Works made from fish bones. Fairy “Autumn” made from fish bones. Master class with step-by-step photos. Fish bone necklace
Fish is a daily guest on Elena Zhuravskaya’s table. Her family cooks a lot of things - carp, herring, pike, and many other types of fish. And it’s not a matter of special love for fish by the woman’s household. Elena simply creates amazing, extraordinary paintings from fish scales, bones, and sometimes even eyes. Before creating paintings, the artist polishes and varnishes the material.
The woman herself learned to make paintings and such unusual materials, and every day her work becomes more and more perfect. Many people come to see exhibitions of these creations. It's incredible - such a beauty made from fish skeletons.
But there is nothing particularly unusual here, if you think about it. After all, ivory has been popular for a long time, and our craftswoman decided to work with a more affordable material that can be mined personally.
Zhuravskaya’s husband regularly goes fishing, Elena herself cooks for him, then the whole family eats fish and watches the most fun Matchmakers 6 . The cats eat up the remains, and then the bones are washed and, after polishing, varnished. To make a mosaic of fish eyes, you first need to boil them until they become hard peas.
In her work, the artist uses scissors, toothpicks, a nail file, PVA varnish... It takes a very long time to adjust the parts of the painting. The artist made her last two paintings for about a year.
It happens that for the composition the bones need to be cut, bent or straightened, and it happens that real masterpieces are found - mainly in exotic fish, which we rarely see in stores.
In the family of a Ukrainian artist Elena Zhuravskaya Fish dishes are served to the table every day: bream, carp, silver carp, herring, pike... And the point is not at all that fish is preferred here to other products. Elena Zhuravskaya is the author of unique paintings that consist of fish bones, scales and even fish eyes, carefully processed, polished and coated with mother-of-pearl varnish. She learned this art on her own, and now every day she improves in her unusual hobby, and exhibitions of her paintings are extremely popular and invariably crowded. It's no joke, such beauty, but just fish bones.
However, what's strange here? Stunning things that can also be called works of art have long been made from ivory, so the craftswoman decided to use the most accessible bones, especially since you can mine them yourself. Talking about her work, Elena Zhuravskaya laughs, which attracts the whole family to work: the husband brings the catch from fishing, she cleans and cooks it, the household eats with pleasure, and the cats help cope with what is left uneaten. Having received a mountain of bones, the artist carefully washes them, clears them of any remaining meat, polishes and varnishes them, and boils the fish eyes to such an extent that they finally harden, turning into peas, and begins to lay out the mosaic on black velvet.
Using toothpicks, nail scissors and a nail file, a brush and PVA varnish, Elena Zhuravskaya first fits the mosaic pieces to each other, rearranging and rearranging the composition ad infinitum until it is perfect. This sometimes takes one night, sometimes a week, and the last two paintings, large and complex, took the artist about a year. She has to cut and file some bones, and sometimes it is necessary to bend, twist or straighten them, if the compositional idea requires it. But sometimes you come across ready-made “jewels” - this is how you can call bones of an interesting, unusual shape, which are found in exotic sea and ocean fish, which rarely end up on the shelves of our stores.
Elena Zhuravskaya began working with bones and scales more than seven years ago. I did everything myself, on a whim, because textbooks and master classes on this type of art had not yet been invented. Today she herself conducts master classes, talks about the features and subtleties of working with such unusual and in its own way capricious material as bones and scales of various fish. Exhibitions of paintings by Elena Zhuravskaya are held both in her native Kyiv and in other cities of Russia and Ukraine.
Painting on canvas is not fashionable now, so watercolors and gouache are now being replaced by much more creative materials for creating paintings. An important place in this direction belongs to the creation of canvases from waste.
Painting on canvas is not fashionable now, so watercolors and gouache are now being replaced by much more creative materials for creating paintings. An important place in this direction belongs to the creation of canvases from waste. And from what masters do not create their masterpieces: from sand, and from metal and plastic waste, and even from bottle caps. But Ukrainian Elena Zhuravskaya makes her paintings using bones and fish scales.
Looking at the wonderful flowers that are depicted on black noble velvet, you would never guess that these are fish remains. The craftswoman does absolutely every job herself, from the very beginning to the end: she catches the fish, cooks, eats, and then selects the seeds, from which incredibly beautiful appliqués are later created.
Fishing has been one of the artist’s favorite pastimes since her youth; her father taught her this interesting hobby. Since then, fish has been a matter of life for Elena.
Despite all the jewelry of her work, Elena does not use a microscope or magnifying glasses. Her arsenal of tools includes items that are found in every home: PVA glue, a brush, toothpicks, scissors, files and clear nail polish.
Moreover, this most interesting view appliqué is not new, and Elena Zhuravskaya personally knows some representatives of fish art, but each artist has his own technique for creating paintings and his own theme. Elena imagines how one day one common exhibition will be able to unite their efforts.
In the family of a Ukrainian artist Elena Zhuravskaya Fish dishes are served to the table every day: bream, carp, silver carp, herring, pike... And the point is not at all that fish is preferred here to other products. Elena Zhuravskaya is the author of unique paintings that consist of fish bones, scales and even fish eyes, carefully processed, polished and coated with mother-of-pearl varnish. She learned this art on her own, and now every day she improves in her unusual hobby, and exhibitions of her paintings are extremely popular and invariably crowded. It's no joke, such beauty, but just fish bones.
However, what's strange here? Stunning things that can also be called works of art have long been made from ivory, so the craftswoman decided to use the most accessible bones, especially since you can mine them yourself. Talking about her work, Elena Zhuravskaya laughs, which attracts the whole family to work: the husband brings the catch from fishing, she cleans and cooks it, the household eats with pleasure, and the cats help cope with what is left uneaten. Having received a mountain of bones, the artist carefully washes them, clears them of any remaining meat, polishes and varnishes them, and boils the fish eyes to such an extent that they finally harden, turning into peas, and begins to lay out the mosaic on black velvet.
Using toothpicks, nail scissors and a nail file, a brush and PVA varnish, Elena Zhuravskaya first fits the mosaic pieces to each other, rearranging and rearranging the composition ad infinitum until it is perfect. This sometimes takes one night, sometimes a week, and the last two paintings, large and complex, took the artist about a year. She has to cut and file some bones, and sometimes it is necessary to bend, twist or straighten them, if the compositional idea requires it. But sometimes you come across ready-made “jewels” - this is how you can call bones of an interesting, unusual shape, which are found in exotic sea and ocean fish, which rarely end up on the shelves of our stores.
Elena Zhuravskaya began working with bones and scales more than seven years ago. I did everything myself, on a whim, because textbooks and master classes on this type of art had not yet been invented. Today she herself conducts master classes, talks about the features and subtleties of working with such unusual and in its own way capricious material as bones and scales of various fish. Exhibitions of paintings by Elena Zhuravskaya are held both in her native Kyiv and in other cities of Russia and Ukraine.
Our country is being washed away big amount seas and oceans, has hundreds of lakes and rivers, and fishing is developed everywhere. Therefore, we have the opportunity to use fish waste - its bones and scales for interesting work.
Fish scales are horny or bony structures. The largest scales are found in carp, carp fish, perch, whitefish, etc. When cleaning fish for cooking, collect the scales, rinse them in warm water and several times in cold water and place them on a board or newspaper.
Large, soft scales will curl up and have a rather unsightly appearance. Only the scales of perch and pike perch will remain dense and even. Therefore, it is especially good for work. Possessing strength and teeth on one side, like a comb, these scales are suitable for 3D laying out patterns.
Large scales of carp fish are used for flat inlay and mosaic gluing, laying out decorative flowers, and for pasting snowy landscapes in models.
The laying out of patterns from hard scales is carried out according to a previously created pattern on plastic mass or mastic. The product is either covered with mastic or made entirely of plastic. There are many recipes for making plastic. The most accessible is the following.
Wood glue boiled in a glass bottle is mixed with sawdust to a very thick mass and mixed thoroughly. Then 20 grams of paraffin or 15 grams of wax are added to this mass per 0.5 kg. The warm, not yet cooled mass is rolled out with a bottle and molded into any shape and plane. The plastic is dried for two days. After drying the product for only a day, proceed to gluing a pattern of fish scales onto it.
Transparent fish scales are cast with mother-of-pearl and look good on a white or black background.
The second recipe is this: in 0.3 liters of water, soak and boil 100 grams of tile wood glue and the pulp of one Russian bun. Then add 25 grams of processed cheese and protein to it chicken egg. Mix this mass well with your hands, like dough, and roll it into a flat cake - at least 3-4 millimeters thick. The shaped product is cut out of plastic with a wet mold. If you want to make a box from rolled out cake, cut out rectangular or square shapes for the walls, bottom and lid. Place all the cut out shapes on oiled paper, cover with oiled paper too and place them between the boards with a small weight. After letting the mold sit for four to five hours, begin laying out the pattern. The individual parts of the box are connected to each other, glued with egg white and dried without any weight.
Do not dry plastic products near a stove or in a very warm place.
In the pictures we give options for laying out patterns of both hard scales and a combination of hard and soft scales, interspersed with fish bones.
On a box or casket, lay out a pattern of scales only on the lids. The sides should remain smooth.
When a particular product is dry, coat it with colorless tsapon varnish.
Pattern laying technique
The pattern is applied to the plastic surface through carbon paper with light pressure from a pencil. Those who know how to draw perform the drawing, looking at the drawing they have previously completed on paper. Let's take a closer look at one of the drawings offered here. Rosettes (A) are made by pressing hard scales placed on the edge and with the teeth upward.
Leaves (B) are made from two unfolded and slightly inclined halves of scales. Bells (G) are formed from scales selected in size from large to small, with a strong slope of the ribs to the right side.
Bindweeds (B) consist of ribbed scales-circles and a flatly depressed base. The grapes are made either flat, or small soft scales are rolled over steam into a lump.
Stems and twigs are laid out from scales placed on the edge, pressing strongly and thereby forming a continuous line.
This work is small, painstaking, similar to jewelry. It requires taste and patience. But the results are so good that we highly recommend doing it.
Pressing the scales into the plastic is done by pressing with your fingers, and transferring the scales, tilting them and selecting them is done using small tweezers.
The following can be said about working with fish bones: well-washed bones from fish heads, spines and fins of various fish have very diverse shapes. Particularly interesting are the bones from the heads of pike perch and navaga. The upper fins of perch, pike and many other fish also have interesting varieties of needle-like shape. Spine and navaga bones, for example, are good for laying out leaves and butterfly wings. In the head of the navaga, at the top of the head, there are two oval white bones, shaped like chamomile petals.
From large scales of carp, mirror carp and colored scales of the Black Sea greenfish, you can cut out squares and use them to paste over planes in cardboard and plywood products. A writing instrument made of cardboard covered with checkered scales turns out to be very beautiful. You can glue the scales using BF-2 glue and celluloid adhesives, pressing each cut out square of the scales tightly. Then they must be dried under pressure.
For better preservation, the finished product is coated instead of varnish with a thin layer of BF-2 glue or filled with casein treated with boric acid.
In addition to the previously described plastic masses, the basis for laying out various patterns of scales and seeds can be a product cut from unsuitable gramophone records. The property of gramophone records to soften in hot water and be easily cut with scissors has long been known. Cut from a record the required form, the plate is taken out of the water and, placing it on a board, the drawing is transferred to it with a needle. Then, using a small electric soldering iron, lightly melt the plastic in the place of the pattern where it is needed, and with the left hand, using tweezers, insert the scales into the molten plastic.
This is how scales are interspersed throughout the picture. The box can be made from pieces of a gramophone record. The parts of the box are also welded together with a soldering iron.
This work should be performed by older children who know how to handle a soldering iron.
Fish bone necklace
An original and beautiful necklace can be made from fish bones. Along the spine of sturgeon, beluga and any other so-called “red” fish there are hard, pointed, star-shaped bones. When you have red fish for lunch, don't throw away the bones. Rinse them in hot water, boil them so they don't smell fishy, and dry them. The bones will become clean, white and very beautiful. Cut small circles smaller than seeds from white linen material and take a coarse thread. Start gluing the seeds to the thread in the following order: take the first bone, spread it on the back side with “BF-2” glue, and also spread the glue on the circle of material. When the glue dries slightly (it will not stick to your hands), smear the bone and the circle with glue again, wait a little, put the thread on the bone, place a circle of material on top of it, firmly hold the bone and the circle between your fingers and hold for a few minutes. Then glue the second bone in the same way, etc., until a necklace of the required size is formed.
G. V. Bubekina, G. P. Goslavskaya
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