ETSY ooak junk punk art for sale at last!!!

Finally, I’ve got an ETSY shop! After waiting ages for a credit card, I can now list my items on there and actually sell them! At the moment I am adding some art dolls, but hope to get a lot of my site content into my shop as soon as possible.

ETSY is a really great way to buy and sell unique, hand-made, non-mass produced items which is a great new trend in the horrible, mass-produced world we inhabit. They recently appointed a new CEO who worked for amazon, and are really focused on growing and developing the site, which is already an internet phenomenon. It’s a great site already, very fresh and innovative, but it still has it’s kinks which need to be ironed out.

I would recommend anybody to check out the ETSY site. Whilst it’s based in America, it continues to spread worldwide. It opens up whole new markets for small art sellers and crafters, people who have a passion which can easily be dwarfed by big businesses. There is always innovative new ideas too, unique and one off items, as well as cool variations and customisations on current trends and fashions.

Visit my shop at http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=6200500 and have a look around.

OOAK celtic mythology inspired art dolls

My latest update to my website, www.junkpunk.co.uk , are a few of my ooak dolls. These are hand sculpted and are based on a variety of myths, legens and aspects of wicca, folklore etc. They are the first things I have sculpted using polymer clay, other than a couple of goblins, and i'm really pleased with how they came out. I have used a variety of techniques including large dolls with flexible armatures which can be posed, and more realistic, hard-bodied dolls.

What do you think Dick!

My many and strange ART projects

Okay, I make stuff. All the time. Just to give peeps an idea this is a list of all the things I am in the middles of at the mo:
1) An oil painting of some boats
2) Drawing Paul Newman for an art class
3) Making a huge 5 foot sculpture of a faun.
4) Painting a dragon alebrije
5) Sculpting and apple-tree-man ooak figure
6) Sculpting a Hellboy 2 style tooth fairy.
7) Sculpting a goblin from Brian Frouds Labyrinth book
8) Painting another 4 legged alebrije
9) drying out apples to make shrunken heads
10) drying out mushrooms to make mushroom fairys (don't ask)
11) Collecting wood to carve
12) Painting some cups with ceramic paints

This is all I can think of right now but I know a load more will pop up soon I like to be busy! There are numerous long term or halted projects as well, such as stone sculptures and painted t-shirts which I need to finish. Also, when I'm not too busy I draw cartoons:

SEE YALL.

yoga is not gay

old lady graphite drawing

I recently drew this for an art class. I used a graphite base: using a knife to lay down graphite shaved from a graphite stick, and the built up the layers. It's A4 size and i'm pretty happy how it came out. It was really difficult to get the skin texture, whilst maintaining the areas of pure white.

The picture was an elderly artist, from an art magazine, and was really an exercise in tone, trying to match the photocopy as closely as possible rather than produce an accurate looking drawing. This means i couldn't use any artistic license and really had to aim for accuracy, something I don't normally bother with! This is a great way to practice and improve, especially in paying attention to the original and not becoming engrossed in your own work.

It may not be perfect but this was a good project and I'd recommend any aspiring artists to practice their tonal work using photocopies.

The alebrijes saga part 1: so it begins.

I always have a million different ideas and projects on the go!!

At the moment I am focusing on mexican art. There are some beautiful and colourful projects which anybody can do, such as papier mache and wood carving, and numerous patterns and motifs to be taken from mexican folk art and crafts. Papier mache is used really effectively in mexican art, and has advanced beyond a childrens activity to a really beautiful and unique sculpture material.

Beginning with a wire armature, newspaper is used to build up a body and then layers of thin newspaper strips are glued on with papier mache mix (I use pulped newspaper, PVA glue and wallpaper paste). This is then sanded, painted and varnished. See the mexican art section on my website for more! http://www.junkpunk.co.uk/alebrijes.html

reasons why i don't go outside much

son of a gun

alebrijes. colourful mexican art

This is one of the most amazing things I have ever found on the internet. Alebrijes are beautifully colourful mexican carvings made from wood or papiermache. They are fantastical animals, often combining different animal parts to create chimeara like creatures. They are wonderfully imaginative and any search for alebrijes on the internet will yield numerous unique creations from across mexico. My website has a more detailed description as to where these originally come from.

I decided I had to create my own alebrije, which was somewhat of a challenge. I began with a wire frame and built up the body using newspaper and tape. I then covered it with papiermache and gave it plenty of coats of white paint and varnish.

I made wings from thick plasticard and attached them to the sculpture with more papiermache. And that's how far I have got. Next I will need to paint the thing which will take some doing! I really need to reasearch some patterns and colourful designs: these are things I have already done and the painting is really effective:

welcome to junkpunks blog

welcome to my blog. because I hate typing, especially when I have paintings to do, I like to use pictures instead! WoW, what a novel idea, bet that's never been done before. Anyhoo, I am building my site, www.junkpunk.co.uk , with all different kinds of unique and surreal, colourful and imaginative artwork, including cartoons, mexican style paper mache, paintings, sculptures and any unusual uses for junk; candles, suncatchers and loads more.

Hopefully I can begin to build a community of artists and creators, interested in using junk and all wierd and wonderful everyday items and a bit of imagination, to make magic from the everyday stuff around us.

If anyone has any ideas or interests in this, please check back for updates or drop me a message at mail@junkpunk.co.uk.