Sculpey – Acton Art

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. 🙂

This week I found myself diving head first back into Magpie studies. See, I was busy with the Magpie/ Master copy mashup homework for Magic Box and I realised that I really don’t have a solid understanding of Magpie anatomy.

And I know… I know, Chris was all, this is a painting course, don’t get too hung up on the drawing… but I’m going to get hung up on the drawing. I thought I wasn’t going to, and then I had a solid heart to heart with myself about the issue and decided, yes, yes I shall get hung up on the drawing. I have two super duper points on the matter too.

Point Number One: There is no rush. I have no deadlines. As much as I have this horrible voice in my head that likes to yell about how I have no time and RAH RAH RAH… I do. I can take my time with this. It’s okay.

Point Number Two: Habits. I want to build solid painting habits. Habits where I start the painting right, where I put all the effort in that I need to. And solid painting habits involve proper prep. They involve proper understanding of the things you’re painting. Winding back and getting a strong foundation for this painting is a GOOD THING.

So what is a girl to do when she’s struggling with her painting subject? MORE STUDIES! Which I did, but also SCULPTURE!

This is something that I’ve picked up from reading James Gurneys’ Imaginative Realism. Struggling with the pose of the character and can’t find a solid reference? MAKE ONE!

So I did. With colourful Sculpey because I have a box of random squares of colourful sculpey.

Come on Magpie Painting! Lets Do this!