Today I have been thinking about Grammy and how I'd like to finish her. I think she needs a few tweaks (like fixing her broken tail, rounding off one of her shoulders and rolled up cuffs) and then I'd like to change her face a bit. I need to look at pictures of canine-like creatures...I have trouble making a dog or wolf sort of face. Even if I manage to sketch something I mostly like, I can't seem to transfer that simple line drawing into 3D nose/face...I can't get it to balance and look like what I'm seeing in m head. Not that other creatures I've made are all that close to what I have in mind...but you know what I'm saying. For some reason dogs and wolves and foxes and guys along those lines with long pointy noses are especially difficult for me...but I am driven to make them.
Here are some photos of me trying to work out a face shape. I just grab what's handy from the table, so I tried a piece of cardboard tube (that the hands dried on yesterday)...not so much. Then I used cut up pieces of yesterday's vinyl gloves...uh-uh. Then one of my favorite standbys -- Scott paper rags...better...getting there...but still not quite. But I think at this point Grammy is looking a little more fox/dog/wolf like ... with a little bit of bear thrown in. It'll come eventually. And maybe this would be a good time to try out the Aves Clayshay vs more plaster cloth...just on her face shape.
Taking photos from different angles helps me "see" better because a lot of the time things look pretty good while I am working on them...then when I look at the photos I see what the camera is seeing and it is usually more accurate at capturing what I am missing. Other times the point-and-shoot doesn't really "see" what I am trying to get it to focus on and it is a little frustrating...but mostly it is pretty helpful (to me) to do it this way.
I need to give Grammy some time and I need to look at more real life creatures and hopefully the "right" blend will come together. I like Grammy a lot...and ha -- I am trying not to pre-stress about painting her...not yet at least.
Also today --
This morning and early afternoon was spent relocating some ceramic tiles and ornaments. I am tired of blank green walls in my studio bathroom (my bathroom). I have trouble hanging the lovely, heavy, thick art tiles with notches in them -- I worry that they will fall off the wall and break. It has happened before, so I kind of steer away from buying too many more -- as much as I love ceramic tiles and the work of a lot of local artists -- I have trouble with the hanging notches. I usually get around this by using velcro dots on each corner of the tile, but the bathroom gets steamed up pretty often and I worry that it will start to effect the velcro's adhesiveness. The floor in the bathroom is vinyl composite tiles so it isn't as hard as a ceramic tile floor if they do fall off the wall, but I really don't like taking the chance.
I've also got a couple of shaped ceramic pieces I want to add to the bathroom "gallery" but they need to be pieced back together...gah. I will get to it. One of those broken pieces is a totally-not-flat sort of platter that I made in the old ceramics class that we all went to in Southfield. I really love this piece but at the time I wasn't thinking of how I would display it...it was just sort of coming together as I went along with it. It is made of some bits and scraps of clay that I put powdered glaze into to color the clay. These glazes were donated to the ceramics class and we were just sort of using them
at our own risk" because the instructor didn't have any information about the mystery packets. It was pretty cool but this platter is going to be difficult when I finally get it pieced back together. If I use a plate hanger (that I hate...but most of my old tiles were just flat unglazed tiles that I embellished with underglazes and one of those would put too much stress/pressure on the repaired spots I think -- plus I really dislike those hangers...again, I got around using them on the ones in my dining room by using going with the velcro dots...but they are relatively lighter weight...{start going around in circles here}). It'll work out...it'll all work out.
But here are a few shots of the progress so far...including three of my old tiles and a strange old metal Capricorn piece that I bought on eBay years ago. Man -- this Capricorn guy had a teensy tiny hanging notch that is nearly impossible to work with. I wasn't going to put him where he is, but if he falls in that corner he won't hurt anything else when he lands...LOL. It is a kind of creepy cool piece but I like him.
I am ka-ray-zee for Laurie Eisenhardt's work to begin with...but an added bonus that I adore is that Laurie fires a wire into her pieces as well as having a notch. For someone like me this is such an appreciated detail! The dream solution would be to grout all of the beautiful ceramic tiles and other ceramic shapes into place with other/even more pieces...like a wonderful installation...but that is never going to happen. I'm the only person who uses this bathroom and I am enjoying getting stuff up on the walls!
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