Still Working

I've still been making Jell-O, just not any finished pieces since the porch Jell-O from my video. If you like watching science meet art meet fashion, here is someone else who does what I do, with a very different style.  
 http://www.trendhunter.com/trends/emily-crane-haute-edible-couture.

I wish I had her lab equipment. She apparently uses glycerin and other substances to make the foam stay bubbled...and I love the metallics, which I assume are cake decorating colors.

People have been wearing my Jell-O for several years now. What I am doing is far afield from her mostly foamy pieces. I mostly use the foam for slug lime. I like the glossy surfaces that result from using glass to dry the gelatin on.

Mostly I'm constructing large flowers, of which you have already seen a plethora, in order to decorate a collection of steampunky hats for my son's wedding in July. My entire family is coming from thousands of miles away for the weekend, so I told them rather than trying to bring costumes, they can just choose from my collection. Perhaps some of the hats will make it to next year's Jell-O Show.

I'm also making a big (three feet tall?) Great Blue Heron as part of an arch or something for them to stand near or under during their ceremony. I will just build it around a curvy stick and try to keep it light enough that it can be carried in their procession. Should be no problem. I already have an eagle about that size, and probably both of them will make it to the wedding.

Making big pieces is a little more challenging than small, because they distort more in the drying, but I just use plastic lids from large tubs to pour out the gelatin and shape the pieces. You have to peel it off and flip it over to dry on the other side, several times, so there are lots of chances to ruin it or make it more interesting, depending on your perspective. I generally just make a lot of pieces in the colors I am using (blues, grays and purples in this case) and then assemble them into the desired sculpture.

Hot sunny weather is pretty good for drying Jell-O although there are more pieces of dust and fluff and debris from sitting outside, which could be limited somewhat by letting it dry inside until it has hardened sufficiently to not pick up pieces of wind-blown detritus. In the winter with the heat on, drying is not a problem, but I have also discovered the top of the water heater and the TV as hot spots, and I suppose the top of the refrigerator would be good too if it were not as dusty as mine.

You want the gelatin to dry within maybe 48 hours so it doesn't have a chance to mold. I try to keep it as thin as I can, maybe an eighth of an inch thick, or less. If you don't like the shape it ends up in, remember you can get it wet and in a few minutes it will return to a flexible state, so you can reshape it and try again. You can remelt it in the microwave, too, though not if it has fully hardened.

But go ahead and try whatever you want. Art is nothing if it doesn't include some experimentation at some stage. I like it when I am forced to adapt to what the gelatin wants to do. Except the mold part.

And if you don't feel like reading back for instructions, I use 3 ounces of gelatin per cup of water. You can succeed with a lot less (this would be, I think, 12 envelopes of Knox per cup of water) so you don't have to start with such a dense formula, but my theory is that this is a good level for durability and strength, so your wonderful constructions will be sturdy enough to transport or wear.

I just add procion dyes for color, as I have a lot of them around from dying fabrics. You can use anything that you like for color. You can get creamy colors with added milk, though I try to stay away from foods to keep the ants uninvolved. Cake colorings would work. The little four-pack food colorings are perfect if you don't mind the limited colors, and you could also add Jell-O brand if you like, though it has too many chemicals for me, and I have found that it shortens the life span of the art. Just gelatin and water and as little else as possible is best for saving the pieces without dulling or decomposition.

They do get dusty. I like putting really nice pieces under glass, so now I am collecting large glass containers as well. My house does have a unique look.

Back to flipping pieces. See you with some pictures soon!

Yellow Jellow

Have had zero time to make Jell-O or write anything, but will post the pictures of the yellow roses I made, just so they'll be here. I still want to make fairies and mermaids but don't know if I'll have any time in the next few weeks or not. Also don't know if they will dry in this weather, when I'm not using heat.

Guess we'll see.

Nothing New Under the Sun

Upon further googling, I found gelatin art and even a book with plastic templates to make the process super simple. Primarily for use in cake decorating, the flowers shown by Cake Connection are made with wire stems and florist's tape, with very thin gelatin petals that are quite beautiful.

Mine look much more one-of-a-kind and are thicker and stranger than theirs, but they have not only products to sell you but a video showing the entire process. It does give me a few ideas for texturing and shaping using flat molds, brushing on the gelatin in its liquid state.

Still, I will forge ahead with my plan to make many of these, and expand the possibilities. They do fascinate and delight. That may be quite enough.

Highly evolved species

I am so in love with the useless objects that really need a glass dome or pedestal for proper display. Maybe shadow boxes, or anyway something fancier than the spruced-up cardboard boxes I'm providing.

This last one is an iris, about a foot high with stem, very difficult to see flat like this.







Presentation will come, I feel sure. I'm only charging thirty dollars for these right now, a bargain. Of course remember they are jello, with no data about how long they will last and still look beautiful. I'm prepared to say a decade at least, since I have pieces that old that still look perfect.







But marketing will definitely be my challenge. Useless objects of beauty and astonishment are perennially popular, though. People need these.

Roses

Here are the roses, some bundled in threes for bouquets. The hardest part in making these is matching up the colors of petals and leaves. Even using mainly the same two dyes, fuchsia and avocado, with a bit of yellow and forest green here and there, the endless variety of shades is amazing.


I so love the way the petals distort themselves beautifully with very little direction from me.

Jell-Oh Art Museum

I spent the whole day taking photos of all the Jell-Oh I have at the moment. Most of them need a lot more light, and I know presentation in general is what I have to work on. Here, as inadequately as photography can capture their lively fascination, is the range of what I am offering.





These are just the ones made to wear on your head. I will make separate posts for the other types of flowers. Genuses? These are primarily orchids.

A new species of flora

I've started this new blog for my latest art series, gelatin flowers. I've developed, over 23 years of making Jell-O Art, a technique for making gorgeous, seductive flowers out of dried gelatin.

The variations seem endless, the colors brilliant, and it's so much fun I don't think I'll ever get tired of it. I'm there in the photo on my birthday, with my special hair ornament.

Also shown are a few of the roses on apple branches, of which I've made about a dozen and a half now, and a closeup or a few of some of the orchids. I'm working on irises now, and a mermaid or two, and will be making fairies, many other types of flowers, and who knows what else.

I've written many posts about the process and my exhibit in the annual Jell-O Art Show that happened April 2, 2011, at Maude Kerns Art Center, over in my blog divinetension. That blog includes other thoughts about Saturday Market, where I sell every weekend, and other things happening in my little life, but this one will be exclusively for the jello art.

After 23 years, it was just a brilliant flash of an idea to try to sell this art. It seems to be working. Every week I spend many hours explaining the process and convincing incredulous folks that it is indeed not glass, not plastic, but gelatine. Except for the dye, the flowers are 100% gelatin and water. My cards say they are useless objects of senseless beauty, or senseless objects of seductive beauty, and that they are no longer edible. People can't quite grasp the concept, so far, but the objects are so glorious, I have sold several to people who are just as fascinated by them as I am. I'm excited to show my new ones each week, on Saturdays, and also at the Tuesday Market.

I might just be the only person in the world making and selling these right now. My living room is full of big trays of petals and leaves waiting to be jelloed together. I'm also decorating boxes for them and figuring out how to make them into headbands, pins, tiaras, and whatever else comes to mind. Stay tuned!