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Shopping Bag with Comb Bow

For the first step wrapping this medium sized gift, I cut down a white shopping bag and wrapped the entire box in it, using hot glue to secure the thick paper of the bag. I put a secondary blue wrap on the bottom, a piece of old Pantone paper. I then took a page from my magazine of the moment, an image with rectangular forms, a person, abstract photo detail and color complementary to the blue. I did not cover up the shopping bag’s branding, because the typography lends the whole composition a poster-like quality. Also the gift’s brand diverges completely from the this bag’s. Wrap Humor. To finish it off I took another magazine scrap and cut slices partway through it. I folded the uncut edge and glued it on top of the wrap. Carefully I shaped the teeth of this comb into gentle curves. The interplay of the rectilinear scrap & scissor-cuts with the curves of the actual spiral imagery in the photo & the shaping of the comb’s teeth adds a bow-like quality and completes the wrap.

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Han News

han news wrap

Wrapping with newsprint is a frequent first thought for someone who suddenly decides to wrap without wrapping paper. I chose to give this old method a try using a scrap from a local chinese-language newspaper. The solution to newsprint innovation was actually quite easy to execute. I took one piece of used ribbon and wound it in a spiral around the box. The hardest part was looking through a magazine for just the right page, which would deliver a photographic abstraction up to the task of tri-partite contrast: Han characters, transparent ribbon, and photo complexities, all within my red-blue color world. I cut a wide strip from the ad and folded it along the edges to make a band-wrap ribbon, attached it to the package. Then a took the remaining scrap, folding it to create the same puffy edges; I glued this “bow” onto the wrap.

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Three Piece

THREE PIECE WRAP

I thought of the form for this one before anything else. I had saved some Apple cable boxes. They are white and have relatively little type on them. I conceived of them as legs. I covered their largest surfaces with interesting paper. What you see here is dark green, finely-corrugated, specialty stock. The back sides are a medium gray cover stock with lots of visible fiber. I put squares of bright red paper in the center of all four large sides. I then wrapped the gift’s box with white paper and began to play with various arrangements, some fully symmetrical, other cantilevered. I chose the stability of symmetry. I added two pieces of red, textured ribbon, applying them on the gift box to be parallel and aligned to the supporting boxes. I then glued them on, adding an invisible cross-beam of the green corrugated paper between the two boxes to provide stability. I felt the whole thing needed the addition of an non-rhomboid form. I found the pale green ball, and glued it on. Last of all I added the recipient’s name on a small red square.

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The Fin

On occasion wrap art will take the shape of animals, buildings, trees or recognizable objects. But almost all wrapping is abstract sculpture, and thus abstraction itself is not innovative. There are, however, times when found materials can take wrapping in a new abstract direction, creating very different feelings. I found a strange plastic object in my alley a number of years ago. It sat in an outdoor shed waiting for purpose. It is about 14 inches long, flat on one side and curved on the other. What is it? Parts divorced from purpose can have immediate mystery. The small, “bottom” side, the plane of attachment, was open. In goes the gift. I then glue on a cardboard closure, including a door for quick access. Two rows of cord, thick and thin hide the seam and start the reference to wrapping tradition. The second reference is ribbon with black and white angled pattern. It starts on the “back” and curves around the end; it breaks with tradition by stopping partway along the facade. That terminus is completed by a red cap which holds the giftee initials. This definitely has undertones of transportation, whether it be streamlined 30’s locomotives or concrete traffic barriers.

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Porker Wrap

pig wrap

I went for speed on this one. Chopped down an oatmeal box. Placed the gift in tissue. Glued on a new bottom. Roll-wrapped it in pink tissue using both tape and glue to fix the ends. I left a lot of extra paper on the tail end and twisted it off-center to make a pigtail. I had to work bit of hot glue into the folds of the twisted tissue to make the tail stable and curved. Next I wrapped a deodorant cap with tissue paper and glued it onto the body for the snout, adding the paper fascia with marker nostrils. The eyes are black paper. The mouth is a piece of thin black ribbon, glued to the pink body, and up to the underside of the snout, about an inch away from the body.  That means that the smiling mouth is not actually on the pig, but it worked visually. Next I made the legs, using two twigs, each cut at a 45 degree angle to make four legs. I cut little tiny square holes in the pink tissue wrap, which allowed me to glue the legs right to the cardboard of the oatmeal box, assuring a good grip. Lastly, I cut out ears from cover stock, folding the bottom to make an attachment tab; I cut a slit into that tab, which allowed me to bend the ears vertically to get a good simulation of a pigs ear. The pig has been well received.

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Fur Bearing Wrap

A very small package can have lots of impact. I wrapped the gift with foil paper. I cut four legs from my twig stash and glued them directly to the wrap. Next I reached into my odd materials bin and pulled out a scrap of fur that had been waiting for its moment. With a few dabs of glue I had the latest addition to my critter wraps collection.

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Fireplace Wrap

The wrap began with a curious piece of cast-paper packaging from a shipment of Moo business cards. The white tray had two regions, one to hold a box of cards and the other held three groups of unboxed cards.  I placed the gift, small and made of cloth, into the first region, where you now see the green corrugated paper.

I then proceeded to make a completely abstract wrap, using small scraps of paper: red foil-stamp tissue, blue-background japanese paper, and the green corrugated piece covering the gift. I then made the orange ribbon with alphabet beads to label the gift. I also put some ribbon the right-hand rib projecting up from the back of the white tray. Done.

It was when I went back and added the small blue bow to the japanese “wall paper” that the literal began to seep into my abstraction. The white “mantel” also called out for something, so I added two little jingle bells. I thought I was done. But the “fireplace” began to speak up. I built a foam and twig fire, put in on andirons. It remains an abstract fireplace, to be sure, because the “chimney” is strictly conceptual. I added two candles to the ingle bells. Done.

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Blue Bulge

Two contrasting wrap components are at play here. The central area consists of a single slice out of a reject proof from a silk screen poster from 1993 (it was an event about making art out of recycled materials.

But before I wrapped it around the gift’s box I made two bumpers out of bubble wrap and then wrapped the bumpers in blue mylar. These were then taped onto the box. I wrapped the piece of black poster paper around the box and glued it shut. The bumpers are designed to express overflow, making the poster wrap look super snug.

I added two strips of orange ribbon to create a 3rd component, a transition zone between the two primary tactics. The contrast of the poster’s hard-edged constructivist design with the mylar’s wrinkly bulge creates goofy dissonance and thus charm.

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Exo-Skeleton Scrap Wrap

exo-skeleton scrap wrap

I needed to wrap some awkward high-country gear, snowshoes. I knew I would have to neutralize their various edges and somewhat-sharp parts. So I wrapped them first in bubble wrap. Then I began apply layers of wrapping-paper scraps. Each piece of paper, long or square was given folded edges, as in creating band wraps. The folding ads dimension and and hint of finish to the scrap. Hot glue was my binding medium. I applied the large, and longer pieces first, adding rectangles and skinny bands later. When enough pieces are applied the wrap has stability you do not expect when you apply the first, ungainly pieces.

The skeleton is made of cast paper pieces that are used to protect the corners or edges of furniture being shipped. I discovered them in the alley a fews days before I made this wrap. As soon as I saw them I imagined what they could do: easy to cut, easy to glue. Long, light, rigid and versatile.

I rested the somewhat squishy scrap wrap on my work bench.  I studied it with a measuring tape, choosing a length for the long parts. I cut the verticals and lay them upon the wrap. I measured and cut short horizontals, one longer, one shorter, to make the vertical angle inward as the tower rises. Hot glue rapidly joined the four pieces. Once I had a similar second side, I cut four more horizontals and assembled the whole tower around the wrapped gift.

Ribbons on the verticals brought the gift-wrap feeling to the cast-board verticals. But the top seemed incomplete. So I glued pine cones to pine twigs, to make four finials to complete the tower’s architecture. Since the gift had to be carried over the river and through the woods, I attached the pine-cone assemblies using using velcro patches.

I was impressed by the sturdiness of the final piece. And the contrast between the exoskeleton’s linear form and the brecciated patches of the scrap wrap was satisfying.

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Robo Wrap

robo wrap art

I designed this wrap for a non-destructive un-wrap. The base is a piece of form and mylar protective wrapping from a new 5k monitor, closed using double-sided tape. I then made feet and short legs using black shipping foam, cut with a matte knife and a jigsaw, glued with hot glue. Next I prepared the opening top access, cutting the silver material to make four flaps, the last (closing door) flap has a strip of red craft foam to signify where to open the wrap. On top, the bot’s “hair” is a strange piece made of two kinds of foam; its provenance and function is lost in the sands of time. I attached it with bent large paperclip to the top, opening flap.

The arms are packing foam from an external usb cd/dvd burner. It has inset craft foam insets, and white craft foam “hands.” I glued red foam coverings for the top and front of the feet.

Last of all I worked on the face. The three eyes are fried marbles. The chest lights/ recipient label are alphabet beads. The mouth is made from craft foam. The total is a spirited wrap.