Friday, 11 May 2012

Elephant No. 222: Nail Art

For today's elephant, I thought I'd try banging nails into a piece of wood. Although an online search for "nail art" pretty much turns up nothing but thousands of references to fingernail masterpieces, fingernail art is so far beyond my abilities that it may never appear in this blog.

Metal nails have been used for millennia. One of the earliest mentions of nails comes from the Bible, in connection with the building of the First Temple around 832 B.C.:
David also provided great quantities of iron for nails for the doors of the gates and for clamps, as well as bronze in quantities beyond weighing. —I Chronicles 22:3
Until the late eighteenth century, nails were generally made by hand. Men called "slitters" cut iron bars into nail-sized blanks, which were then given a head and a point by an artisan known as a "nailer". In 1590, a slitting mill was established in England to produce uniform iron nail blanks, but many nails continued to be made entirely by hand.

During the nineteenth century, machine-made nails were invented, although it took several decades for the handmade nail industry to die out entirely. "Cut nails", which were first introduced towards the end of the eighteenth century, were machine-cut from flat sheets of iron and, later, steel. These are also sometimes called "square nails" because they are roughly square or rectangular in profile.

Square nails are still made today, although they are used primarily for historical renovations and heavy-duty applications such as attaching wood to masonry walls. In their place, round nails—also known as "wire nails" for the way they are made—have become the norm.

Nkisi Nkondi (Nail figure) from Democratic Republic of Congo,
ca. 1880–1920.
Collection of the Carnegie Museum of Art, Boston

Modern nails are made of many different types of metal, and come in various forms, from the heavy grooved nails used for masonry, to six-inch spikes used in roof construction. Brass nails are used where corrosion may be an issue, and tiny brads and finishing nails are essential to fine woodworking. Nails are also sometimes coated, and are often galvanized, in order to help counteract the effects of corrosion.

Nails are metric in most parts of the world, where they are described by length and diameter. In the United States, imperial measurements are used, as is a system related to "penny size". A number such as "10d", for example indicates a "ten-penny nail". The larger the number, the longer the nail. The "d" in the name refers to the Roman denarius: a coin similar to a penny.

This system dates back to fifteenth-century England, when the size of the nail was indicated by the cost per hundred nails. Penny nails were sold 100 for a penny, five-penny nails were five pennies per hundred, and so forth. The penny-nail system remained in use in England as well until well into the twentieth century, but is now obsolete there.

Contrary to what the Internet would like me to believe, there is a wealth of nail art beyond the world of salons and acrylic talons. Wooden figures ornamented with nails have been a part of West African ritual and the related Vodou culture for centuries. In Germany and Austria during the First World War, "nail men" were produced as a means of fundraising and propaganda. Nails have also been used to make jewellery and to create large-scale murals and other contemporary forms of visual art.

Nagelfigur (Nail figure), 1915
Photo: Andreas Praefcke, 2007
Collection of the Reiss-Engelhorn Museen,
Mannheim, Germany

For today's elephant, I bought this two-dollar oval plaque to use as a base.

For nails, I used common nails. As you can see by the price on the box, I've had these for a long time.

For a hammer, I used my trusty 16 oz. carpenter's hammer.

I started out thinking I would be brilliant enough not to need a sketch to guide me. As soon as I banged in the first nail, however, I realized that was foolish. So I made a light pencil sketch.

I started by hammering in a few nails. Right away, I could see that this was going to be more challenging than I realized. I've been hammering nails into wood since I was old enough to "help" my Dad, but this was different. I think maybe I was treating the nails a tad too gently at first, because they kept popping out, due to the vibrations caused by hammering in new ones.

I also realized that I wasn't all that great at hammering nails in straight. I'm pretty sure I've been good at hammering straight in the past, but it eluded me today. At first I tried to hit the nails from the side to make them stand up a little straighter, then I realized that it didn't really matter if I viewed it from above.

I continued to hammer nails, forming the ear first.

Next, I worked my way around the head.

In some places, I deliberately overlapped the nails to make a more continuous line; in others, I let them do whatever they wanted.

For the eye and the "jewels" on the elephant's chest, I hammered nails into virtually the same hole to make a more solid shape.

A few tips if you decide to try this:

1. Judge the spacing of your nails by the size of the nail head, but remember that the head will spread slightly when hit. Overlapping nails looks nice if they're common nails like mine, but if you're using headless nails like brads or finishing nails, you may have to plan your spacing more carefully.

2. Pay attention to the grain of your wood. If it's a cheap wood like mine, running too many nails along the same grainline could cause the wood to split. Mine threatened to split in a few places, but if I saw that happening, I simply offset the next nail.

3. Bang the nails in farther than you think they need. It was pretty hard to smack some of the nails back in once they'd popped out, particularly if they were towards the middle of the design.

4. Start from the centre and work your way out towards the edges.

As I mentioned above, this was a bit harder than I expected. It took me a shocking hour and a half to make this—shocking because I can put up a wall full of moulding more quickly.

That being said, I actually enjoyed the process, and particularly liked the way it looked when I overlapped nails and hit them hard enough to make them almost blend together. Next time I would try to make something more elaborate that had shading in addition to an outline, but for now I'm pretty happy with this.

Elephant Lore of the Day
For today's elephant lore, I decided to give in and talk about the other kind of nail art.

In many parts of Asia, there are yearly festivals to honour elephants. Most of these include some sort of parade and beauty contest. The December festival in Sauraha, Nepal is no exception.

In addition to decorating their elephants with bright water-based paint, participants dress the elephants up in rich brocades and silks. The finishing touch is a bright coat of acrylic paint on the elephants' toenails.

Elephant's toenails being painted with acrylic paint, Sauraha, Nepal, December 2011.

To Support Elephant Welfare
Elephant sanctuaries (this Wikipedia list allows you to click through to information
on a number of sanctuaries around the world)

No comments:

Post a Comment