365/2013 - Day 88

finishing coats -- drying day

Okay!  I applied the finishing coats to two guys today...now they need to dry.

cat-king-creature, of course

and oh my goodness -- who is THIS guy -- remember him???  I finally got up the nerve to varnish him

wow -- it has been an incredibly long time since we last saw the wowl

365/2013 - Day 87

working on his eyes

First let me say he looks better in person than in the photos.  The rough surface of the plaster cloth has been pretty much hidden everywhere else with layers of art paper(s) and matte medium.  His crown and his eyes are the last of the areas that show the "real" surface texture.  I am a bit torn by this because it is all I can focus on. 

I will still be coating him well with varnish, giving him a satin finish.

early today his eyes are fogged with matte medium -- he still has some of the purple paint on the plaster cloth holding his glass eyes in place -- I cut away as much as I could of the eye plaster cloth but I HAD to leave as much as was left in the end

I started painting with the Payne's Gray acrylic paint painstakingly carefully, holding my breath -- then I thought "geez, let it go" and just worked at making sure I was getting paint into every single crevice and pitted spot

I think he no longer looks cross-eyed at all -- I have lived with many cats who had what looked like either white or black eyeliner around their eyes -- I am very happy with his eyes

I am looking forward to completing this cat-king-creature.  He has been fun, frustrating, and finally -- because he was not made with any particular purpose in mind -- satisfying.

365/2013 - Day 86

another lovely Wednesday Morning with Joan and Leann

Ahhhh...I love Wednesday Mornings when Joan and Leann and I get together.  Today Leann had an activity for us -- folding a sheet of paper in half, dropping watercolors onto it and then blotting it with the other half and then making a picture out of it.  F*U*N!

my second one, but first one to draw on

Leann's, entitled "Lunch"

my first one, but the second to draw on

We worked on our own projects after the activity.  I touched up some of the cat-king-creature paper areas...like inside of his ears and around his ears.  After Joan and Leann left I opened a few windows and used some Liquid Leaf on the cat-king-creature's crown...this stuff is incredibly vapors-y.             I wanted to do it in copper but I tried the Florentine gold on the inside of the crown and then used copper on the outside but the copper looked a little too brown to me so I dry brushed some of the Florentine gold on top of the copper.

Now I still need to clean up his glass eyes and then paint some eyeliner around his eyes.  After he is totally dry I want to varnish him with satin varnish.


ALSO this morning I received my latest William Hessian piece in the mail (Leann brought it in off the porch when she came in.)  I LOVE IT -- now I need to think of how I would like to have it framed.  

still attached to the cardboard it was mailed in

Here is another link for William -- and one for his Etsy shop.

365/2013 - Day 85

this is beginning to try my patience

Oh bother!  I get through a step with the cat-king-creature and think things are going well then BAM the alcohol ink bleeds through from some other impossible place...including from under two-part epoxy.  So I had to switch gears and go from what I thought was going to be paper-to-paint on the paws to paper-to-paint-to-paper-and-lots-of-cover-ups.  This had been a day-long project and I also got the second of three injections in my left knee this afternoon so I am on my last nerve with this whole thing tonight...gah!  Here are the photos -- I am not going to do captions (at least not right now) because I am too frustrated and "done" for tonight.

365/2013 - Day 84

not how I wanted to do this...

...but hopefully it will help.  I painted the alcohol ink bleed-throughs on the cat-king-creature with white acrylic paint.  He is also getting wooden ball feet.  Now I wait while things dry...thoroughly.

I may not re-paper the feet, but I intend to add more paper over the paint on his face.

Perhaps by not re-papering his feet the paint will look blended into his painted wooden ball feet.

365/2013 - Day 83

physically tiring day

It sure doesn't look like I accomplished very much looking at the photos for today, but it feels (physically) like I did...man!  I think that is due mostly to the sawing, going up and down the basement stairs a few times, working in the basement in between studio sessions, using the box cutter knife on the cardboard...stuff like that.  

I started out today adding more paper to the cat-king-creature.  There is still quite a bit to do on him.

first layer of white paper on the face and pink on the nose

lots of layers later...I hope it looks good when it dries

remind me not to get those wonderful alcohol inks ANYwhere NEAR plaster cloth projects ever again...they are just not meant for this...they re-wet and re-activate and bleed through and get in the brush...gah!

looks nice now while it is wet...we'll see how it turns out when it dries

Then I moved on to the bear-like guy.  Ditto...still lots to do.

lots of white paper on the face/muzzle

then one layer of pale blue...hopefully it will dry lighter

I am struggling with the camel-like creature's legs.  They are just not looking right to me.  I know they won't be anatomically correct, but I need them to look like they could support him at least.  I am even having a problem with drawing them in my sketch book while I look at a copy of a real camel or two.  Time for some sawing...then back to the sketch book and thinking.  I have a feeling this guy is going to linger in non-assembled state(s) for a long, long time.

even if I angled his legs severely and used a pool ball joint, he would look like he was on his tip toes and I don't think he could stand on his own

well...I can't get them any shorter -- LOL

I need to make changes to the hips/haunches or something...all of his parts are together...this is just going to be a very long-term project...but I will figure it out

And speaking of very long-term projects...

The crocodile-like guy was the very first thing I tried to make with various papier mache techniques.  I followed a few different books and added things in different styles and then stumbled upon a package of plaster cloth that was in my studio stash from years before this project even.  Out of all of the techniques and methods and formulas plaster cloth won.  I am still learning new things pretty much every time I use it -- I just love it.

ANYway...looking back in the blog I see that I started the crocodile-like guy way back on June 24, 2010 -- geez!  Then he languished again until May 19, 2011.  And then on Sept 7, 2011 I got up the nerve to put him on a tomato cage.

I have been wanting to do something with him (off and on) many times since then, but the main problem is that he is horribly unbalanced and really testing my construction skills.  I think a lot of the projects that get shelved for a while are supposed to wait until I've learned other things/tricks/steps while working on totally different things.  I don't know everything there is to know about plaster cloth (and I probably never will) but I sure am enjoying the process.  I am really glad to have blogged this long and photographed as many steps as I have because it really helps me when I try to see what I did on previous pieces and remember what worked and honestly, I really do forget from project to project how things went together.

Okay -- so today my Universal collaborator(s) started to show me a few things for the croco-creature.

sticking out of the closet in the wet plaster cloth studio

sort of what I might be going for -- the idea comes from one of my all-time favorite Tyrannosaurus Rex songs "Warlord of the Royal Crocodiles" -- I think the staff in his hand might help a little with the balance and weight distribution

while working in the basement I decided to go "shopping" when I was done with my chores down there -- voila! -- I still had two sets of flexible aluminum clothes dryer vent ducts and dryer vent elbows (yes, I looked up the correct names for them)

at first I thought I might put the "arm" assembly right there in the roundy part -- but the other side isn't as roundy

I traced around one end of a dryer vent elbow on a piece of medium-weight cardboard from a box I'd broken down earlier, then I cut it with the box cutter in pie shape wedges but I found it wouldn't make a round enough hole -- so I had to make more cuts -- and that worked incredibly well

trying it out

the two vent pieces are cool because you can position them any way you want -- they turn completely around in every direction -- and I can stretch the arms out longer if it turns out I need to later on

in all the time this guy has been waiting around, he has fallen over a few times...but this is the only damage that has happened -- just one broken glow-in-the-dark tooth -- and thankfully it was a clean break -- easily fixed when the time comes

geez...what a goofy shot

from this view you can see the container of about 10 pounds of cat litter to counterbalance him

since he is a Royal Crocodile he will need a crown...this is my first attempt at a plaster cloth crown...made several years ago

but I made it for ME...plus, it is too big for the croco-creature

a better look at the counterweight sitting on the back of the tomato cage

thinking...

he will need hands...

and a staff of some sort

Okay -- I took a break for a while...then I went to check on the drying status of the cat-king-creature and the bear-like guy.  

not bad...still needs a lot of work, but he is coming along fine

whoa -- now THIS is disappointing -- that alcohol ink is bleeding through from somewhere -- there must be a trace of it in the brush or something -- there was NO alcohol ink on this part of the face when I started this morning -- gah!

again -- more alcohol ink bleed through -- I might be able to live with some of this on the paws...maybe not

That's enough for one day...I have a lot to think about!