These photos are of my more recent Perspex samples. I think these pieces are definatley more confident and informed than my earlier ones. I think I have the right balance of colour and texture. I have also tried using whole Jelly Babies to add more intrest than just a simple background. I really like the colours and think the blow torch is a great way of melting them. These are just a few examples of my more recent samples.

The Blow Torch

From all the different heat experiments I have done, my favourite is the blow torch. I placed a few Jelly Babies on a sheet of clear Perspex and melted them with the blow torch. I wanted to create an abstract piece of work that didn't really look like a Jelly Baby and that exposed the colours more clearly. The problem with using the blow torch is that the amount of concetrated heat means that the surface burns very quickly. I found however that if you mix up the Jelly Baby after it has been melted, the flesh underneath is still coloured and will come through the burnt layer on the top. I really like this effect and think that I could create a nice series of work using this technique presented on squares of Perspex.

I tried out melting the sweets in the wax pot. I really like how the wax dries over the Jelly Babies and dims the colour slightly. I like the samples, they are not as brightly coloured as I would like however they do peel off the Perspex which is a plus. I do like the effect however I think I could find a better way of using the Jelly Babies which are more aesthetically pleasing.

These pieces happened by accident when I left a sweet sample in the oven for too long. I really like the orange glow and bubbles in the mix. The pieces were very interesting and the colours were very pretty. They reminded me of fossil type rocks and I really like the shiny liquid like mixture on the bottom photograph. It was a shame that the pieces would not peel off the baking parchment I placed underneath. 

Exploring Properties

I found an artist named Sarah Graham who created photorealistic paintings of bags of sweets. Although her methods are completely different to mine, I really like the colours in her paintings and want to find a way to make the colours in my compositions more vivid. 


I also began to experiment with making the materials more practical. I tried putting one of the pieces in the fridge and the oven to see if I could make it solid. The fridge did not help at all, and the oven was too hot, and melted the composition into a crispy black mess. I might try mixing the sweet mix with PVA glue to see if I can make it solid. Below is a photograph of the piece in the fridge.

Although the sweets that were left in the oven did not turn out how I wanted them to, they made some intresting brown colours.

Final Major Project Has Begun!!

So it's the first week of FMP. Our final 10 week project of Foundation year. I began by exploring my idea for the project. I thought of the idea when browsing on an Art blog. The colours and textures of the sweets seemed like they would work well as a drawing material. First I decided to explore the properties of Jelly Babies by melting them in different ways. I wanted to use the substances as materials rather than just as sweets. I used the microwave, the oven, a frying pan, a heat press, a blow torch and the grill. Each method gave different results. It became apparent that I needed to find the amount of time they melted best at so as to keep the colours and prevent them from burning. Once I had worked this out, I was able to create a few different compositions with the colours which I think look really effective. I also took some really nice photographs. The only problem with the pieces is that they are very sticky and wont last. I need to find a way to make them less sticky, or solid.