a day of cats
Today has been a delightfully cat-filled day. Twink and Bootsy were arranging themselves for photos all over both of the cat trees...all...day...long. You'd think they were super star cat models or something -- they were entertaining and just beautiful. This is my favorite photo of the day -- reflects both of their personalities pretty well.
Aside from this, I am not going to write a whole lot tonight. I want to do some serious research about something I am going to start working on. It involves deconstructing a papier mache cat (same artist as the unfortunate black sheep that my cats busted up and that is now becoming the camel-like creature.) I haven't been able to find any information about the artist online. Today I found a photocopy sort of bio/info sheet that must have come with one of the pieces I bought way back then. I want to see what else I can find out before I talk any more about it.
But I will say that part of my "punishment" for deconstructing this current piece is that I inhaled an awful lot of paper dust and the saw cuts turned the sawed edges into paper fluff (almost like blown-in insulation material) -- I was covered with it...I needed to change my clothes and leave the room there was so much dust. I'm not complaining...just sayin'...I probably should have been wearing a respirator mask -- I really ought to invest in one I suppose.
This is "Round 2" of my first attempt at making something out of papier mache. I have wanted to make something large for a very long time. I'm not sure why...I just need to.
"Round 1" consisted of me trying to follow photographs from a book. It was helpful, but I am not very adept at making three dimensional things AND I am not at all good at reading diagrams or photographs and having my hands/brain follow through. I need to be shown "in person". (I tossed out the limbs of the monster I was making, but I will be able to use the other spare parts for this project.)
Luckily, I found the videos that the author of the book put on his blog! This helped quite a bit. I have a better understanding now of how much to compact/compress the newspaper into balls, how to put two or more together to make a larger piece/different shape, etc. Hopefully he will continue his videos and complete all the steps! (This is pretty much my first journey into papier mache...we never got to do this in grade school or high school.)
This head was made before I found the videos, though. But now I "get" what went wrong. I think I will be able to work around my errors and complete the head/trophy following the rest of the book.
This is going to be some sort of mixed beast. A combination croc/ruminant/equine/something.
The eyes will be set far back to the left of the photo examples...probably near that blue circle. (Or not.) We'll have to see how it develops...
