Tag Archives: sculpture

Beetles in the House

P.T. Artist Sandra Stowell Posted on by

Oh no, I have beetles in the house! But this is actually a good thing. And anyway I coerced them to move to my studio. Two new beetles joined my other Beetle People.

I have been using Apoxie Fixit to repair a few fine line cracks in a Milestone Cement finish in our house bathroom. Milestone cement is a custom blend of acrylics and cement with colors, probably no longer available. It is applied in a very thin layers to provide an attractive water resistant finish.

It was used as the finish for our large walk-in shower. Years ago fine cracks appeared in lines over the breaks between sections of cement board underlayment. Possibly these should have been better prepared. Or maybe the wood blocking underneath was poorly done. Anyway some were wider than hairline and we decided that these needed to be repaired.

I found this to be finicky work that did not leave me a lot of energy for art! I had to experiment and find the right tool to open up the cracks before they could be filled. Inspired by the tradition of Kintsugi, I made no attempt to disguise the repairs as you can see in the photo.

Each time I worked I had a bit of leftover material. Of course I don’t throw away scraps if they might be useful. So I found a way to combine a tedious home repair task with a tiny bit of art! I just played with the first little scraps, but then these two tiny beetles happened along so I had beetles in the house!

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Three Angels

P.T. Artist Sandra Stowell Posted on by

This is a relief sculpture based on a recent drawing, and has been an ambitious and interesting project.

This is a 24″ x 18″ air dry paperclay relief sculpture on board. This is a new process for me, and it was quite a challenge. The board is completely covered with a thin layer of paperclay. I digitally resized the incomplete figures from my drawing, completed them, and used these to cut out the first layer of each figure. The figures were then built up with additional paperclay and textured before adding pastel pigments.

The cradled board is presented for hanging in a simple homemade protective frame, that can be removed and replaced with a professional frame. It is coated with a spray acrylic that protects it from ambient moisture and dirt, so it can be dusted with a feather duster or wiped gently with a soft cloth.

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Angelic Relief

P.T. Artist Sandra Stowell Posted on by

I have made good progress on a relief sculpture based on my Three Angels drawing, and have of course taken photos. It is not finished, needing detailing, final texture, perhaps some background shapes or figures, and of course it will eventually be sealed and stained. Meanwhile, some photos will lead to digital variations…

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Casting Another

P.T. Artist Sandra Stowell Posted on by

Well I want to do a piece with a number of my 3-D babies, no idea what it looks like yet, but I need more babies … and can’t resist experimenting with color and so forth as I go. Tricky stuff, working with clear epoxy and adding color or other materials. Additives can settle out, a little pigment goes a long way, surface colors surprise, and so forth!

The emerald green is pretty ghastly, and the translucency eliminates the facial features and detail in bright light! But I really want to get some light through. It might be good to dust some pigment onto the face… but it will be impossible to really control that in my current mold. Certainly less pigment will be better: this guy may get painted over!

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Epoxy Resin

P.T. Artist Sandra Stowell Posted on by

I am plunging back into the world of mold-making and casting. I am not good at this, and I struggle with being precise and methodical (boring :-))! But I want to create useful molds of a few difficult pieces modeled in oil-based clay. I find this difficult, and would love to have help.

I sprayed the clay model with clear gloss acrylic before making a pourable silicone block mold. The mold is not completely 3-D, as the back is not enclosed. So the resulting resin cast is flat & must “lie down”. Not sure why I chose bright metallic copper powder in the mold; it is rather ghastly.

I had to slit more of the block mold than planned to remove the clay and be able to remove the castings. This first cast was made with old resin, and is fragile, with a rough pitted surface texture. The feet broke off in the mold, and had to be glued on! I hope the next cast, now curing, will be more successful.

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Broken Acrylic Sculpture

P.T. Artist Sandra Stowell Posted on by

I am returning to scoring, drawing, and coloring sheet acrylic as a sculptural material. This experiment is small, 9″ long, and consists of 3 layers of jagged, broken thin acrylic. The base is painted wood. Two of the images below are digital transformations.

I am having fun, so I may need to acquire some larger pieces to continue with this idea.

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