Human Behaviour

I cannot believe this is only the second time I’ve attempted to paint the near magical songstress Bjork in the whole decade+ of making matryoshka dolls. She rose to power when I was still a young and impressionable art student and I wholeheartedly adored her. Her unique vocal stylings got me through the long nights when I had to churn out paintings, her unique fashion sense (anyone remember the swan dress at the Oscars?), the imaginative and vivid videos…she’s every art student’s muse, I believe. My friend had gotten wind of her production team making the video of “Big Time Sensuality” down the street from my former high school and we literally climbed over the fence to go and watch the shoot (yes, it was a literal fence, about 20+ foot high and on the second floor terrace of our school building and nimble truants such as myself would scale this fence and parkour our way down to the street below. The fact I never grievously injured myself is a miracle through and through.

The giant teddy bear in the woods, Goddess Bjork, and the hedgehog from the video of Human Behaviour.

I’ve been meaning to do this set for the longest time now. It wasn’t until I got a request to work on yet another Bjork set that I decided to add this one into the mix. It brought back a lot of 90’s nostalgia, the smell of linseed oil and turpentine in an apartment that was not equipped for artists, the late late nights of Bjork warbling her songs as I painted, the joy of discovering that she was to sing a set at the Tibetan Freedom Festival that made me forget I was badly sunburnt and dehydrated because I refused to pay $10 for a bottle of water at the venue…I used to lament the fact I was born too late and missed the whole Flower Power era with bands like ELP and Jethro Tull and Jefferson Airplane etc that I would give my eyeteeth to see perform live (I did get to see Pink Floyd and Yes and King Crimson multiple times in the late 90s and early aughts but it’s not the same, you know?), but you know what? I DID grow up in a really cool and uncomplicated era of grunge music and Oasis and Blur and a slew of female artists like Alanis Morrisette and Jewel and Fiona Apple and Tori Amos and…of course, Bjork (and yes, I saw all these people in concert except Blur, but I did meet Damon Albarn in front of the shop where I used to work with half a sandwich crammed into my mouth and he had acknowledged me with a sarcastic, “that’s a good look” look on his face and that had made my whole year).

The hedgehog was 3-D printed, but I added some resin to its face and backside to bear more of a resemblance to the one featured in the video. The bristles on its back was sourced from some very fine synthetic wires that I uprooted my entire studio in search of.

The Ultimate Mr. Fox Shake-Out Set

I honestly cannot recall when I began this project. Two years ago? Three? It was one of those ones I painted completely exhausted from a long night of painting and cannot remember how any of them were executed. It was put on hiatus for months on end whilst I combat various rush jobs so when it’s finally finished, it didn’t really hit me until a few days later. The Hubs is not around to rejoice with me…he’s currently on a rugged bike-packing expedition which involved a lot of pub lunches and a wine and art gallery tour. It did not however, stop me from getting myself a pack of chocolate cupcakes (which I immediately regretted upon consumption. I may still crave junk food like a teenager, but my old lady body is beyond capable of processing such treats).

This set starts with a majestic 8″ doll, something I cannot remember painting at all.

I do remember picking out all the single dolls, however, and assigning each one with a character I never got to paint before.

I had to be very choosy as only 17 dolls can fit into Mr. Fox.

Petey and Rat are two of my favourites in the movie!

Kylie and Mrs. Fox.

Kristopherson, Ash, whom I’ve painted multiple times before, so I was thrilled to be able to add their little friend Agnes into the mix.

I’ve stopped painting Badger with the main set so I was happy to make a miniature version of him, along with Coach Skip and Weasel. Bob’s Burger’s “The Weasel Song” ran in a continuous loop in my head the whole time I was painting him.

Here is Rabbit and Chef.

These two were my absolute favourite. I LOVE beavers. They’re always so…busy!

Adding the humans into the mix is also quite a lot of fun. Here’s Boggis, Bean, and Bunce

Just to give you an idea of how small these little guys are.

Every time I do one of these sets, I always wish there is more time in the day to make everything rattling around in my head. It’s true I can delete all the game apps from my phone (but in all honesty, I only have about 2 games) and maybe not be as militant about keeping my house in shipshape order. A little cutter and dust never hurt anyone, right? But I can’t complain, because apart from having to deal with the real world for a few hours each day, I get to squirrel away in my sweatshop at night and just live my best life. I have another shake-em-out set in the works. It will be done in 6-8 years!