365/2013 - Day 41

I did it!

I was pretty wrecked for most of the morning -- yesterday took more out of me than I realized.  I almost didn't work on stuff today but I knew I had to if I wanted to keep on schedule.  I gave myself until around 11:30 this morning and then I forced myself to get to it.  Now I am glad I did.

Even though I only had these two guys left to work on, I knew I was in for another full day.

I figured I was either going to do just a few glass gems on the snake or do a whole lot of them.

 

Then I took a break for a quick lunch and cold pack on my back.  After lunch I felt remarkably refreshed and I knew I needed to dive back in or it wasn't going to get done by my self imposed deadline.

The marsupial guy was started a l-o-n-g time ago and has been many different projects before this incarnation.  His base (under all his current stuff) is where I first tried out using the glass gems under the plaster cloth...only I used the large ones.  Today I knew I wanted to add more of them, I just wasn't sure where or how many.

As often happens, I got set up to work still not sure what I was going to do.  Then he pretty much started making himself (aka my Universal collaborators dropped in).

This time I laid him down flat on the table and laid out the large glass gems.  Instead of using small plaster cloth triangles to attach each gem I used one large piece to cover all of them at once.  I still needed to do the individual stuff, but it was cool to secure them all in place at once.  It seemed to work pretty well.

I worked on his other surfaces with him in the flat position, then I stood him back up to work on his arms and put on some more smaller gems on his chest/neck area.

I wasn't expecting to do anything to his chest but I like it.  Painting all of these guys is something I am not looking forward to.  

Next up -- while all of the plaster cloth is drying -- I need to finish this guy.  He needs a face and to get his head attached...at least.  But that won't be happening tonight!

365/2013 - Day 35

not quite there yet, but definitely getting closer

I have been avoiding getting back to work on the Atomic Fireball Happy Hour guy -- I needed to fill out his face in front of his ears and a bit by his jaw.  He also needed eyes.

Since I don't have any taxidermy eyes for him I looked around in the studio for something I could maybe build an eye with.  I grabbed some bottle caps of various shapes and sizes and then I remembered the little toy capsule that came in the chocolate eggs Sue and I got today.  The tops of the capsules were great!  But the cats had taken one of them and it took a while, but I found it!

I was trying to coax my Universal collaborators to join me but I wasn't feeling them so I at least started the prep work of cutting the plaster cloth triangles and getting the area ready and getting the hot water.  I also played around with the idea of using this wonderful striped cone that Ingrid Dijkers gave me from a project she did that she didn't need anymore.  I love it as a hat on this guy but it also makes the piece four and a half feet tall and -- for various reasons -- I don't think I can deal with the problems involved in transporting something that size right now.  I even tried making a mock up of a smaller version...nah...it is the stripey cone that makes it.  I will find the right project for it eventually.

I wanted to use more plastic bags, etc.  I tried wadding the pieces up again and taping them in place but nothing was working.  I couldn't get the sides anywhere close to even.  Then they arrived!  I/we took the wads off (my right) side of the head and I/we snatched up a wad, pulled off the tape and just balled the plastic up a little.  Using one hand the plastic was held in place while my other hand picked up a larger plaster cloth triangle and got it reeeeeally wet and just laid it on top of the wad and held my hand there for a few seconds...no smoothing, just holding it and feeling how it felt...then the plaster cloth was smoothed out and I picked up another piece and did the same thing in a slightly different spot to anchor the plastic wad.  With this handful I got more of a sense of the round feeling I was looking for.  Hmmm... 

Then we did the eyes differently than we've done them before.  I/we just held the capsule top in place and started laying and smoothing the tiny plaster cloth triangles...anchoring and smoothing as the cap was covered.  Normally I would sit and cover both caps and set them aside to dry a little, filling in the underside, too.  But I decided not to fight the urge to do it the other way and just gave into tonight's way of doing things.

I wasn't able to take any photos of the making of this side -- I was too busy listening -- but here is how it turned out.

Wow.  It still needs some work in spots -- but wow.

Here is the other side.

Again...there are still areas that need to be blended in.  I am really very pleased with the way this turned out tonight.  And it is fairly symmetrical again...yay!

This guy is truly a collaboration...I mean it.

365/13 - Day 34

working on plaster cloth guys

Today I got started early working with plaster cloth which is pretty unusual -- plaster cloth seems to be primarily a late-afternoon-to-late-into-the-night activity for me.

The Universal collaborators dropped in at around 10:15 this morning and started poking at me.  By 10:30 I was wrist-deep in plaster cloth...trying to round off the Atomic Fireball Happy Hour guy's head.  I ended up using a lot of plastic bags and wrappers to give me a basic shape to build on -- including all of that discarded plastic wrap that I used to protect the manikin yesterday.

Not too bad.  I still need to do the sides of his head in front of his ears and maybe part of his jaw area.  I am surprised it is as even as it is.

I was also surprised to look back through the blog and find that I was working on this guy way back on November 29, 2011 -- it looks like that is the day he got his antlers/branches.  See that blog entry here.

Shortly after I was done with that session of plaster cloth I came into the studio to go through my collages that are in progress.  I chose the most recent one (it started out as a painting of lemons).  I have been having trouble seeing anything in it but today when I stood it up by the door and turned it one time it was instantly obvious that this is another dog.  Wow.  I don't know how I missed it before.

I started adding in some faint pencil lines and then I printed out a couple of copies to draw on.  I am playing around with two or three ideas right now, but here is the basic look.

And then later on in the afternoon I needed to work on plaster cloth again.  I thought I was going to get back to the branchy guy but I just wasn't feeling it.  Instead I worked on strengthening all of the parts of the guy from last night with the long horns.  He got at least four layers of plaster cloth on all of the sides of his torso, then I worked on the joins for his legs and arms, then I moved on to the face and neck and head.  His torso was as smooth as his face when I first started out.  I may go back and smooth it out again when I put the next layer of plaster cloth on his horns...but maybe by then I will have come up with more of a back story for him and he may want to have an uneven surface.  Dunno yet.

Oh -- I also gesso coated the manikin this afternoon.  I might have an idea for him now...yay.  

And here are all of the plaster cloth guys drying together tonight.

365/2013 - Day 33

whoa -- I sure didn't see that coming!

I swear -- these two guys made themselves.  This was a totally unannounced and surprise visit from my Universal collaborators.  

I started today with simply wanting to add papers to the manikin to tone down the shiny paint and try to blend some colors.  I chose three pieces of unryu paper and grabbed the matte medium and a paint brush.  I tore the paper into little pieces and got to work.

Then I wanted to see if I could get this guy's belly to be some shades of yellow, so I kept layering on little pieces of light yellow paper.

And I set the manikin back on the shelf to dry.  I was going to check back later to see how the color was coming along as the paper dried.

Then I was looking at the manikin and -- even though I liked it before -- I was no longer happy with his face.  I was having a hard time picturing his muzzle area.  I wanted to make his nose longer (I think).

I folded and shaped a piece of one of the gloves I was wearing during the matte medium and papers session and taped it in place.  

Yep -- the manikin definitely wanted to be something else.  But I needed to keep his new yellow belly dry.

Okay...I may have overwrapped him a bit but I really wanted to stop the plaster cloth from dripping all over him.

I ended up having to work on him in an upside down position.  It also helped to let the shape take its own form.  I think this step also invited the Universal collaborators in because from that point on this guy was making himself.

Wow -- this is just not something I would have thought to do on my own.  I like it a lot.  I took him into the studio to let him dry in there so that I wouldn't be tempted to try to add even more to him later.

AND his belly is looking nice and yellow (so far).

Next I turned my attention to this guy.  All I was going to do was plaster cloth the arms in place and add the two wooden balls as a base for hands.

Yes, one of the little pink arms was noticeably shorter than the other.  At one point I was considering making arms that went up in a "hands up" sort of position but I gave up on it.  But before I knew what was happening, it was seeming like a really good idea to grab a different tube (one closer to the right length) and then turn it up a little.

Cool...looks good.  I did the other hand and arm and then YOW -- suddenly I was adding a very long horn to his head!  Where the heck did that come from?  I have made horns before, but nothing like this.

Things were happening much too quickly to take photographs.  The second horn made itself pretty quickly.

Frankly, I am really surprised by these horns.  I am astonished at how symmetrical they are (I generally have a super hard time with symmetry and making mirror images, etc.)

Okay, I am not calling this a fabulous piece of fine art.  But I am saying that it is so not something I would normally do.  If I had planned those horns they would be very curly or going at odd angles...or they'd have some sort of twisted surface design.  They'd be hard to deal with later.  These horns should be "easy" to paint...no turning myself upside down or painting from really difficult positions.

After I cleaned up the area and tossed out the plaster cloth water I came back in and set this guy into a plastic storage container to dry -- to keep him away from the wall and let the air circulate.  It is kind of cracking me up how it looks like he is hovering over the table.

I came back into the studio to upload the photos to my computer and while I was choosing the pictures for this blog entry I started to get really, really sleepy.  I mean I was totally exhausted -- as if I had taken some major sedatives.  I knew I had better make some notes for myself about how the horns were built or I would never remember.  Good thing I did that because now (several hours later) I am not so sure I could repeat the process without checking the notes.  (I am not going to type them out...the photo will be enough to come back and read.  It is saved in a couple of different places.  Maybe at some point I will transcribe the notes into my sketchbook...but not now.)

Okay!  Enough for one day!  Wow.