365/2013 - Day 79

trying to add some color

Today I have been trying out some various papers in shades of (mostly) blue to try to give a base color to the bear-like guy.  I will try to tone them down with white papers.

the first few pieces of the marbled blue paper are applied with matte medium

I think I like this look

now some navy blue for the bottoms of his legs

the reverse side of the marbled paper has a sort of tie dye look

now an aqua Unryu paper

you can sort of see the white tissue paper that I have been building up on this guy...the pale blue from his arms up is a tinted gesso

the cats went back to bed this afternoon -- Bootsy gets under the covers

now that the matte medium has dried for a while you can see the tie dye look paper

still a long way to go

365/2013 - Day 54

still working...it'll be a l-o-n-g weekend

I got a lot done on the marsupial...okay, one more little peek.

And the bear-ish creature got a couple of layers of paper from the underarms down.

I realize it doesn't look like it, but a lot of work got done (so far) today and tonight.

365/2013 - Day 52

changes to one of the plaster cloth guys

The bear-ish creature got ball feet and a base tonight.  It makes him much more stable and he looks a little less toy-like.

Believe it or not -- it was much more difficult drilling through the base and screwing into the wooden ball feet than you'd think.  I sure didn't plan on it taking as long as it did.  This is all for tonight -- all I'm showing at least.  The rest is painting.

365/2013 - Day 32

enough with the gesso-ing

Gah -- I think probably no matter how many coats of gesso I put on the cat-ish king that alcohol ink is just going to keep bleeding through.  It is quite a bit lighter, but it is still there.  I think this is plenty enough gesso...maybe the color bleed-through will be interesting with the real paint.

3rd coat of gesso -- still wet

3rd coat of gesso -- dry

4th coat of gesso on cat-ish king -- dry

Note to self:  never, ever spray alcohol inks onto as a first coat...ever.

Four coats of gesso on the cat-ish king is kinda ridiculous.  The bear-ish guy only needed one to cover the dry plaster cloth.

Yikes -- now I need to start thinking about how I want to paint/color/finish these two.

365/2013 - Day 27

Sunday afternoon (and evening) stuff...and lots of printing

I got down to work early this morning by printing out all of the various labels I use for packaging up my Tookies finger puppets for Art-o-mat.  This time around I will be hand gluing all of them with a glue stick.  I am out of Xyron supplies.  I do a label for the top of the box, the two ends of the box (not knowing which end will show up in a column in a machine), a caution note for the side of the box (warning that the finger puppets are not meant for young kids or pets), an info insert (which will be glued to a small MDF block this time), and a new little label that says the block is added as weight for vending).  But all of that comes later...this morning I just did the printing.

In the afternoon I wanted to get to work on plaster cloth...little did I know how long I'd be at it!  I had an idea for legs and a body for the bear-ish creature.  I taped three empty prescription bottles together for each leg.  I added one more bottle to the bottom of the creature's torso.  

Then I took the pieces into the temporary plaster cloth studio and got to work on wrapping the legs and attaching the bottle to the torso.  Next I started to assemble the parts together, filling in the gaps with plaster cloth.

I eventually started to add used paper towels that I had been mopping up dripped plaster cloth water with.  That made a couple of the gaps go more quickly and gave me some form to work with.  THEN I remembered using discarded gloves with the manikin to give it a round belly.  I tried it today with this guy in places where I wanted a rounded look.  It worked great...and now those gloves won't be in a land fill.  (I just re-read this part and it really isn't as gross as it sounds...the "used" paper towels and gloves are just in a bag right where I am working on this stuff and are from the day before.  It's not like I am pulling them out of the icky kitchen trash can.)

It gets a little tricky working with the gloves sections underneath the plaster cloth...you really have to keep working the area and get it pretty wet and smooth it down and add more plaster cloth and keep smoothing and shaping because there is always a small bit of trapped air in the glove parts and I think that is what helps to make the roundy look. 

Then I started alternating between paper towels and glove parts until I got to the point that I thought I could stop for that session.  I am really happy with the bear-ish creature.  He is a lot cuter in person than he is in the photos.  I hope I can come up with a good method of finishing him.

When I got up to dump out the plaster cloth water and clean up the space a little I noticed I didn't see either cat and couldn't hear them.  Quick panicky feeling...did Twink get the door to the basement open?  Did they go outside somehow?  Nope...whew!  Twink and Bootsy both went back to bed -- my bed.

I just had to go back and look at the bear-ish guy one more time...did I mention I am pretty happy with today's results?

Okay...it turned out I was working with the plaster cloth for a little over three and a half hours straight.  Time really does fly when you are having a good time!  I needed to medicate, elevate, and cold-pack myself in my recliner in front of television for a little while.  Then I got down to cutting the labels that I printed this morning.

Some of the labels (like the Tookies picture for the top of the box) need to be cut by hand because I just can't gauge really close cuts with the paper cutter.  After feeding the cats and making my dinner I got set up in front of television again and cut the remainder of the labels.  I think I am done for tonight...unless I get a head start on some of the gluing tonight...but I most likely won't.

All in all, a good day's work -- yay!