playing for a good cause

I had a bit of time this week to make some fun art. Fun because I haven't made something this small in a while and because it was in a completely different vein than any of my current work. But it had a good cause behind it too! I found out about it through Kristin and could not keep away. My daughters helped me choose my subject and here's how I went about it...

First a bit of research on the Northern Fur Seal in words and in pictures. And then I thought I'd make my art out the very plastic bags that are harming the species. I downloaded a few pix and played with them in Photoshop until I found a pleasing shape. I printed it out and used the old fashioned pencil and tracing paper make a few shapes.

a bit of tracing

Then I gathered plastic bags in various browns and blacks and grays as those are the colors of the seal fur and cut out a ton of little seals.

plastic seal shapes laying about

I decided to use Styrofoam-like packing material as my batting. And started gluing down the plastic pieces in somewhat random fashion.

grays and blacks were the first layer

browns on top

Then I quilted the heck out of it outlining a few shapes to identify the seals. A bit of brown acrylic paint for texture and here it is, hard to photograph without reflections.. Itty bitty measuring at 7"x7" only. Twas fun!

Northern Fur Seal ©Natalya Aikens 2014