One of the many things that my lovely partner Marie Bertin and I have in common is our love of octopuses, especially those giant ones of nautical mythology that were said to attack sailing ships in attempts to drag them down to the ocean deep. Marie also makes small, often origami-inspired, jewellery and sculptural pieces from paper so I thought I’d make her this three dimensional decoupage painting on paper (well, on thick mount card to be precise).
'Kraken Attack', 2023, acrylic decoupage painting by Wayne Chisnall
The finished piece you see here is actually the inner box section before the glass and outer frame were added. I photographed it without the frame so as not to get reflections from the glass.
'Kraken Attack', 2023, acrylic decoupage painting by Wayne Chisnall
As you can see from the photos I made this small piece by painting it in four separate elements and cutting them out by hand, before assembling them as a 3D decoupage. Cutting the elements out with a scalpel proved both fiddley and time consuming so I’m glad I went for a modern take on the sea monster legend, and didn’t go with an old time sailing vessel with lots of sails and fiddley rigging to cut out.
'Kraken Attack (work-in-progress)', 2023, acrylic decoupage painting by Wayne Chisnall
I was partly inspired by a memory of those old theater sets where they have multiple layers of cut-out depictions of water than are moved back and forth on stage to the give the impression of lapping waves, moving on the ocean’s surface. Although, to be more precise, it’ll be my memories of movie and TV depictions of those stage sets.
'Kraken Attack (work-in-progress)', 2023, acrylic decoupage painting by Wayne Chisnall
'Kraken Attack (work-in-progress)', 2023, acrylic decoupage painting by Wayne Chisnall
