Sheep - Cheesecloth

My fascination with cheesecloth structures coincided with the lead up to the NZ Shears and Kim’s idea to host an exhibition of local craftspeople. My contribution was in part, to create some theme appropriate sculptures so this sheep’s head in cheesecloth, backed with black felt was the next construction for me.

Mr Singh Cheese cloth

So the next phase was to create Mr Singh entirely in cheesecloth, using variable layers of cheesecloth to create the darker values. it is like working back to front as the negative areas receive the lesser layers of the cloth and the positive layers are built up with small pieces . The outline image is places under plastic sheeting and small pieces of cheesecloth teased off the cheesecloth web and are wetted with a pva water mix and worked into place with the end of a paintbrush or similar. I was literally amazed at how the technique developed. The beauty of this technique is you can do so much and then leave the glue to set and come back to continue on. Once the glue has set the whole can be lifted off the plastic sheeting. In this case I have enhanced the black and white by mounting the finished structure on black felt.