Art Blog » January 2005

Derek - Day 1

Began my figure sculpture season again last night. Finally! Such a nice medium. Last night I mostly added lots and lots of clay. I started on an old artmature that already had clay on it, but not nearly enough. I added another 3 or 4 blocks and am still not done. Derrick is big-boned and a very real-looking man. Sometimes we get so many chelsea boys in here, I really miss the true variety of the human race. Derrick seems pretty serious, and isn’t as chatty as some models we’ve had in the past. But maybe he’ll warm to us; I think we’re a nice class. And anyway, most importantly, he’s fun to sculpt.

Watercolor - spring class 1

Last night began phase two of my rediscovery of watercolor painting. We had a lovely model with poise and very good posture, but her poses we basically all the same. I started focusing on different parts of her body to develop some variety in the evening. Afterwards, I discussed the aspects of my productions that could be improved upon, and it was very helpful. The first 10 minute I did had some problems with the drawing, the second one has transitions that are too harsh. The third one is quite nice and avoids some of the mistakes of the first two, but I was a bit too timid with intensity. I wish I’d had more time. But in the time I had, I should have been braver and brought some cool colors, greens and blues, into the body. Looking forward to next week!

casting kent

Last night I spent some time studying with Brett, a master of molding and casting. He is making a mold and two castings of my sculpture “Kent.” We inserted shims, sprayed fixative, mixed rubber, painted on liquid rubber, and poured rubber. And cleaned rubber off our shoes. It was an extremely stinky process. now Kent has 2 of the 3 pieces of rubber mold on him. Next we’ll make the front half of the rubber mold, then the mother mold. Pictures of the first day are here.

Kent Cast 1

notes i took while doing the first part of the kent cast:
rubber mold step 1.

process notes:

• shim first, then shellack
• when shimming, do it like roofs when going down the side of the piece so that if wet rubber runs down the site of the shim, it won’t cross to the other side (i.e. overlap the shims top over bottom)
• use kleen clay (klay?), which is what the originally used for claymation, to build walls and make (more…)

brendappct

Brenda’s parents will be celebrating their 50th anniversary - fifty years of marriage! - later this month. Brenda and I met and discussed what characteristics and symbols she’d like the papercut to have. Her parents like doing outdoorsy stuff, and they like learning and reading. She found a line from the bible that is appropriate. And I’m working on the papercut! Here’s the album of devlopment.