2012/365 - Day 91

note to self...never try to make a round-ish head from a box with sharp angles

I don't know...I will give this a few more days of looking at it and working on it, but I may need to choose something else for my big goal. This may require a lot more construction than I can devote to it right now.



Here is the head -- sitting on my wire mesh trash can for stability -- when I started tonight.





















Here is how the first layer of plaster cloth changes the look of the guy.












This is the side that bothers me the most. The other side may be a little flat when you look at it but this side is just too rounded. It looks to me more like a pig. Not that there's anything wrong with pigs...I just don't want to make one...I want this to be a bear-like creature...or something similar.








From this angle things look a little better and you can see the new shape of the ear.









Looking straight on to the head it also doesn't look that bad.

The problem is the shape of the base box that is the foundation of his head. It might be too much to try to overcome right now.

The one side is already getting a bit too rounded...not sure about this right now. Okay, I need to keep reminding myself that I had never attempted to build a face before this.

There was that crocodile from waaaaaay back, but that was a whole different way of doing things...nothing like this.

This guy needs a day or two.

365 Day 355

"yikes" time

I need to keep moving forward on the Hands Up cat-creature if I want to finish it in time for the Members Show at Northville Art House.


That meant wrestling with chicken wire again. I didn't have much to anchor it to this time so I tried to attach it as much as I could to the frame parts of the tomato cage that were still exposed.

I "sewed" with thin wire and cut the excess chicken wire as I went along.














It's hard to see in this photo, but I anchored the chicken wire in a bunch of places along the horizontal rods.









Nothing to attach the edges of the chicken wire to means they need to be covered with masking tape.

















I think the chicken wire hugged the edges a bit because it wants to stay in the tight curves of the roll it comes on. It makes me have to wrestle with it, but it also makes it fairly easy to position it without it falling down...once I get it where I want it.
















For some reason, I wasn't getting many bowed places today. That is a really good thing. They will probably turn up on the inside but that's okay, too...they won't show.










Now the "yikes" time!

I had to lay the cat-creature on its side.

I had an idea for a way to do the remaining plaster cloth on top of the Scott's Xtreme Rags without first using all of that super super sticky masking tape.






I couldn't get the cat-creature to lay in the position I needed it to unless I blocked it a little.

That bin doesn't have as much cat litter in it as it did before so it doesn't weigh as much as it did before (good for the table, but not so good for holding the cat-creature still).

I used long strips of plaster cloth tonight instead of cutting triangles. They are not so easy to maneuver but I needed to see if I could do enough of an area and then turn the piece just a little and get the rest of the open area covered before the first part dried too much. But I also had to stop and change the water and lay out more Rags. It was quite a dance.


Then I realized I couldn't reach over the piece to put the rest of the Rags and plaster cloth on...I had to pick it up and turn it around the other way.

Man -- THAT was scary. One very large wobbly wet wonky area of plaster cloth/Rags that wasn't really secured all that well and the part where I had to put one hand was wet and slippery. The area I could turn a circle with the cat-creature laying flat like that was pretty small and I kept having to gently bump its fingers on the wall on part of the turning around. Whew!


So here it is in its drying position. I am kinda scared to pick it up right now (until it dries more) and I am not sure if it should dry standing up because it won't get any air circulation underneath...unless I prop it up and that is also a scary thought. I will figure it out.

I am not sure if I will tackle any more of this tonight.



Oh...and yes, I know...I still need to update Day 347 with photos and captions. I will get to that sometime this week.

This particular piece has been a real back breaker these last few days...really wearing me out and leaving me with back spasms. I need/want to get the construction completed and let it dry really well. I also need to figure out some way to work with these things off the ground but not too high up...it will come to me eventually. In the meantime, that part is almost done and I am LOVING this guy!