Palmerston North, New Zealand has the most wonderful Arts Recycling Centre where $1.00 got me 10 beautiful fat corks (wine bottles no longer have corks it seems), and a roll of paper adding-machine tape – now that’s not to be confused with tape for a paper adding machine because for a start, I don’t think an adding machine made from paper would be of any use to fish nor fowl although someone may have made one!
I used my very old acrylic paints, an old credit card, a stamp pad and some white gesso as my white paint is all but gone. I carved the corks and having used them, find they have cleaned up well and that I’m rather fond of the ‘square-peg-in-a-round-hole’ and the ’round-peg-in-a-square-hole’ stamps.
Here’s the results!
wiping on the acrylic background
the results
I’m much happier with the results where I used the black stamp pad however I guess I can always touch up the detail on the white and purple stars and moons. I did think about using glue and dusting them with glitter – another time perhaps.
Each strip is about 150 cms long by 6 cms wide (60 inches by 2.25 inches). I’ve found the tape tears very nicely down it’s length and although it curls a bit when it’s wet, it’s okay.
So not quite free, but very cheap – and I still have 5 corks and a lot of paper left! Great value and a bit of fun on a Sunday afternoon!
late start studio 