Green Man Pumpkin - Part 11 - Adding Vines and Leaves to Back

 The face of the Green Man Pumpkin is complete.  Now I am working on the back side of the pumpkin.  I wanted to add some vines and pumpkin leaves to the rear of the pumpkin.  Adding vines and leaves accomplishes two things: it breaks up the large expanse of orange, and it adds some weight to counterbalance the weight of all the clay on the face of the pumpkin. I am having some mixed feelings about the results, but overall, I think I like it.

 Before I could put something on the pumpkin I needed to figure out where the vines needed to be placed.  I needed to make sure that there was going to be enough room for the leaves to sit on and between the vines.  In a garden pumpkin vines roll and twist over each other, but that does not necessarily make for a good art composition.  Just putting the paper mâché down was not the best idea as it took a few tries to get something that looked right for the space.      

I started by creating some aluminum foil "vines" by rolling the foil over a wooden skewer.  Then I pulled out the skewer and started twisting the foil to make it as compact as possible.  I experimented with the foil vines until I was happy with the spacing.  I hot glued the foil "vines" to the pumpkin.  I was still working on the vines when I stopped to take a picture.  I added a few more vines after this photo was taken.  

The next part of the experiment was to tape leaves to the vines just to see if this set up was going to work as I hoped.  What I discovered was that my leaves were too big.  While they might have been small in relation to real pumpkin leaves, they were way too large for this project.  I was never that happy with the shape of the leaves anyway.  So, it was back to drawing leaves on cardstock to get a size that worked better.  I am bringing this up because I want people to know that a finished art project is not just a straight path to the finish.  Many times, people look at an art piece and think that it all went perfectly.  It is really not like that.  Art is about reworking what did not work until the artist feels comfortable with how it looks.  Don't quit a project just because at some point in the process it is not working.  

 

Once I figured out the approximate location for the leaves, I started to cover the vines with the paper mâché clay.  I wanted to keep the foil in as an armature to hold up the clay.  The nooks and crannies created by the twisted foil made a good surface for the clay to hold onto.  Although the aluminum foil vines were very narrow, covering them with the clay made them much larger.  This soft clay did not work well for just putting on a thin coat.  The foil kept showing through.  I considered scrapping the idea and removing the vines but ultimately decided that once the leaves were on that it did not look that out of proportion.  

In case you missed the last post about how I applied the leaves, I am adding the information again here.  I drew leaves on cardstock and cut them out.  I would lay a leaf down on my work surface and apply the clay to the back of the leaf to get the shape.  Then I would paint the back of the clay with some white glue that had been diluted.  (This is about a 60/40 mix of glue and water, but I just eyeball it.)  Before applying a leaf to the pumpkin, I also paint the area where the leaf will be placed with some of the diluted glue.  Then I press the leaf into the glue.  Some of the clay will squash out from under the leaf.  I use a sculpting tool to press the clay back under the leaf template.  

After that, I gently lift the cardstock leaf off of the clay and rework the leaf where it has become distorted.  The next step is to use some of the diluted glue to smooth down the face of the leaf.  Once it is fairly smooth, I used a mechanical pencil to carve in some veins on the leaf.  Earlier in the project I found that cutting the leaves in with the sculpting tool I was using caused the veins to separate as it dried and become too wide.  I started using a mechanical pencil with a 0.7 mm pencil lead to carve the veins.  That seemed to work well.      

I am about two thirds of the way through adding leaves to the vines.  At this point it has brought the pumpkin back into balance.  If that still holds after the rest of the leaves are added, I may not have to do anything else to correct the balance.  I guess time will tell.

The pumpkin project is not complete yet.  I plan to have the base of pumpkin surrounded by leaves and maybe some fall fruits.  After I finish with the leaves on the pumpkin, I will be starting on that part of the project.  At least that is the plan for the moment.  I may not like the design afterwards.  I just have to try it and see.

Check back next week for an update on the project.