Working on my paper clay models for the “Birds in Nest” positives for casting, and enjoying the light as the late afternoon sun peeks through the windblown rain clouds!
Category Archives: Sculpture
Persistence Required
This has been, and still is, a difficult project for me. I think it may be getting a bit easier, but we will have to see how that pans out! There is some (well quite a bit of) technical challenge here, but the real issue is persistence.
It is so very very necessary to struggle on past the “it will never look like anything but a piece of crap” stage! And I have been procrastinating for the past 10 days or so. I may manage a half hour of work, then I give up and do something (anything!) else for the rest of the day. This puts me in a rather odd fatalistic & hopeless mood, not improved by the current political climate.
At last this project may be moving forward. I think am in transition to the “there is some small hope that I may like this a little bit someday” stage… TBD! This has been more serious than the “now it looks terrible, I hate it” phases that are inevitable but usually short-lived.
One goal is to get the three part sculpture starts above to something that embodies the concept drawing at right. The other goal is to end up with pieces I can use to make molds for casting on other materials. So wish me luck please!
New casts
Moon Snail Moon
My Moon Snail in clear resin (with various embedded items) has been mounted into a very lightly tinted circle with a hint of green gold and more embedded items. It may be destined to be a light fixture, a lit sculpture, or to hang in a window: to be determined! It will get another bit of clear resin when the next shipment arrives. In the meantime, I have played with a photo or three, adding that old digital pixel dust!
Molds and Makings
My “Blue Ruins” mold has now been involuntarily retired after five casts. It was such a compromised mold that I am delighted to get any good casts from it! It tore today when I removed it from the second concrete cast (digital foil of the photo above right).
I have been working on several epoxy casts: a clear moon snail with some embedments (below right), another clear sleeper with an embedded face, and using the extra epoxy on each mix up to make smaller items. Some of these are shown below and above left. I have also used the clear epoxy to mount a small two piece residue resin cast from 1995: the kneeling figure above. I have a full 3-D cast of this, and a couple of half/relief casts, but this one was made with insufficient leftover resin, so the head & arms are incomplete. I find it quite interesting, so I kept it: apparently for this very piece of acrylic, test scratched as a plate for printing!
Resin Casts Finish Work
I am plugging away on resin casts (both this “Ruins” and my Moon Snail. Somehow they just look naked when they emerge from the mold. At first the new cast delights me: if the casting is a success I have a new “baby”! But after a few days I find myself a bit less satisfied…
So that is when I start to play with the surface, brushing or rubbing on a little pigment. This helps to bring these casts into the real world, where uniformity and cleanliness are rare. I take photos and or scans along the way: this helps me see what is working (or not).
This version of the Ruins has four pigments rubbed on here and there, and a clear matte archival coat.
An Art Sale
Cast Resin Moon Snail SOLD
My second art sale for the Moon Snail!
I just SOLD this guy today! I expected to sell the concrete cast for outdoor display, but … the buyer fell in love with this resin yellow guy instead. So she has decided on a place to mount or hang her “chicken head” moon snail inside her house.
She was a friend, so I sold it pretty much at cost of materials. But I am fairly optimistic that I will be able sell another one or two of these Moon Snail casts for a bit more. I could use a bit of money, so that I can justify my obsession, and so can keep buying the supplies and tools for carving and making more molds, and … all that!
And after all this my most a popular image: I sold the original limestone carving very quickly, and for a very nice price!
I am quite delighted to know these are enjoyed!
Finish Work
New casts & more
Artwork in the Studio Today
I poured some concrete in the studio today: I poured concrete into my two most current molds. So I hope to have good concrete casts of the Moon Snail and the Blue Ruins molds for outdoor display. I will take them out of the molds Tuesday afternoon or Wednesday morning. I had a lot of air bubbles, so I jiggled & jiggled them (the manual vibrating table 😉 technique).
I don’t like doing concrete work indoors, but needs must: it is too cold outside! I managed to avoid too much mess.
And I did a little more photography this morning, in an effort to like my orange moon snail better. This photo was not a natural for the digital foil technique, so I did a lot of adjusting to get the image at right, but I am still not impressed by it. Clearly I need to get over this orange cast, and move on to new artwork!