2015 | Day 5 (part two)

Day Five (part two)

Geez.  I need to walk away from this guy for tonight.  Another three hours straight of digging, setting, digging, repeat, repeat, repeat...I really don't think it is going to get any better.  It isn't bad -- but I just noticed it looks like he has a lazy eye...gah!  Okay.  He might need a corrective monocle in the end -- at least a distracting one.

Where I started from -- looking back I probably should have just left it alone but it really bothered me.

Wetting...digging...etc.

Pop!

Wetting, digging...repeat, etc.

The first try.

What I was worried about...plaster cloth soaking up too much water...and yet, the opening still wasn't right.

Second try.

Third try -- getting closer.  At least the two eyes are at about the same level now.

Okay...this is the last try. 

In place and drying.  I will worry about it later or tomorrow.

DONE for now!

2015 | Day 5 (part one)

Day Five (part one)

Man.  I can tell this is going to be at least a two-part blog post for today...at least.

I have been working on adjusting the plaster cloth rabbit guy's wonky eye ALL DAY and it is still not right.  It is better than it was, but it is nowhere near right yet.  There are several main problems and most of them go back to where I was when I built his head to the point it is at now.  This guy has been so many different guys/shapes...and that comes from him being a really really early plaster cloth project that I have been trying to improve on as I become more used to working with plaster cloth.  This guy was really creepy scary at one point and with that in mind I am quite pleased with where he is now.  I have no sculptural training and plaster cloth has its quirks and works better in some applications than others...but I really love it. So -- onwards and upwards.

I started out late this morning by realizing that the very main problem is that his right (looking at him-wise) eye is too far forward on the right edge.  First I tried taking off some of the rounded part of the plaster cloth that was left behind when I popped his eye off the other day.

I sat the eye back on the spot and worked with it and then decided the rounded part needed even more flattening.

Then I put the eye back to check...and yes, at first glance it is much better...but looking at it at several angles you can still see that it isn't right.

I dug out more of the plaster cloth and I hit what felt like glass. I dug a little further and yep, it was the original flat glass disc eye that I painted and had totally forgotten about.  I figured the other eye had to be sitting on the same sort of thing so I tried setting the eye in and positioning it again...hoping they'd be closer to the same spot now.

Again...better, but not really.  I pulled off the new plaster cloth and tried again...digging in all the way to the old original flat eye.  I did this two more times, making the area bigger each time but I think I need to stop for now because it is getting really frustrating.  I patched up the right (to me) eye and later on this evening I will come back and try to match the other eye to the newly worked on one.

I am not sure this guy will be salvageable for what I had in mind but I am still going to try for the rest of the night.  The flat glass discs are too far underneath the plaster cloth head to dig them out completely.  Those discs are really large.

Another thing is that the entire head (heck, the entire body) is not at all symmetrical.  I am not strong with mirror images and repeating something closely after I make one (or one side).  I know the sculpt will never be "perfect" and really, I wouldn't want it to be.  The head/face makes me laugh when I am working on it because it is like someone came along and put their hand over his face and gave it a slight turn...it is sort of swirly.  I think I can even out his nose and mouth but -- for me -- part of his charm is his imperfection.  Having said that, I still need to try to make him even enough to feel good about.

2015 | Day 4

Day Four

Today I met up with Juana and Franciney and we went on to the Scarab Club to meet up with Terri and Lisa -- I needed to pick up my blue guy from the Gold Medal Show.

Treena with Juana, Franciney, Terri, and Lisa.

Then we all piled into my car to go to lunch.  The first place we had in mind was packed so we ended up at our #2 choice (Juana, Franciney, and I had never been there) -- Green Dot Stables.  We had a short wait for a table and then a really delicious lunch with lots of great conversation. 

2015 | Day 3

Day Three

It started early this morning, before I was even out of bed.  I started thinking about the plaster cloth rabbit guy.  I was thinking about fixing his eyes...he isn't all that far from done, contstruction-wise, but I have been putting off working on him.  This morning I started to get ideas.  

I did a lot of listening and thinking today.  I looked at a lot of tutorials about sculpting eyes and about air dry clay and about setting in glass eyes.  I really thought at one point late this evening that I would be using the air dry clay...but not yet.  I feel like this is still too large of an area and I am too unfamiliar with the material.  Whatever...the main thing I needed to do tonight was remove those eyes so I can start over with them...they (or at least one of them) is not "aimed" right.

I brought the plaster cloth rabbit guy into Studio A tonight because the lighting is better in here.  Daytime is okay in the other studio.

His eyes are just not "aimed" right.  One might be able to stay...not sure.

My tools for the job.

Lots and lots of wetting of the area to soften up the plaster cloth -- then the very careful digging begins.

Hey -- this stuff pulls right off.   (sometimes)

...a bit more...

...now the other eye...

...more digging and pulling and...

...HA!  I won!  (I think I will try to match the removed eye to the eye that is still in place...I think.)

I have also been holding my breath and "painting" on the tree trunks in the mostly red collage.  I could not even begin to figure out what the lighter color was blended with so I half-started over.  I am not terribly sure this is how they will end up, but I am done with painting for tonight.  Not too bad considering...this is going to take a long, long time.  But that is okay since this collage has been sitting untouched for a couple of years.

The area "before".

Trying to figure out the colors...then just starting over.

Not too bad...for now...but definitely not done.

 

2015 | Day 2

Day Two

Today I worked on the mostly red collage.  I bought some Prismacolor Magic Rub erasers today when I was grabbing a new calendar.  I think the eraser helped about a smidge -- these lines are really old -- the Magic Rub probably works much better on fresher marks.

before

after

Next I defined the new big cat guy...now I am starting to get a feel for what he looks like.

first, with light pencil marks...

...then with a black Prismacolor pencil.

And I darkened the long legs guy.

I am still afraid to touch this guy -- he is my very favorite character in the collage.

I LOVE this bear guy -- he has a sort of David McPhail feel about him, to me...and I could not believe it when it first surfaced in this collage.  There is no way I could sit and draw that.  I am really worried I will mess it up.

I am not sure exactly how the leaves all got so black.  They started out bright gold.  This is the same sheet of paper they came from and the leaves on it have not tarnished.  The blackened leaves on the collage have all of the details in them, they are just black.  I may end up adding some of the gold leaves to the collage to fill in spaces where I have taken guys out.

Original sheet of paper with gold leaves on the left, blackened collage leaves on the right.

Hard to see in this photo, but the blackened leaves are very detailed still.

Also tonight I added some interference blue Perfect Pearls powder to Biteyou's orb glow.  It is very hard to see the difference in the photo, but in person you can just barely detect it and it does make a difference.  It kind of blends the elements together...with teensy little specks of color that really match the paint well.

2015 | Day 1

Day One

Tonight I pulled out one of the very first collage'd over canvases that I started several years ago.  I wanted to see if I could make a little more progress on it somewhere.

I sat with it for a few minutes then I decided to try to remove some elements I no longer feel very committed to.

I will keep the trees and the blue devil guy.  I am also very fond of the cat/fox guy who is carrying a sort of patchwork dog/cat under his arm.  I do not like the two large guys to the left of him.

I was able to erase the two guys to the left of the cat/fox guy.  I can still see the essence of them but they are pretty much erased.

Next I emphasized the long-legged creature and erased the bird that was partially covering the long-legged guy's legs and the unpainted parts of the two trees.  I darkened the tree trunks to prepare for painting.

After all of that erasing I tried pulling off the print of the carved creature that was just not right for this canvas.  It actually came off more easily than I expected it to.  Then, when I was just about done, I could start to see some sort of large catlike creature who is looking to the right.  I will work on him more.

And this is where I am stopping for tonight.  Mostly because I get pretty tense about trying to paint on this particular canvas/collage because I am not very skilled at painting and I am worried I will lose the guys that I can still see here.  I am not very skilled with shading and shadows and I am going to give it a go...I was very lucky with the blue devil guy...hopefully I can salvage the rest of the characters, too.

How it looks so far.