Cadavre Exquis (Exquisite corpse) is a drawing method first used by Surrealist artists to create bizarre and intuitive drawings.

The childhood game ‘Consequences’ is based on the idea. As a child I enjoyed playing the written version with my friends. We started with ‘name of a girl’, ‘ then ‘name of a boy’, then ‘met where’, ‘did what’, ‘happened next’ etc.. Each person folding over the piece of paper to hide the previous entries.

Participating in the art version was great fun, both thinking about what to draw, and what the end result would be. The results were amazing, most people following the ‘lines’ into the next section resulting in some weird and wonderful creatures. The collage versions were also extremely good, especially from using only basic materials already in the studio. The challenge of converting one of them into 3D was eagerly approached.

I found lots of useful items at home to create my ‘scary’ lady. Meeting the challenge was very satisfying. I gave each section thought and prepared my materials accordingly. The end result looked uncannily like the 2D version.

The careful planning was something I thought I did well and showed through in the end result. The only thing I might have done differently would have been to consider being able to ‘walk’ all around the model. To achieve this in the lesson I made use of some studio items to make the reverse of the head, and more hair. The items I had prepared for the arms body and legs were already 3D from all angles.

The hair need to be green & yellow, fortunately I had string with me, I cut and painted lengths of string to make more hair, and having taken my sewing kit to the lesson I could utilise some small bobbins of cotton to make the hair braids, giving the final version a totally 3D model.

2D Version

Final 3D Model

Work in progress

Printmaking – Exquisite Corpse 2D

I decided to incorporate the 2D version of my selected Exquisite Corpse into the printmaking session