365/2013 - Day 130

talk about making up for yesterday -- man!

Work-wise I put in a lot of time on the croco-creature this afternoon.  And of course I am stubborn enough to not be willing to give myself a break once I get going..."I can still do this stuff"...yeah, right!

First I worked at positioning the lovely new crocodile eyes from Van Dyke's Taxidermy Supply.  I always figured I was going to be repositioning them at some point, I just didn't realize I would find nicer crocodile eyes than I had before.

his right side...I was surprised by just how much I needed to adjust the eyes

his left side moved down this much

looking down over his nose to see how they look -- balanced enough? -- I think this guy is going to have to be a "good enough" kinda guy because his head is cocked a bit and his jaw twisted while it was drying waaaaay back when -- this is the very first plaster cloth guy I ever tried to make and he was supposed to be a sort of dragon trophy head hanging from the wall

Positioning the eyes wasn't difficult but it was time consuming.  At that point I needed to physically work on him...to feel like I was doing something.  The next task was to strap the cinder block into place on the wooden base.  After the first experience with the thicker gauge strapping strip I wanted my work gloves and of course they were not were they should've been.  The drama of looking through every possible hiding place in every room -- twice -- came next.  Then I finally found them in a paper bag under my work table, along with all of the other stuff I was going to be needing.  Sheesh.  And then, you know what?  Those gloves were too stiff and thick to work with and it turned out the newer thinner gauge metal strapping strip thing is cut-able with the metal shears and doesn't have all of those sharp metal splinters.

I ended up with regular vinyl gloves (just in case) but man -- do I ever make things difficult for myself -- maneuvering the drill between the wire tiers of the tomato cage and trying to get close enough to the cinder block was a challenge.  I ended up having to put in one screw with a regular screw driver. 

that cinder block isn't going anywhere!

The other thing that made this part so hard on me was that I was sitting in a chair bending over at the waist and trying to work upside down and between my legs.  I think I know the feeling that Joan was describing the other day.  Wow.  

But was I done -- hell no.  That only fueled the need to work on this NOW because I knew I wouldn't come back to it tonight.  (And of course that only makes a difference to me -- this croco-creature has no deadline looming -- I just seem to think I can still work on things forever with no consequence later.)  So on to the next part with no break!

I have this wacky twirly lawn sprinkler thing that I salvaged from another project from around the same time period.  I was thinking that the copper twirly thing would be really great on the croco-creature's staff.  But that meant I had to cut it away from the old construction.  Mini hacksaw time!  (I really need to get a "real" hacksaw and/or replace the very bent blade on this one.)  

the old construction

geez -- why can't anything be easy -- I was still new at getting things to stay together when I made this -- it is kind of overkill inside of there

gah -- and then I hit another snag with the scissors and hacksaw -- oh yeah...the hose-attaching thing

man -- this saw will cut pretty much anything!

 

And naturally I couldn't stop then, either...I had to look for the chopped off piece of already plaster cloth'd tube so I could see what the staff might look like...and HEY...it fit into the tube!!!

I left the bit of construction that lifts the twirly part up enough to twirl

but then again...maybe I could make something that looks better -- I will keep the other part for now, just in case

At this point I was starting to feel that deep-down-to-the-bone fine tremor you get when you overdo things...like if you carry something really heavy and you insist on taking it all the way into the house instead of setting it down and resting for a minute...you know that feeling, right?  BUT I had to get a sense of how the staff might look with the arm...and hand.

So I positioned the temporary arm assembly onto the tomato cage with masking tape, quickly blew up a vinyl glove and stuck it into the "cuff" and taped the fingers of the glove to the pole and took a few fast photos.

And this is enough for tonight...man!  Now I have the full-blown shaking going on -- I feel like I have been struggling with the reins of a very tall, very wide horse all afternoon that has been pulling me all over the place.  I. am. beat. 

2012/365 - Day 92

oh it is MUCH too early in the morning for plaster cloth surgery

Going through my usual morning routine...doing online crossword puzzle, checking email and Facebook, reading blog posts, minding my own business -- and my Universal collaborators/guides decide to drop in. This was at 8:30 a.m. on Sunday morning. Gah! No choice but to cooperate.



Time for some plaster cloth surgery.













Hmmm...













Oh -- I see. I could turn the cut out piece around and insert into the hole and slant it downwards.














If it works on the front, I guess it works on the back.








"We" sat and looked at it longer. I fed the cats. I came back into the studio. There was no getting around it -- the biggest problem (out of many) was the out of alignment nose. It just wasn't sitting right on his face and it made me make one side larger and the front of the nose wider to accommodate it...and it was just too big overall.



Okay. NOW it could maybe be a better bear-like guy. Maybe. HUGE on the maybe.

And then again...maybe I will free the twirly sprinkler thing and give somebody else an ever better crown. Back when I made this thing originally, I didn't know I could easily cut metal. I also was just beginning with construction of faces.
This was a really good learning process...and I am not sure I am ready to throw the head out yet.










LOL -- is this the equivalent of blood for plaster cloth?

365 Day 170

guys get eyes and a bearish creature gets more roughed in

Today I cleaned up the overspray on the "eyes" I made yesterday. I really like them. Some of these plaster cloth guys will get glass eyes and some will just have painted on eyes because their faces are smaller.


one of the green eyes with the overspray














it cleaned up better than I was hoping for!















this wolfish guy will get the orange/green eyes













placing the eyes...which is left and which is right?



















he's getting some personality now

















this is an I-don't-know-what-yet...cat/owl creature














hmmm...I still don't know...but I like him!

















and the bear with the twirly sprinkler thing crown gets roughed in ears and plaster cloth'd all over his head

















this is my first really really sculpted plaster cloth guy...most of my other guys have had pretty flat faces and really round heads












it is a good thing that these are made up creatures (not specific animals) because I can maybe have a little more leeway on the shapes















Well...now I am off to work on my relief carving for tomorrow's class. I am not sure how much actual carving I will do tonight but I will be trying to imagine the background for the fox woman creature. I may do some more drawing in my sketch book, too. I am eager for class tomorrow evening!

365 Day 163 (extra bit -- part two)

Woah -- looks like it wants to be a bear-like guy.

365 Day 163 (extra bit)

I'm doing SOMEthing with this thing today!

I brought this decorative twirling sprinkler thing home from a garage sale last year intending to use it for its original purpose. Of course I never got around to it and it has languished on my back porch since then...including wintering out there.

Just now when I came in from strewing some foxglove seeds and half-planting some lupine seeds (my only stab at "gardening" this year -- maybe they will magically grow on their own) -- I decided I couldn't walk past this thing again and I brought it in the house to the studio.

It seems fitting to use an upside down tomato cage for the base of it. I did not think that masking tape would secure it to the cage, but it did...LOL.

Later on I will sit with it and let the plaster cloth dictate what it might become. Right now, all I know is that the twirly sun shape is the creature's crown.