Art Blog » July 2006
Fuji in the Mirror
After having not taken up the watercolors for a few weeks, I braved them again with this fruity still-life. I mostly focussed on the drawing, which is my excuse for explaining why the colors are so washed out. If I were to do this again, I would try to get the brightness of the apple to shine more. Perhaps it would work nicely in oils, from which I appear to be taking a break, currently.
Metal bear gets some skin
After adding just a few structural pieces yesterday, I began adding “skin.” First I had to cut a number of pieces out of a large sheet of sheet metal, and then I began welding them on. It was quite a challenge; I had a #2 welding tip that worked perfectly on quarter-inch rod, but just about vaporized the thin sheet metal. Once I had a skin piece attached, I’d heat it up with the tip and bang it into place around the skeleton with a hammer. At this time, he’s looking kind of buggy, but I’ll be taking care of that at a later stage. I think this bear’s name might be Iorek Byrnison, because he’s looking an awful lot like an armoured bear.
May These Things Never End
This papercut explores the words of a song written by Hannah Senesh, a Jewish heroine of World War II. She was killed after being captured in Hungary, during an effort to save Allied prisoners of war and organize Jewish resistance.
Rough translation: “My God, My God, may these things never end: the sand and the sea, the rustle of the water, the lightning/thunder of the sky, the prayers of humankind.” (Designed while listening to Manu Chao, cut while listening to Tandia, by Bryce Courtenay).
Metal Bear grows
Tonight I spent a solid 5 hours working on the bear in an overheated metalshop. You know, if you’re not sweating, you’ve not having any fun! He’s not got a much more complete skeletonal structure and more weight in his back-end to keep him balanced. Head, legs, body, shoulders, and neck have all been honed. Next week I hope to start adding skin! Here are two pictures from today: from the right and from the back.
Curves from Behind, again
Here’s another piece based on an old reference photo of a model from one of my art classes. Unlike the first piece, this one is watercolor (not pen and ink).
To see the whole image, click here.
Metal Bear begins
Using this old drawing as inspiration, I began the bear last night. So far, he’s got a basic skeleton, same way the elephant, bull, and dog all started out. He’s going to be leaning forward, and looks like he should topple over, but I’ve put some heavy weights at his back end to keep him upright. There’s a lot of work to do before he’ll be done: complete legs, head, skin, etc. Maybe I’ll squeeze in an extra visit to the metalshop to work on him. Here’s his picture so far.
Bear in a Stream
As I was pondering over what to create next in the metal studio, where I go every Thursday, I came across the idea of a bear, and a split second later, I knew the pose. It would be the pose of a bear I drew many years ago in pencil. I ransacked my closet and found it. Tonight, I start.
Buddy
From an old photograph of a little pug I used to know. This painting doesn’t quite capture his extra-buggy eyes, but his look is focused and his ears are cocked.
Curves from Behind
I was struck by the curves in this figure and tried to capture them in almost pure contour lines with pen and ink. the same day I also did a watercolor painting of this same idea, and will send it out later this week.
See the complete picture here.
In a Funhouse Mirror
I’ve been wanting to do more drawing practice recently, as I am feeling a bit rusty with regards to drawing; it’s not needed for papercutting or metal sculpture. So I went back to one of my oldest tools - drawing something that’s upside down. This is supposed to work especially well for human faces. In this case, it came out a bit warped. Very interesting. I kind of like it, though I may tweak the colors a bit before I call it done.