365/2013 - Day 257

sewing and then pushing things

Today I worked more on the small spikey guy.

I sewed the other green leg joint.

I sewed the right foot.

Before I could sew the left foot I had to fix the left leg's seam.

I sewed the left foot...hey -- they are pretty even...this is the back view.

Front view.

Standing up view.

He might keep these whiskers.

Then it was a lovely fall-ish day and I made some "make-it-up-as-you-go-along" soup.  It tastes pretty darn good...oh...I just remembered I forgot to add the black beans to it.  Maybe for tomorrow's version.

That was a decent amount of prep work and playing around -- I should have stopped at that point.  But I felt like I hadn't done "enough" for today, so I pushed it.  (Rarely a good idea.)

I hauled out the long horns guy and the baby snake guy.  I figured I could add paper to one or the other.  I found a big piece of wood patterned tissue paper and I wanted to use it.

Ready to go.

I tore up the wood patterned tissue paper.

I chose the baby snake guy.

I knew for a while now that I wanted to give this guy vertical stripes.  I tried to do that with the torn pieces of paper and also leave a band in between.

Not too bad.  I should have left it like this.

It almost looked a little snakey.

But no -- I had to push it.  I went into the studio to retrieve a bunch of bags of torn up papers in different colors that I had left over from collages.  They were not where I though they'd be but I found these instead.  Clean used tea bags (I can't remember who gave them to me...someone in the ATC group) and I also found the pale yellow/creamy colored paper and some thin white paper.

After about the third piece I knew I didn't want to use the tea bags for this...but I had started already and it would have been messier to pull them off than to finish putting on the rest of them.

Meh -- I didn't hate it but I didn't love it.

I let it all dry for a while then I went back over it with the creamy colored paper...taking my time and trying to cover not just the stripes/tea bags but also some of the side colors.

Usually I tell you that things look better in person than they do in the photos -- not today -- the photos look much better than the real thing...which isn't saying much -- ha ha ha.

Ah well...it will probably look different when it is dry.  And I am planning to paint him anyway...and/or paper him more.

It seems like when I willfully "push" my limit and try to achieve more in a day than I am "feeling" at the time, it all goes wrong.  I need to listen more closely when I hear myself saying "that's enough for today" -- even when it is still early in the evening.

365/2013 - Day 82

more plaster cloth surgery -- different patient

I like this baby snake guy but he needed to have some plaster cloth surgery to fix his shape a bit.

his head was pretty lumpy and asymmetrical

prepping for plaster cloth surgery

taped up and ready to go

yep -- I think I am happy with this shape

several places needed work

there -- that is much better!

overall, yes...this is better

This little guy needs one more wet plaster cloth session to smooth out the surface (I hope) and to even up a few spots.

365/2013 - Day 64 part two

a little plaster surgery...

I like this snakey guy but he needs some work.

He was just too unwieldy in that state...he had to be propped up in order to stay upright because his head and his tail were both pointing up off of the table.  He was about five and a half feet long at this point.

I knew I needed/wanted to cut a couple of sections out of him so that his face would be easier to look at and so that he could "stand" on his own.

I cut his head off, cut the bend of his tail off, then I needed to trim off another small section where his head attached to the body and also another small chunk of the tail curve.  The result is that I have a shorter, cuter snake and two leftover sections that I can probably use with another snake later on.

his "before" photo with the two sections taped in place

I think he has the look of a baby snake now

yay -- surgery was a success!