365/2013 - Day 104

it's getting there...

Maybe there is still a very slight chance I could consider this guy for submission still...I don't know.

Baby steps today in painting the raised (plaster cloth-covered glass disks) dots.  That was a challenge because of the angles and surfaces...wow...but it's getting there.

I don't  know...I don't know and I just don't know.  Yet.

365/2013 - Day 103

more painting...then decisions

Today I have been working at painting the sugar glider-creature throughout the day and night.  And finally -- at nearly 11 o'clock tonight -- I decided for sure that I am just not going to be able to finish him the way I'd like to in time for the upcoming show I was aiming for.  I will still finish him, but at a slower pace.

He has gone in a couple of different directions today/tonight but I think I have finally hit on the theme I like the best...it is just going to take a while for me to achieve it.

Also today I spent a lot of (frustrating) time trying to photograph a couple of other pieces for the same show.  Tomorrow I will go back to it with a couple of other pieces.  After that I will choose what I want to submit for consideration and then put the CD together and hope for the best.

365/2013 - Day 102

Okay...I'm goin' in...

I'm taking the plunge and painting the sugar glider-creature's face tonight.  Gulp.  Lots of holding of breath.  

before

mini sneak peek -- LOTS more to do on his face -- last sneak peak of this guy until I decide if he is being submitted to an upcoming exhibit

365/2013 - Day 100

whew -- dots are done!

I finished the dots on the sugar glider-creature's side panels today!  

This was another lovely Wednesday Morning with Joan and Leann...my dots started here this morning.

The cobalt teal (or teal cobalt?) dots are done on this side!

Next I am closing the design with deep violet dots.

The deep violet dots surround the entire design and rein them all in.

Light blue violet dots are in interior spaces only.

Yikes...next up will be the face!

365/2013 - Day 99

still painting (dot, dot, dot)

Back to work on painting the sugar glider-creature.

Side two of the yellow dots.

As I was painting around the first circle today I found myself counting each dot.

I decided to write the count down and add them up when I was done with this side.

408

Tonight I turned the sugar glider-creature back over to side one and added cobalt teal dots.  I didn't count them.

365/2013 - Day 98

back to it

Dots.  That's all I can think about right now.

365/2013 - Day 96

making progress

I am very happy to have found the picture of the sugar glider that I thought I lost.  This was the rather remarkable (to me) image of a sugar glider that suddenly made my plaster cloth creature with the big eyes seem not so out of the ordinary...(at least the face/overall look).  There actually IS a real life creature that sort of looks like this...and I had no idea it existed. And I stumbled onto it when I was thinking of making a marsupial for an online show and I Google'd marsupial and Australia and that image was in the results and I was startled to see my guy that had been evolving into this form for such a long time.

and also today...

I finally got up the nerve to try to add the last bit of shading to my foxish-creature collage.  I think it is done...but here is a sneak peek.

365/2013 - Day 95 (part two)

more painting

I kept walking past the sugar glider-creature and stressing about how I was going to proceed with the painting and the dots.  Then I just said "this is going to get away from you and you will not have enough time to finish before the submission deadline if you don't just DO something...anything."

So I did.

I printed out four sugar glider pictures and I squeezed out a little white, black and Payne's gray and just tried not to think about it.  Then "they" arrived and I kinda trance out and everything was fine.

Now I have something to work on.  The dots will show up better on the lighter color field.  I wasn't too concerned with how precise I was/wasn't around the circles and dots because the next layer of dots will butt right up to the ocher dots.  It will be interesting to see what comes next over the grayish base.

I prefer the gray(er) sugar glider colors over the beige(r) ones.  Obviously this is not meant to be an actual sugar glider.  I didn't even know what one looked like when I was making this guy...he just sort of evolved into his present form...then when I was trying to do something for an online show of marsupials I saw my first sugar glider and man -- it sure reminded me of this guy.  I had heard the name sugar glider before, I just didn't know what they looked like and I sure didn't know they were marsupials.  Anyway...that's his back story (the short version).

365/2013 - Day 95

painting the other side of the sugar glider-creature

Now that I have the first layer of ocher dots completed I need to start thinking of where to go from here.  I am hoping to get this to a finished enough state to photograph it for submission to my favorite local annual juried exhibition.  Fingers crossed!

starting on this side of the creature today -- I want/need to stay even with both sides

the dots are not this yellow -- they are ocher not lemony sun

this is much closer to the actual color

now what???

365/2013 - Day 94

back to carving again

Today I tried carving some small circles to use to make the billion dots in the sugar glider-creature's design.  I also (from a suggestion by Leann) tried making teensy stencils by using a paper punch and the stiff part of a self-laminating pouch.

and then....painting

Tonight I tried them out...as well as a flat rounded sponge brush, and the eraser end of a pencil.

nope

nope

nuh-uh

not this either

yeah...no

What I ended up using was a broken in half cotton swab.

Tomorrow I will go back in and tidy up some of the rougher dots.  And so begins the journey of adding bout fifty billion dots to this painted plaster cloth surface!