10.10.20 - Making Clay and Fabric Beetles

 After thinking about ideas for my project, I decided to produce lots of clay bugs which I could potentially cast or incorporate into a larger piece. I started by making figures loosely based on of three of my bugs, and from those I decided that the stag beetle was most successful because it is a very distinctive shape and has a more menacing appearance. I made ten of these, with cocktail sticks through them for support, and left them outside to dry. In the meantime I started producing legs for the bugs because I recognised that clay wouldn’t work for this. I thought about using wire however I wanted to subvert the uncomfortable and use something that makes them feel friendly, so I used string after being inspired by my fabric beetle that I tied with string. I made a set out of yarn and some with normal string, and decided that the yarn ones felt a bit too rough.


 





The string i chose was still slightly stiff for what I wanted so I scrunched it up in my hands to make it more soft and floppy. I made 10 sets of string legs with knots and the end for feet, and I got this idea from some of my own comfort items which have a knot to represent a tuft at the end of their tails. I find comfort in collecting Beanie Babies by TY and I had the idea of making bean filled bugs which would be turning something that is conventionally scary into a soft toy that is nice to hold in your hand, whereas usually people would not like to touch or even go near insects.

I plan on using a glue gun to attach the legs once the clay is fully dry, and then I can decide if I want to paint and decorate the bugs or leave them looking plain and anonymous.







After the success of my soft sculpture of the stag beetle I decided to make another that was based on the size of my Beanie Babies comfort items. This worked fine up until i had to invert it, where the legs were so thin that it was really difficult to turn out and some stitching got broken. 

I started another one which was bigger and made sure the openings to the legs were wide enough to be turned inside out. It worked better this time although the legs are quite puckered due to not snipping far enough into the corners while cutting the shape out. 

The reason i made these was to experiment with embellishing them in different ways to what we would expect an insect to look like, which I plan to do tomorrow.

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