Artist mum recreates famous photographs in play dough
- Published
An artist from Gloucestershire has spent the last ten years remaking famous photographic art from play dough. Eleanor Macnair says the material is easy for everyone to access and wants art to be that way. This piece is Eleanor's version of Boy with June Bug by Gordon Parks.
This is New Brighton by British photographer Martin Parr - but in play dough. Eleanor creates her pieces quietly in the evenings while her son sleeps. When they're done she takes a picture straight away as the dough starts to crack after 24 hours. Her son then helps her to take the pieces apart and to put the different colours in the right place to be used again.
To make a piece Eleanor starts by rolling out the background colour which takes up to four pots of playdough. She then makes the figures, put clothes on them and builds up the layers. She uses a cocktail stick to carve the areas around the eyes. Here is her version of Word Piece by Keith Arnatt.
New York City Girl with Lily by Helen Levitt, but in play dough! Eleanor says she thinks certain works of art get are so familiar that we don’t properly look at them and think about what they show. That's why she likes to find less familiar photos or pictures from the past to recreate.
If you are thinking of having a go yourself, Eleanor says you need two things, cold hands and patience for the fiddly bits. She says “if you enjoy it then go and do it". This is Untitled film still #21,1978 by famous photographer Cindy Sherman.
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