Tonight I cleared a path to the table in the wet studio -- enough space to work on the rabbitish guy. I don't know how committed I am to this guy yet but here are the important parts of this activity (for me):
- I cleared up some of the clutter, sorted things into a box, and took it to the basement
- I got my hands back into plaster cloth
- I tried working in a method I haven't tried until tonight
- I feel like I did something
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| I cleared enough space to work! |
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| This is the second pair of glass gems I painted with that show in mind and then I decided not to submit anything to it after all. These eyes are not necessarily something I would usually paint...I prefer to use taxidermy eyes now. I needed eyes in a color palette that would have fit that show. I sort of like these eyes, but I'm not sure about them. |
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| The glass gem eyes are flat on the bottom...the old plaster cloth eyes are round. The glass gems are not the same exact size, they don't match very well. The centers are not centered very well -- I was thinking I could shape the look of them once the plaster cloth was on. In the meantime, I had a lot of space to fill in with plaster cloth and I still have a lot of head reshaping to do. |
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| The first side went pretty quickly. I tried something that I haven't done with the plaster cloth before. I got the triangles really wet, folded/bunched/wadded them up and did not take any of the water out of the wads. I crammed the very wet wadded plaster cloth into the gaps, like you might do with clay, and then smoothed it. |
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| Here is an example of what I am talking about -- before I smoothed it. |
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| I was just trying to fill in and shape as I went along -- instead of finding a shape to drape plaster cloth over. |
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| Not too bad for a first try with odd eyes. |
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| But I don't really like it after looking at it for a little while. They have a little bit of personality (I guess), but I am not fond of the color and various things it could suggest. I'm not sure what he is yet, but I know he isn't an insomniac, a substance abuser, a serial killer/bad monster guy, rabid, etc...that's what they suggest to me. |
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| Luckily my utility knife was handy and I popped the second eye out pretty easily. The other side was set a little harder already and I had to dig a bit more and use a screwdriver to get underneath the glass gem. |
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| This is the first set I tried to paint to fit the palette. I actually like how they look better than the red ones. However, they also do not match -- you can see how much different these are. The red ones are closer to the same shape -- these aren't even close. |
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| I set them into the vacant spaces and kept turning them until they looked fairly even and like they were looking in the same direction -- as much as was possible...LOL. |
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| This is a little better but I needed to stop for tonight. I didn't want the head to get any bigger right now. These eyes are about as straight as they are going to get. Eyelids will help a lot. |
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| Or who knows -- I have a whole bunch of wonderful taxidermy eyes now. If I start to get attached to this guy I might give him better eyes. For now, the home made painted glass gems are okay -- it is still a learning/practicing project at this point. |
Before I worked on the studio and the plaster cloth rabbitish guy I worked a little bit on the stitching of the felted flower. I am trying to concentrate on making even, decorative stitches.
And this morning (and during the earlier part of the afternoon) I finished up the work on the next ten Tookies.
Today's Tookies progress: Finger puppets 31-40 (of 100) got eyes, eyelashes, mouths, side seams, bottom basting for the edges, and soft edges.
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| I work on the Tookies finger puppets in batches of ten -- these are 31-40 (of 100). It takes a day to do the ears/horns and then the next day I can usually do the eyes, eyelashes, and mouths...then take a break for a bit. |
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| And then go back to them and add the side seam and baste the bottom hem/edge and then add the soft edge at the bottom. |
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