Art Trade

Receiving artwork from fellow artists (and non-artists!) is one of the most delightful things there is. This is why the concept of an "art trade" is such a popular one. 

According to the urban dictionary, an art trade is "the exchanging of art in any form (though more commonly on traditional media) between one another. Each artist fulfills a request from the other, when complete the artists will give the art to one another in an exchange of works. Both on the giving and receiving ends. With this mutual arrangement, each artist has gained the work of another in what they may deem as equal of value." 

Thank you to @r4ksha on instagram!!

Thank you to @_sirini_s on instagram!!

Over the last few years, I have done quite a lot of art trades (around 100!!) with many different artists. There have been ones where it didn't quite work out and the other side unfortunately ended up abandoning their part of the agreement after I had sent them my finished piece, leaving me empty handed, it has mostly been an extremely fun and fulfilling experience. 

One thing that all these trades had in common however, was the fact that they were all done over the internet, and thus ended with us just exchanging image files. While that is still a wonderful thing, and I am always very happy to see what the other side comes up with, it definitely isn't the same thing as holding a physical painting in your hands. 

This is why, I was very excited to do a traditional art trade for the first time. 

I was originally approached by someone on Instagram, who asked me whether I'd like to do something like this. I was a little apprehensive at first, especially since they were from the US, so I was afraid that I might not be able to afford the price for shipping. However, it turned out that it only cost me around 3,50€ in the end, so I was happy to agree to the trade. 

We quickly worked out the the details of the trade: I asked them to make a photo collage, based around eyes and the lyrics of "I can talk with my eyes shut" by Car Seat Headrest, a song that is very important to me. In return, they sent me a photo of her with her father, that they asked me to paint for his birthday. (This is also why I won't post my side of the trade, out of respect for both their and their father's privacy) 

Working on the painting was incredibly fun, I tried my best to make it look as good as possible. Then came the part where I had to figure out the shipping. As this was my first time ever sending someone a painting of mine per post, I wasn't quite sure how exactly to package it, so it wouldn't get damaged on the way to its destination. Thankfully, I was able to find many resources online, which described different ways to appropriately package pieces.

As I had just painted on some 160g paper, and not a thick canvas, I was was able to just slip the painting into a big paper envelope, along with a piece of carton so it wouldn't bend. I also added a little personal letter in there. 

It arrived around 1 week after I had brought it to the post office, and Gracie was so nice to send me a picture of her dad with the painting, saying that they loved it. This made me incredibly happy. There truly is nothing better in the world than knowing that something you did was able to bring someone else joy, even if it is just something small.

Seeing that she had gotten my little package made this whole little project a lot more tangible, a lot more real, and I couldn't wait to see what she had come up with for me. Around two weeks later their package had finally arrived.

Thank you to @bigveins.d0gbait on Instagram!! <3

I just came back home from meeting with a friend of mine, when my mother showed me the parcel. I immediately recognized their name on it and got really excited. I ran to my room and carefully opened the package, pulling out two amazing collages and a little letter. They even put some cute little cutouts into the package. They had told me beforehand that they would send me to pieces, to make up for a small delay. Though it absolutely wasn't necessary, and I don't mind little delays as they can happen to everyone, I really appreciated this little kind gesture. 

When I first held these two pieces in my hands, I genuinely started crying a little out of joy. I was so overwhelmed by it, that I just couldn't hold back the tears. The thought that someone had worked on these pieces with their two hands, cutting out each little picture and carefully gluing it onto the paper, just for me made me incredibly happy. It's hard to put into words how much this means to me. 

I am incredibly grateful that I got to do my first every physical art trade with such a talented and kind person, and I already look forward to the next time I get the opportunity to do something like this! 

Thank you Gracie! <3

Epoxy Resin

On Tuesday I got to visit a friend to make some little things out of epoxy resin. It was quite exciting, as I have been meaning to try out that medium for a while now. While it was in no way easy to work with, it was definitely a ton of fun, and something I'd love to do again sometime. 

Mixing epoxy resin is hard work

We started out by mixing epoxy resin with hardener in a 1:1 ratio. Since epoxy resin can be very irritating on skin, we had to be very careful and used a plastic cup and little wooden sticks, which we could throw away later, to blend the two. The consistence was rather weird, it was incredibly thick and reminded me a little of honey. 

One had to be very slow and careful when stirring it, as not to accidentally make little air bubbles. This quickly became really tedious, and was easily the most boring part of the whole process. Just stirring it at an agonizingly slow place and still seeing little air bubbles appear was really frustrating. 

When the mixture turned a little white, we knew that we were done with the first step and could finally move on to the next one: pouring the resin into silicone molds. My friend chose to make an ashtray and two flower pots, I went for some little charms, out of which I'll make necklaces later.

There are a lot of options of what one can put in epoxy resin - glitter, acrylic paint, sand etc... I brought some dried flower petals that I had collected over the years, and my friend had some seashells that she had gathered at different beaches, so this is what we went with for this session.

Dried flowers...

... and lots of little sea shells!

Pouring the resin into the molds was probably the most challenging, but also the most fun part of this project. It was here that one could really get creative and come up with some fun designs.

For the smaller molds, we used little pipettes to drop the resin in layer for layer, putting the flowers in between. For the bigger projects however, it was a lot more handy to put the flowers and shells in first and then pouring the resin in directly. 

This is what we came up with in the end, the ashtray and flower pots my friend made on the left and my charms in the right. I'm really happy with how they turned out and I can't wait to see the end results. These will now have to dry for about a week, so I'll post an update then!

- Tournesol 🌻