Today was a rainy day -- the kind of day that makes me want to DO art stuff. What I wanted to do the most was to go out to the garage and disassemble the old wooden gate that came from my side yard but I am really scared of electricity and I didn't think it was a good idea for me to use a regular extension cord on my electric drill...I will wait for a dryer day.
At one point there were so many ideas flooding me that I had to make myself sit still and write as many down as I could. I needed to focus on a few and only work on those. I will admit that when I look at my notes tonight some of them don't make a whole lot of sense, but others do.
I chose three projects from my list to work on this afternoon.
ONE
I tidied up this drawing in my sketchbook. It was one of those automatic drawings that I did a while back.
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| I'm not sure what he is exactly -- there are cloven hooves and horns that are somewhat goat-like, but his face is a little bear-y. He seems to be wearing some sort of wizard outfit that has a fancy collar and sides...or maybe those are sleeves...I dunno. |
TWO
While I was watching television today I saw some masks on the wall in the background of a room that was being talked about. I took a photo of the screen and then I tried to put together the beginning of a couple of masks of my own. I have been saving up plastic trays and lids and egg cartons -- this is the perfect project for them.
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| I especially liked the larger mask in this picture. |
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| And the dark mask in this picture is my very favorite. |
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| part of my stash |
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| This guy will have very tall ears. |
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| I wanted the second mask to have very long horns...I cut a paper towel tube in half, deliberately making them uneven. |
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| I put holes in the plastic tray and inserted the rolled up tube horns, then anchored them with some masking tape. |
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| They are coming together more in my head...I may go back in tonight before I go to bed and put on a layer or two of plaster cloth. |
intermission -- not really a project
I was about to get up and leave the room to take a break when I decided to pop the croco-creature's taxidermy eyes off. I have been wanting to do it for a long time and today I felt like I could do it and not break them. And hey...after I wet the area around them -- these things snapped right off!
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| These were the very first glass taxidermy eyes I bought. They are supposed to be for an alligator and when I was first working on this guy he was going to be a sort of a trophy head. I was never happy with the position of the eyes but I really only meant to stick them on there temporarily -- I just never got around to trying to take them off again until today. |
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| Plus, I wasn't sure how I had attached them -- if I had used epoxy or just barely plaster cloth'd them in place -- I had never tried to do that before. Luckily it seems that I only did the latter because they came off easily, even though whenever I would try to wiggle them loose they felt very firmly set in place. Look -- you can see that there was actual paper and flour/water underneath. |
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| He is a little creepy looking with no eyes. |
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| Ha -- I covered up the empty sockets with two of the cardboard punch outs that Leann gave us. |
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| I will just set these aside -- they are not my favorite taxidermy eyes. |
THREE
I thought I had some balloons somewhere around here...I went "shopping" in the deep closet in my studio and I found them! I have been wanting to try putting strips of plaster cloth over a balloon in a sort of lattice style. I have put a big ol' rolled out slab o' clay over a heavy duty punching balloon in a ceramics class...I have put solid plaster cloth over play balls...but I have never tried open spaced strips of plaster cloth on a balloon. My expectations are very low...I am not sure I will even complete the creature...but I am going to give it a try.
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| Ready to start -- I noticed that the bag says "the choice of professionals worldwide" -- what the what? I suppose that is a good thing. |
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| What I had in mind. |
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| ta-daaaaaa -- what a mess! |
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| Hanging to dry. |
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| About an hour and a half later I couldn't stand it anymore...an area of the plaster cloth had pulled away just a teensy bit so I thought it would be safe to pop the balloon. |
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| must. leave. it. alone. |
I had every intention of not going back into the wet plaster cloth studio again tonight -- but I had to check on it. Oh my gosh -- the inner surface was as smooth as marble...incredible! I fought myself to leave it hanging to dry some more.
The more I thought about it -- and the more I thought about those taxidermy eyes -- I figured what the heck...
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| I wish you could FEEL how smooth and silky this surface is -- I cannot believe it is plaster cloth. |
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| "Normal" plaster cloth surface. |
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| Trying out a position for the eyes...that opening is NOT his mouth. |
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| Securing the eyes. |
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| Building up around the eyes a bit. |
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| Another view. |
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| Enough for tonight...LOL |
