I love working with bark in all its forms. We are fortunate, here in Australia, to have a great variety of colour, texture and density on offer from our native flora. In this tutorial I will show you how to make a bark container for a design. This particular one was used in a competition piece with the Class title “Jack in the Box”.
I am using bark sections that have been shed by some large gum trees on our farm – easy to find and these pieces are smaller than I would use in feature designs so are perfect for making a container.
1. Lay out the pieces of bark along a straight edge (here I am using the edge of a table) with the display side up. Trim one end of the bark so you have a straight, flat edge to line up with the base of the container you are using as the support for the bark.
2. My support container is a box made from cardboard offcuts. Begin gluing the larger pieces along one side, making sure to line up the straight edge of the bark with the base of the container. Continue along the remainder of the container – don’t worry about gaps between the bark pieces at the top, just keep lining up along the base. We will fill in the gaps shortly.
3. Slide pieces of bark into the gaps and glue in place. You might need to put more than one piece or trim a piece inserted this way. Its just like doing paper mache really – cut and glue to fill all the gaps.
4. I generally go back and glue an extra piece on each of the corners, to give some more depth to the new container.
And that’s all there is to it. You can now place a design inside this container as I did with the “Jack in the Box”.
