An early experiment from the original Elephant a Day blog. One of the weirdest art things I ever tried . . . Enjoy!
A couple of years ago, I saw an intriguing portrait created with smoke by South African artist,
Diane Victor. Since it's warm enough to go outside and burn things on my front porch, today seemed like a good day to try fumage.
Fumage (from
fumée—French
for "smoke") was invented in 1936 by Surrealist artist Wolfgang Paalen.
The technique involves creating patterns with the smoke and soot of a
lit candle. Intrigued by Paalen's invention, fellow Surrealists such as
Salvador Dali also created works of fumage, usually painting over the
delicate lines of soot to complete the work.
The
technique is very simple: take a thick piece of paper, board or wood.
Run a candle over it until soot is deposited on the surface. Try not to
burn or scorch anything.
Although the technique is
simple, the set-up is a bit weird. In order to have visual and manual
control of your work, you have to hold it above you. I had no idea what
this meant until I saw a photograph of
Diane Victor at work.
I
used a piece of art bristol (the same thing as bristol board, but
slightly better quality), attached to a piece of masonite with binder
clips. You could use any heavy paper or bristol board, but make sure
it's 100 lb. or heavier, or it will catch fire. I used 40 lb. paper for
my first test piece, and set it on fire within seconds. You can also use
canvas coated in gesso, or supports such as masonite, wood or
fibreboard, also coated in gesso. The gesso—a plasterlike substance
(don't use acrylic gesso for obvious reasons)—is primarily to help the
design show more clearly.
Once
you have your canvas and a place to work, light a candle and get
started. The best type of candle is a slender taper of some sort. It's
also a good idea to have a pillar candle or other large candle to
relight your working candle if necessary. You may also want to take
precautions to cover your table, porch or floor to avoid the mess of
melted wax. I didn't find, however, that the wax that fell on my hand
was overly hot or annoying.
If you have a big surface
to play with, you can also try a "palette" of different candles, in
order to experiment with various effects. I tried a smallish candle (the
kind used for angel chimes) on my test piece, but found it too big for
the size of paper I had, so I switched to birthday candles. These were a
much better fit for me, and each of the pieces I did required exactly
one birthday candle—as you'll see, I got faster as I went along.
Using
your non-dominant hand to change the angle of the paper, start running
the candle over the paper's surface. Depending on the weight of your
canvas and its support, your hand might get tired, so it's not a bad
idea to have something for it to lean on.
As you guide
the candle and the paper, you will see dark areas of soot and smoke
appearing on the paper. These were my first two attempts, which were
very tentative, as you can see.
By
changing the angle of paper and/or candle, you can create different
effects. Changing the speed and proximity of the candle also creates
interesting patterns. For example, if you move the candle fairly
quickly, you'll get a soft, light grey over a large area. A longer wick
gives you more delicate lines, whereas a shorter wick will give you
darker and heavier areas.
These were my next few
attempts. To create the eyes, I held the flame directly perpendicular to
the paper. This is something you have to do very quickly, or the paper
will scorch. I scorched the first of these (the baby elephant) a bit,
but not enough to actually burn the paper.
In
a couple of these pieces, you can see the effect of using the candle at
a very acute angle to the paper. The lines will be delicate and
feathery, but they will also be quite long, slithering all the way up
the paper.
These are the last two I made. Something I
discovered on the final piece is that, when I layered smoke on top of
itself in five or six layers, the top layer went a sort of whitish ash
colour (you can see it in the ear of the final elephant). It doesn't
actually feel like ash, and it doesn't blow off like ash, so I'm not
sure what it is. Perhaps it's some sizing or chemical in the paper
leaching up. It makes for an interesting effect, but I didn't really
want white to show up, so I'd probably watch out for it next time.
It's
not an easy medium to control, so the results will definitely be
abstract. Many artists who do fumage today add paint to their final
works. The fumage creates a
dreamlike image, which is then enhanced with colour in the form of oil
or other paints. I might have wanted to do that if I'd created more
long, feathery lines, but I didn't think paint would help any of these
all that much.
Once you're happy with a fumage work,
you can play with the design by smudging some of the soot with your
fingers, an eraser, a brush, or even something sharper. I tried this on
my test board, just to see what effect it would give, and I didn't like
it all that much. Unless the area is quite dark, the soot doesn't brush
off to any great extent, and smudging just seems to lighten the area
without making it any more interesting. That being said, I didn't smudge
anything on the elephants pictured here. What look like finger smudges
on some of them are actually the work of the candle.
Unfortunately,
fumage really is as ephemeral as smoke. The dark areas in particular
are especially unstable. Although some recommend
preserving the final result with a varnish or fixative, many artists
have found that fixatives will ruin the work. I tried spraying fixative
on a test piece first, and it worked okay, as long as I kept the spray
really far away and sprayed a very fine mist. The fixative does seem to
grab onto any thicker areas of soot, turning the area a slightly cloudy
colour and beading up a little. It also appears to fade the work
somewhat, which may be because a fine layer of soot is being blown away
by the force of the fixative spray. And the combination of soot and
fixative (even the low-odour kind) smells terrible.
A
better idea might be to quickly frame anything you really like, making
sure the glass doesn't smudge the work—because the least touch of
anything on the darker areas will make them rub off. I learned this the
hard way. Thinking it would be clever to place the finished
(non-fixative) pieces between sheets of tissue paper, I was disappointed
to find that the slightest touch of tissue made obvious scratches in
the dark areas. The damage was already done, but I quickly sprayed them
all with fixative anyway. (By the way, I discovered later that even a
coating of fixative will not completely prevent the darkest areas from
scratching.)
I also learned that it doesn't work if you
try to go back and "re-soot" the scratched areas. Not only can you
never match the original effect, but the paper has also already been
somewhat compromised, and is more likely to scorch. Better to live with
the scratches as an interesting effect, and/or rework them with charcoal
or something. Better still to carefully photograph anything you
especially like as soon as you've finished it, and keep that as your
final work.
Fumage is an interesting medium to work
with, although you really can't control the results to any great degree.
Once you get a feel for the angle of candle to paper, and how close to
get, it's fun to explore various effects. Just don't be married to a
final result. And be prepared for scratches.
Elephant Lore of the Day
Elmer
the Safety Elephant was an elephant character invented in Toronto,
Canada in 1947. Originally created to teach schoolchildren about road
safety—with slogans such as "Look both ways before crossing the street"
and "Keep away from parked cars," Elmer later branched out to cover fire
safety.
An elephant was chosen to represent the
program because of the exceptional memory elephants were reputed to
have. The program was the brainchild of Toronto mayor Robert Hood
Saunders,
who was inspired by a similar program in Detroit, Michigan. Within the
first year of the Toronto program, collisions involving children had
dropped by 44 per cent.
The first Elmer was a simple
profile of an elephant, but in 1948, Saunders decided to recruit former
Walt Disney animator Charles Thorson to give Elmer a new look. Thorson,
who was born and raised in Winnipeg, Canada, had also designed the
characters for the world's first animated feature, Snow White and the
Seven Dwarfs, and is credited with designing and naming Bugs Bunny.
The
new Elmer wore a sailor's hat and a bow. The Toronto Safety Council had
costumes made which were worn by mascots for Elmer's many appearances
in classrooms and at Saturday morning movie matinees. Elmer's fame soon
spread far beyond Toronto, becoming a Canada-wide children's safety
program.
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The original design for Elmer the Safety Elephant
Source: http://www.canadiandesignresource.ca/officialgallery/symbols/elmer-the-safety-elephant/ |
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One of the most important parts
of the Elmer program was the safety flag, which flew outside schools.
Schools that had gone at least 30 days without an accident caused by a
student's carelessness were allowed to fly the Elmer flag on their
flagpoles. This remains a part of the Elmer program to this day.
In addition to road safety, Elmer now deals with fire safety, railroad safety, Internet safety, and bullying.
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Elmer the Safety Elephant today
Source: http://elmer.ca/fun-elmer/colouring.php |
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To Support Elephant Welfare
