Showing posts with label guides. Show all posts
Showing posts with label guides. Show all posts

Sunday, April 1, 2012

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?

Saturday, March 17, 2012

2012/365 - Day 77

tweaking canvas #6

LOL -- I think my collaborators/guides finally had enough of me doing this on my own -- and making a mess of things. It was a nearly audible "eh -- let us do it!"



I managed to cover up the rabbit/robed companion to the right of the horse (as you look at the canvas) but I wasn't able to deliberately come up with shapes that added the negative spaces and colors...that is when the guides stepped in and brushed me aside.












From right up next to the canvas I could clearly see another horse coming through from the background. In this photograph I can really see some sort of leopard/cheetah guy.

I will have to wait until all of the matte medium is dry, but it really amazes me how much the surface changes as it goes from very wet to dry...and what emerges from the layers of paper and glop of matte medium.

Saturday, January 28, 2012

2012/365 - Day 28

my collaborators arrived unannounced!

I came into the studio in need of something to work on and blog about. (I was reunited with television this afternoon and it was like I had never seen it before...sheesh.)

The body of this cat-ish creature only had a single layer of plaster cloth on it so I could still do pretty much anything to it. I could still build it up and shape it.


I knew I wanted to get rid of the sloping part of the plaque base that looked sort of like shoulders. I took some photos and tried to draw on them but it just wasn't working this time. I had to just try stuff on the creature.
















What was handy...those rags/paper towels. I kept folding more and more of the squares together until they were thick enough to even out the back. I cut them to fit the back of the creature.





















I masking taped the area.










I plaster cloth'd the area and built up the base of the neck a bit...but what else?


I rinsed off my hands in the plaster cloth water container and used a fresh paper rag to dry them...eureka! My guides/collaborators arrived without warning!











Suddenly I was flattening out the slightly elongated square of paper rag. Then I started to roll it up diagonally and then I folded it in half.














I took a strip of plaster cloth (I had ONE strip leftover that wasn't cut into a triangle shape...how odd) and got it wet, laid it on the table and rolled the semi wet paper rag into it. Then I got my hands really wet and smoothed out the plaster cloth. I put another larger piece of plaster cloth on in the same manner (it was a triangle, though) and took the hint to dip it into the plaster cloth water really quickly and then I kept smoothing and pulling...like pulling a handle out of clay.


I tapped the bottom flat.







I positioned it on the back of the creature's back and started to anchor it with plaster cloth.


















Then it "occurred" to me to curve it a little -- man -- it was just the right length!

I had to keep alternating between laying on anchoring plaster cloth triangles at the base and tiny plaster cloth strips around the curve. Then I added more triangles to the back to smooth out the lumps.

Wow -- that happened SO fast...I had to take the photos really quickly so that I would be able to see how it went together. (My poor camera is a plaster cloth mess.)




Oh. My. Gosh. I am in love with this guy!





































I just want to pick him up and cuddle him.














And now he is taking his place among the other guys on the drying rack again.

Saturday, December 24, 2011

365 Day 358

keeping busy

Most of my daytime was spent taking things out of my studio that I don't absolutely have to have right in front of me and taking them down to the basement (now that I have room after the giveaway/clear out). I set up two of the 6 ft. white tables and stacked bins on them. I sorted out more things in the studio and by the end of the day I felt like I had accomplished a lot.


Ha -- I think I have finally made pretty darn good use of this storage rack thing. That second shelf has 10 small, sorted out bins on it...AND...I can see into them. Yay.















This linoblock taunts me every time I sit at the computer. I want to carve, but I have to do it in short bursts. I am not so sure anymore that this is totally salvageable, but I am going to keep working on it.










I really like these characters that came out of the automatic drawings in my sketchbook.

I have been wanting to try to make a large-sized one out of plaster cloth, but for now I will be content with...






...this guy filling in as a trial piece.

You can see how this broken up horse statue started out by looking
here and here.










So, this guy mocks me on the "save it for later" shelf daily. Tonight -- inspired by the guys on the linocut block -- I thought I'd give it another go.











The problem I was having previously (I think) was the tilt/turn of the horse's head/neck.












Coming off of the recent lesson(s) with the Scott's Xtreme Rags I decided to try to free form this guy tonight. I just let the rags and tape tell me how to do it.










I was kinda liking the look of this when the nostrils appeared...










...but then (apparently) the guides returned and took over. I was half-feeling like that first nose tonight was looking too horse-like and that I was being kind of cheaty pants-y.


I like this one much better...plus, I am not sure how it will turn out in the end.

And look how much his head is turning -- I was having so much trouble with that before!




I didn't stop to take photos because my hands were reeeeeally plaster-y and because I was working pretty wet so that I could hold the neck in place while it firmed up. (I know that doesn't seem to make sense, but it makes sense to me and if I look back at this I will know what I meant.)










Oooh -- I love that turning head!














In each of these photos I can see a different kind of face.

He is going to need ears. I don't know yet if he is shaggy or smooth or furry or just skin. Will he have horns? Tusks?














another view















Awww...look at his little mouth in this picture...so cute.













Yep, yep, yep...I like this guy now!
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