OUTDOOR ART

I am hoping that you are in good health today.

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Let’s get right into it today. The subject that I have chosen to tell you about today crosses over from one of my biggest passions – gardening – into another part of my life that is more of a calling than a passion – art.

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Gardening and art, or to be more correct – garden art, sometimes simply known as outdoor art.

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Now outdoor art is not a new thing it has been around for centuries. Most sculptures are designed to be displayed outdoors. That portion or your garden décor has been taken care of for very many years.

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You can go into almost any garden supply shop and you will find a very large collection of cast sculptures in all manner of shape and form. You can get a massive array of beautiful water nymphs or winged angels in all manner of poses or as easily get frogs, pigs or fish. Now none of these are unique pieces of art and are commonly cast in a plaster or cement form.

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More commonly for awhile now, is the tendency towards very large pots and bowls that have become extremely popular. I think that these are great, and you have a lot of flexibility in how you feature them. You could use them to frame a doorway or gateway or simply set them in a row down a specific pathway. You will find them as water features or as a “fallen” pot with plants growing out of them.

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Now the outdoor art that I am specifically referring to here is real art. In this modern day of products that have been developed and designed to withstand all manner of outdoor conditions, you can now do almost anything with art outdoors.

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When I first started to do outdoor art I was at an art-exhibition-in-the-park place and one of the fine artists told me that her art has always been able to withstand the outdoor conditions. In truth she was probably not very wrong, but people tend to not want to hang a painting that they had paid R15 000 ($2000) for out on the far wall in their garden.
So knowing this I went and started to experiment with all the different possible ways to do outdoor art that is big, bright and not too expensive.

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I do believe that the 3 different ways that work well as outdoor art methods are all equally worth pursuing and each has a different look and therefore different application.

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Option type one.

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This method is already popular and in daily use in many cities around the world. This is the use of prints on canvass and pulled over a box frame.  What led to this version working so well was the development of products meant for outdoor advertising. These massive billboards all had to be able to withstand extreme weather conditions and therefore were in their own way works of art anyway.
Now the galleries and online shops are starting to offer normal boxed prints of art generally designed to hang outside on your patio walls. They can withstand the normal elements and if you hang them in a place that avoids the most extreme conditions like direct sunlight then they will be beautiful works of art for a long time. Please check that they do have the coating that is normally on the outdoor posters.

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Option type two

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This outdoor art method is the easiest for any artist to do, as the biggest difference is for the canvass that you normally paint on need only be pulled over a frame that is “waterproof’. What you need to do is be sure that the frame is either a strong plastic or made with treated wood. The glue that is used in building the framework needs also to be of the waterproof kind. I found to my horror that if you use normal wood glue it softens and comes apart easily.

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Finally most normal oils or acrylic paints are good enough to withstand all those bad outside elements and you can go ahead and do your painting. I found that it is a great opportunity to do a very large painting and generally an abstract painting is the best method as it generally is done quicker and doesn’t cost too much money. Some of these outdoor paintings are able to be completed for prices of as little as R1000 ($130) for a two meter by one and a half a meter painting.

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Naturally all art is very tightly connected to the length of time that it takes to complete a specific art piece.

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I found that I was doing very nice pieces using wood stain as the main colorant and this tended to make the picture both fast to make and equally well suited to the colors of your garden.

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Option type Three

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This method came about from me combining normal paintings and sculpture. Essentially I was looking for a way to hang a sculpture on a wall and it led me to discover a product called boiler cement.

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This boiler cement is an extremely workable carving or molding product and allows great flexibility in designing your artwork.

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By building up your work onto a webbing frame you are able to produce great graphic pieces or go into great detail doing a complete herd of wild horses’ full sized running down the back wall of your property.
Now that is what I call a great outdoor room. To sit comfortably in my hammock chair in the shade and admire both my brilliantly designed garden and see some great works of art placed strategically around, seems to be a perfect situation to me.

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Finally, I am extremely willing to give any help to anyone who wants to start doing their own outdoor art. I will show them some samples of my work, and send them in the right direction on where to get the materials.

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I have still got a website that shows some of the works that I have done in the past. I tend to not do commercial art any more but would consider a commission if the subject seemed like enough fun. Remember that I am a resident of Africa and that while you will get good prices, you will have to pay for shipping and porters to carry it all on their heads to the sea. (ha-ha – not a funny joke – I live in a big city, and we do have real couriers.)Thanks for your time today.

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To find out more about outdoor ART go here.