finishing up inner cloth mache steps

Well...this is going to take quite a while to dry!

I propped the jaws open with a hanger to get a basic idea of what the head will look like.

I completed the inner jaw and tongue cloth mache and there are a lot of folds that need to dry out. I did this last night and I can still see a lot of very wet glue on the cloth. It is pretty humid here still (although better than the last few days).



I need to keep the hanger in place to get the tongue to dry out and to keep it from sticking to the teef.



























This is an upside down view of the upper jaw -- see all of those folds and wet glue?


















Next step: painting the inside of the jaws and tongue.

More teef work

For the last few days I have been tearing sheets, wrapping teef with glue-soaked cloth strips, washing my hands, checking my work against the photos in the book I am following, getting frustrated because of the amount of figuring-it-out-myself-ness there is and finally adding my own ideas. Whew.

This part of the process makes the jaw really wet and it made me nervous the first day that the thing was going to loose its basic shape. But it seems to be drying okay.

The upper jaw was done first. I am hoping that new layers of wet cloth will stick to this stuff when it is dry and hard. It is drying with little air pockets where you have to make a crease/fold to get smooth edges next to the teeth.













So today when I was working on the lower jaw, at the end I added on flat strips to try and hold the creases down. It seems to be mostly working, but parts are still popping up a bit.






























I should have put the larger inside sheets and also covered and placed the tongue but I had to leave the house. I guess I will do that later tonight. I think it will be okay because the inside and tongue need to be done at the same time so they stick together.


I am not all gung-ho dead set on making an army of creatures using this guy's methods. But I will probably use some of the stuff I am learning when I make my "real" project. All in all I am fairly pleased with my progress so far, considering I haven't done papier mache before. We'll have to see how the rest goes.

Progress with the teef positioning

I have all of the teef in position now. I am pretty happy with the way things are turning out so far.














Today I will be doing the pre-cloth mache on the inside of the jaws...wrapping the teef, tongue and insides.



























My sister and brother-in-law held the jaws in approximate place for this picture.

Teef!

Another "first" for me today...working with Fimo polymer clay. AND this is the kind that glows in the dark. So funny. It really, really glows brightly.

I couldn't get a good photo of the glowing teef in the dark with this camera, so I tweaked the photo as well as possible to give the idea of the effect. They glow a yellowy green (with no pink). (Guess what -- I am not a digital photo person, either...add it to my long list of "I'm not's"...LOL)


they are that bright in the dark, though!



















UPDATE: Oooh...I put the first few bottom teef in place.

A journey into papier mache

This is "Round 2" of my first attempt at making something out of papier mache. I have wanted to make something large for a very long time. I'm not sure why...I just need to.

"Round 1" consisted of me trying to follow photographs from a book. It was helpful, but I am not very adept at making three dimensional things AND I am not at all good at reading diagrams or photographs and having my hands/brain follow through. I need to be shown "in person". (I tossed out the limbs of the monster I was making, but I will be able to use the other spare parts for this project.)


Luckily, I found the videos that the author of the book put on his blog! This helped quite a bit. I have a better understanding now of how much to compact/compress the newspaper into balls, how to put two or more together to make a larger piece/different shape, etc. Hopefully he will continue his videos and complete all the steps! (This is pretty much my first journey into papier mache...we never got to do this in grade school or high school.)

This head was made before I found the videos, though. But now I "get" what went wrong. I think I will be able to work around my errors and complete the head/trophy following the rest of the book.

This is going to be some sort of mixed beast. A combination croc/ruminant/equine/something.

The eyes will be set far back to the left of the photo examples...probably near that blue circle. (Or not.) We'll have to see how it develops...

new look for this blog

After looking at about a billion different template/background/color combinations today, I have mostly decided that this will do.

what is going to delay the Etsy store...

I am apparently incapable of making a banner.

This is going to take a while.

UPDATE: I ended up using a "banner generator" and came up with a couple of passable banners. SOME day I will make a permanent one...or have one made.

There...now you can all rest easier for knowing this. Geez, Took.

Opening an Etsy Store

I am finally going to do it -- I'm going to open an Etsy store.

The first items will be a few collaborative collage/paintings by Kettle (John Soukup) and me.

It will take a few weeks for me to figure it out and get it going, but here are a few of the items that will be available.

KT Goodlove # 149 and 150

Wow -- 150 collaborative collage blocks in three editions. Pretty cool!

This is the first time I have participated in a 2-block piece. It sure looked to me like this could have been one of those Kettle 2-to-4 block "sets" that he sometimes does. The blocks look good alone, but they actually go together to make a larger piece.

It seemed to me that the background lined up on these blocks, so I tried to make one large picture and still keep it so that the single blocks would make some sort of sense if they get separated.

That's why there is no Animal Person -- I couldn't place one to make "sense" (as if Animal People make sense to begin with) because I would have needed to make the separation in the middle of a face...or send a limb flying off onto the other block. Believe me, I tried to do it...LOL.

I like this end result and will most likely end up buying it myself -- just to have it in the Kettle and KT Goodlove collections I am amassing -- and because I am fairly certain it isn't likely to happen again.

These are blocks #149 & #150 in the Kettle and Took collaboration series KTGoodlove for Art-o-mat®. They complete the third edition of KT Goodlove!

KT Goodlove # 148

"They only did it to say they'd done it."

Yeah, like that fixes it.

This is block #148 in the Kettle and Took collaboration series KTGoodlove for Art-o-mat®.

KT Goodlove # 147

"the vibe is big - the room is small"

I can't tell who is saying that...and I like it.

This is block #147 in the Kettle and Took collaboration series KTGoodlove for Art-o-mat®.

KT Goodlove # 146

"wait -- what???"

Tennis balls, a bird, a cat jumping at the bird and balls, and she's on the phone. So distracting.





This is block #146 in the Kettle and Took collaboration series KTGoodlove for Art-o-mat®.

KT Goodlove # 145

"Quit pushing all the buttons."

You have no idea how much I "agonized" over this one...geez. LOL

The silvery line on the original block looked like hills/mountains to me. Fine. But after I added the textured paper for the hilly/mountainy surface suddenly the wonderful silvery line that looked like snow kinda disappeared. Sheesh. I had already glued the paper on and I tried to add the cat girl but it just looked like a disconnected head and shoulders cuz you couldn't really see the snow-on-the-hills/mountains unless you tipped the block to catch the light.

When I put my parts "behind" Kettle's paint I have to make a tracing paper (or tissue paper) mask. I couldn't see the silver line through the tracing paper -- no matter what lighting I tried.

Listen, my drawing abilities are incredibly limited. This is where the agonizing part comes in. I had to draw that black line in with a micron pen.

Man, if I messed it up...if it smeared...if my hand slipped. Yeah, I could have "fixed" it by giving it a paper sky to go over the messed up line but it wouldn't have been what I was going for. Cripes...honestly, it took me most of the day to get up the courage to put that black line on there. Whew.

This is block #145 in the Kettle and Took collaboration series KTGoodlove for Art-o-mat®.

KT Goodlove # 144

"is unfolding up in her world."










I know, I know...tsk tsk tsk...I de-suggestive-ized Kettle's original phrase. Sorry. I think it works really well in Kettleland, but in my opinion (and no, I didn't consult with him, btw) I feel that KT Goodloveland is a mixture of both of us and it felt like I needed to alter the phrase as well as the block. And Kettle keeps reassuring me that whatever I end up doing to the block is the "right" way to do it. So there you go.

This is block #144 in the Kettle and Took collaboration series KTGoodlove for Art-o-mat®.

KT Goodlove # 143

"all questions must be submitted in writing"











This is block #143 in the Kettle and Took collaboration series KTGoodlove for Art-o-mat®.

KT Goodlove # 142

"dare to be one of us"

I got that phrase from "Australia" by The Shins.

Now see...this is another one of those funny coincidences. I have never been able to make out all of the lyrics to this song and I thought well, why don't I read the lyrics while I listen to the song while I post this block. It kinda fits (in parts, anyway...LOL).

This is another block that I originally scanned as vertical, but turned out horizontal.

This is block #142 in the Kettle and Took collaboration series KTGoodlove for Art-o-mat®.

KT Goodlove # 141

"there is a monster"










I like the way the dog girl is looking at the monster like "oh, poor thing, it's out of its mind".

This is block #141 in the Kettle and Took collaboration series KTGoodlove for Art-o-mat®.

KT Goodlove # 140

I didn't want to put any words on this block so that the viewer could imagine what song the dog guy is playing.

This is block #140 in the Kettle and Took collaboration series KTGoodlove for Art-o-mat®.

KT Goodlove # 139

"come on"

I hope you can hear Werner Herzog's voice saying "come on"...cuz that is where I got it from. He says it in pretty much every film I see him in (documentary OR movie role).

I love Werner Herzog.

This is block #139 in the Kettle and Took collaboration series KTGoodlove for Art-o-mat®.

KT Goodlove # 138

"she's somewhere far, far away"

I like how the green jewel matches the color of her eyes.

This is block #138 in the Kettle and Took collaboration series KTGoodlove for Art-o-mat®.