When I am not painting I am coming up with ideas to create with children who attend my classes. My cellar is FULL with rubbish… ahem I mean potential art materials for the children to use. You never know when you may need 40 kitchen rolls or tissue boxes, right? After a year of limited teaching opportunities, I came to the conclusion that some of my treasures needed to leave the cellar. So with detergent bottles a plenty I thought I would make some planters for the terrace. Inspired by pinterest posts I had seen in the past, I thought I could make faces on the bottles and have different plants sprouting hair out of the top. I washed all the bottles and lined them up. I know they are just cheap rubbish but I loved how they look. All lined up they are like mini sculptures in their own right and reminded me of the Italian artist Morandi and his bottle paintings. My daughters and I had great fun drawing on the bottles with permanent marker pens and acrylic paints.
Slice the bottom of the bottle off to fill with soil and a plant of your choice. I think painting the bottles in bright colours is really effective. You can attach them easily to railings with plastic cable strips. This led me onto my next project.
Like a lot of people I have the odd IKEA lamp knocking about my home. I decided to up-cycle it turning the detergent bottle into the base. Thankfully the IKEA bases unscrew and dismantle easily so all that was needed was to cut a hole in the centre of the bottom to poke the pole through. Simply screwing the lamp back together will hold it in place. Cut a separate hole for the plug to squeeze through and voilà: a new cool base. Make sure it all fits together, then it is time for the fun part: Detach the bottle again and get your acrylic paints at the ready. Now this is where your creativity comes in, you can go in any direction you fancy. You can use stencils, block off spaces with masking tape, paint freehand or draw onto the bottle and fill in the colours once you are happy with the outline. Go wild!
I chose to use one base colour for the bottle and then paint abstract flowers on the shade using a little of the base colour. This is a great project for all abilities from adults to children, an ideal rainy day project I hear you cry! I love my new lamps.
My family’s reaction to the new lamp varied slightly. My 6 year old cried for the loss of the old lamp, who knew she had such a deep attachment to it? She begged me to leave the other lamp alone. HARSH! My 8 year old said she really liked it and it was cool. My 39 year old, I mean husband, raised his eyebrows smiling saying it was nice…?
Obviously with all this support and encouragement behind me, no lamp is safe…possibly a trip to IKEA this weekend. Have a go!