, a car. Not just any car though.

Buy and Sell

Over the last few weeks I have spent quite a lot of time on internet buy and sell websites and online auctions and came to the conclusion that I shouldn’t.  I seem to whip myself up into a frenzy when I see something that looks good value for money and buy it. This isn’t usually an issue as it’s only a few cacti from Poland or a few house plants from Holland.

This week I surpassed myself (in the name of art) and bought 7 antique brass wheel hubs that came from horse drawn carriages. They are beautiful pieces too and all have the builder’s names on them, OGorman’s of Clonmel, Briscoe Dublin, Cleery and Breen and P. Hogan, Limerick. They are only small and fit nicely onto the table to be drawn. They certainly don’t move either when I try to capture their image.   

Impulse Buy

That’s not the biggest thing I bought his week though. I spotted an old 1965 Morris Traveller (for those of you that watch Corrie it’s Roy and Haley’s choice of motor)  This car was in Tipperary and looking neglected. I phoned the seller and asked a few questions (not enough as it turned out) then asked if he’d take Paypal – he did, and I got an old jalopy delivered to the door the following day. It’s rusty, smelly and rotten has lots of charm and nostalgia and will be ideal for my latest foray into clay sculptures as this thing isn’t going anywhere fast. 

I’m creating an image of the car sinking at 45 degrees into the ground with the back doors wide open like its screaming. It’s quite an accurate reflection of how I feel parting with money, too easily, on something that will probably end up being a chicken coop in the back garden. Jalopy or not though I have still spent a week polishing it! (Update- I sold it to someone who is going to renovate it to it’s former glory so we are all happy!!)

Autumn Bowls

My creativity knows no bounds this week and I found myself creating some autumn bowls made from fallen leaves.  I followed instructions from a video of a very happy looking person making their bowl in the glorious American sunshine. The glowing red maple leaves casting a warm glow over her face as she held it up to the camera. My attempt was a little less sunny, far more pva glue over me and even more cursing. I don’t know if you have ever tried to glue leaves together onto a bowl. It’s not that easy!  

Here’s how it was done:

I used a large glass bowl, cling film, WD40 (any household oil is good), leaves, PVA glue.

Firstly I had a walk around and collected some brightly coloured leaves, the bigger the better as I found out. I then cut off the thick stems as these would take forever to dry.

 I thought I would try both putting leaves around the outside of the bowl and then the inside to see which was the most successful, these were all stuck down with copious amounts of PVA glue. 

The leaves on the outside I secured into place with a sheet of cling film and on the inside I just pressed them down hard into place.  After a couple of days I removed the leaves from outside of the bowl, leaving on the clingfilm to keep the shape and put that and the bowl in a warm place to dry off the excessive amount of glue (I overdid it a bit).

They are not quite the bright coloured maple leaves that the demonstration recommended but my selection of beech and sycamore leaves picked up on the roadside look quite pleasing in the sunlight.  They are not particularly strong or long lived but they will serve as good fire lighters when I have finished drawing them for my art class.

We do have a very wide range of maples here, also known as Acers, these trees have wonderful displays of autumn colour. If you are lucky enough to have some near you maybe some of them could be made into bowls before being thrown into the compost bin.