Mini Spekboom Challenge

Posted on by amandaacton

Spekboom is not only an awesome, carbon sequestering powerhouse, it also offers me a huge dose of childhood nostalgia, so when @dwarfjadebonsai over on Instagram started the Mini Spekboom Challenge I had to participate. What, you ask, is the mini spekboom challenge?

The challenge is to find or make the tiniest pot you can and then plant a tiny spekboom tree/cutting into the vessel, creating a miniature bonsai. And why are spekboom awesome?

In the words of @dwarfjadebonsai:

” Spekboom has the potential to mop up the excess CO2 responsible for #climatechange. Its immense carbon-storing capabilities and capacity to offset damaging carbon emissions are comparable to that of moist, subtropical #forests.

One hectare of Spekboom sequestering up to 4.2 tons of carbon per year!

Spekboom doesn’t burn, making it a hardy #plant to withstand veld fires and great material for firebreak hedges.

It can withstand drought too – mainly due to its succulent #nature, but also due to it’s unique ability to ‘shift gears’. While most plants require their stomata to be open during the daytime to absorb carbon dioxide, in dry conditions, the #porrulacariaafra can open its stomata at night instead, and close them again in the day to avoid loss of water. This slows down evaporation, and enables the Spekboom to #grow faster during the day. During the wetter months, the #Spekboom absorbs carbon dioxide during the day as normal, which helps reduce our #carbonfootprint.

We can eat it too! Its little #succulent leaves contain heaps of Vitamin C as well as a number of other minerals “

At first, I took an existing concrete pot (made by me) and planted one of my woodier looking cuttings. Most of my cuttings are still young and don’t yet have that hardened look. Of course, I couldn’t stop at that. So i pulled out some sculpey and had a quick bit of silly fun making the elephant and coil pot. If inspiration strikes, I may find myself doing another one… or several. 😛

This was a little bit of fun in these crazy times and I hope it brings a few smiles. 🙂 

Behind the Scenes

Posted on by amandaacton

I’m just in with a quick update on the things I’ve been busy with, primarily in the vein of “how not to do things!”

I am excitably working toward a tutorial series on concrete sculpture, but to do that, I first need to remember how to do it properly.  Aha! Also, I need to work out the intricacies of recording process. I’m having some success on that front, but also plently of failures. I’m learning how to edit video. Next on the list will be audio.

In the meantime, I am getting plenty of “What not to do” footage and it will totally add to the  completeness of the series so we can pretend I did it on purpose. 😉

A quick, visual journey of my activities:

 

Let us begin with a snapshot from the art of plaster moulds:

 

 

Hark! A tub of curing concrete scuplts! Note all the bugs and leaves that have fallen in. Also the strange surface floaty bits that I have, without any scientific backing whatsoever, decided must be related to the petroleum jelly used as a release agent. I am probably wrong.

cof

 

This, a small concrete sculpture that broke on demoulding because I got the cement to aggregate ratio wrong.  Ah, relearning you old fiend!

 

cof

 

And this, a giant pile of clay scraped from the depths of this one piece mould that really would work better as a two piece mould, but here we are!

 

cof

 

And Finally, a lovely demonstration of myself working on the part of the sculpture that’s facing AWAY from the camera. Also see: Wobble because I’m hitting the charging cable.