I’m usually asked, how did you do that?! And anyone who has asked me knows that I’m happy to share!
For the artwork “Drawing Hands” I was determined to make a 3D version of M. C. Escher’s famous hands.
Step 1 was to make a silicone mold using my own hand and a product called “body double.” This is such a cool product–it makes a perfect three-dimensional mold of all of the detail of your skin (wrinkles even, unfortunately). When you mix the two parts together, you have about 5 minutes before everything sets. Thankfully my hubby Don helped me.
Once I had the silicone shells, I filled them with paper mixed with sizing to create the paper hands. This had to be done in halves, and then the pieces “mended” with more paper.
The Paper-Cast Hand (watch the video to see a finished hand)
Eventually I worked out the angle and spot where the wrists needed to be cut so that they would look like they were emerging from the book. I also found pages in the book with Escher’s famous lithographs of tessellating objects to use as the shirt cuffs, and text from the book to use as the shirt sleeves.
This was all carefully pieced together so that the hands would break free of the book at the right angles and be able to “draw” the sleeves of each other. Escher had such a MIND, didn’t he??!!
Finally, I used the dust jacket to create “pencils” for the hands to hold. Perfect again, because the cover of the book was yellow with orange around the edges.
To buy this artwork, CLICK HERE or contact me.
