Art Blog » Category: a process
Spider Day Four
Last night I added only a gross (144) squares. That’s because I ran out! I have to buy more steel and make more squares. Also, I did a lot of detail work, becuase after I finished the abdomen I had to patch up some empty spaces on the back and near the spinarrets, and then I had to start the transition to the cephalothorax (front part), which was tedious. I put a lot of extra welds in this area because this small transition ara will have to hold the entire weight of the abdomen.
Spider Day Three
Last night I added another 212 squares to the spider abdomen. This makes for a total of 551 squares. The abdomen is almost complete. Now I will begin creating the cephalothorax…
Spider Day Two
Last night I added another 170 squares to the spider abdomen. This makes for a total of 339 squares.
Spider begins
I started a new metal sculpture that I’m building entirely out of squares (well, most are actually just rectangles and a few are triangles). You can’t tell right now, but it’s going to be a spider. The part I’ve built first is the top part of the back part … I have to learn some spider anatomy.
Tree
Still not ready to go back to the bear just yet. And I only had 2 hours in the shop today, so I started this tree. I took a 4 foot piece of thick-ish bar (1/2 inch?) and forged the whole thing, heating to white hot and then hitting with a hammer to work the surface. Then I cut, forged tips, and welded it together. Next I’ll add branches and maybe more roots.
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.
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.
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.
second figure - two
I had some more time to spend working on this piece that I started last week. I developed the face quite a bit and warmed up the body a bit. She still looks a bit 1920s to me. I think she may still need some work … she’s got to sit for a bit.
elephant is done
I was lucky enough to get one extra day in the metalshop this spring, and took the time to finish the elephant! He’s now got a trail with stringy hairs hanging off of it and, most importantly, he’s got ears. I also heat-treated the legs, gave him toes, and fixed up some areas that needed fixing up. In the picture to the right, he’s cooling off, trunk-up, in a bucket of filthy water. There’s also a picture of him cooling trunk-down! More development photos here.
He’s now for sale - learn more here.