An Inspiring Experience

 

 

 



The arrival of the new issue of Country Magazine inspired me to do a painting.  This is a scene in Pennsylvania which was pictured in the magazine, and I adapted it for a journal cover.  It is acrylic.  It amazed me how well the painting came together, and with no struggle whatsoever.

I purposely didn't do a lot of detail in the background trees towards the middle because they will be near the spine of the journal. I also didn't do much detail in the reflections because I wanted the reflections to be less prominent that the objects themselves.  Since reflections are also slightly duller in color, I painted them more transparently than the trees themselves.  I had under-painted the water blue, so the transparency of the yellows, oranges, and reds allowed the blue underneath to dull them somewhat.

I only used five brushes on this painting: a #20 flat, a #8 round bristle scumbler,  #2 round bristle scumbler, and #s 00 and 1 script liners.  I have far more brushes than I need or use!

I'm happy with this painting, and it will make a very nice journal.  The experience makes me want to do more landscapes although that is hardly my "subject of choice!"

A Few Totems

 

Here's my first group of stoneware totems, including three bears on the left, a weasel in the middle, a hare in the back, a fox on the right, and a seal in the front right.  You can see their size by comparing them to the container of Chapstick.  Stoneware is a ceramic clay, and I fired these pieces to cone 6, or about 2185 degrees F.  The pieces are all different kinds of stoneware.  The beautiful black is Cassius Basaltic.  It's dark chocolate-y brown in its unfired state, then turns black with the heat.

 

To finish them, I'll wax them then wrap objects around them, totem-style.  I've actually finished the fox, black bear, and seal.  But they're at a show and I forgot to take photos of them before I took them in.  The embellishments on the black bear include an elaborate beaded tassel and a few other beads.  The seal has a drilled sea stone, drilled seaglass, and some stones.  The fox has stones and little chicken feathers.  I think the fox is my favorite.

 

I burnished the seal before I fired her.  Burnishing is rubbing the leather-hard greenware with a flat metal surface like a burnisher or the back of a spoon.  The rubbing aligns the tiny particles in the clay and gives a beautiful shiny surface.  The rest of the pieces are textured with tiny all-over marks to resemble fur.

Tea-Birds

For better or worse, here are my finished pieces for our club's 3D and 3x3 show.  Or, actually, these are my 3x3 entries - I will be entering several 3D pieces as well.

I'm not particularly happy with these, but at least I finished them.  And even that was in doubt for a while.  As late as the week before the show I considered starting all over again.  But then sanity stepped in!

My start was a good one.  I worked the collage backgrounds on all nine before continuing, and I was very happy with them at that point.  But then I got stuck.  My original concept was to do portraits of teacups over the collage (which has many tea-related elements) but the collage portion was just too strong for that to work.  I glued a piece of torn rice paper over the centers to tone down the collage where it would be directly behind my images - whatever they might turn out to be.  But, although it was an improvement it wasn't much of one.

Finally I came up with the bird concept, which I came to call "tea-birds."  Each bird is interacting with a tag from a tea bag.  The black brushwork outlining around the birds helps them hold their own against the background.  I much prefer working with a brush than with a marker, and it's always good practice.

At least they're colorful and the whimsy is fun.  But definitely not among my best work. 

Dragon of the East

In the interests of not focusing too much on any one thing, I made a dragon in stoneware.  She's small - about 2" tall.  For whatever reason I usually find myself working small.

Right after I took these photos I was fooling around with her and broke her tongue off.  Of course I know better than to handle greenware too much, but that doesn't mean I follow the right course!  I decided not to reattach the tongue because I figured it might be equally fragile after firing and then I wouldn't be able to clean up the break.  So I smoothed out a hole in her mouth and maybe once she's fired I'll glue a pearl or other stone in her mouth.

The Cat Begins to Fill Out

Now the cat has a second layer of clay.  As you can see, I've built out the nose and muzzle, added thicker eyelids top and bottom, and filled out the cheeks.  It doesn't show in this photo but I also filled out the back of the head.  It's just a matter of looking at a real cat and adding blobs of clay corresponding to the large muscles in the face.  There's more to do tomorrow, but that may be the last of the clay work on the head.

I now know that this is a girl and I need to find a good name for her.  And I also need to nail down what time period she's living in.  I want her to wear a long dress and a hooded cape and be carrying a lantern.  Perhaps early nineteenth century will be good.   So I could research Jane Austen or the Bronte sisters for names.

How to make the lantern is a puzzle.  I'd like to have it light up, so I'm thinking of starting with a small glass bottle and building the lantern around that with a tiny battery-operated light inside.  I found - and ordered - some small amber bottles that has been frosted by ocean action last night on Etsy.  I'm thinking that the amber color along with the frost will give a nice glow and also disguise the tiny LED inside.  Then today I noticed that I have a nail polish bottle that's the right size and shape so I may practice with that.

A New Art Doll - this time, a Cat

I just can't help myself - I started a new art doll.  I don't know yet whether this cat is a boy or a girl or who he/she is or what he/she is doing.  But that will emerge of its own accord as I work on it.

I began yesterday by cutting a rough head shape from Styrofoam, then wrapped it with gauze (the stretchy kind used for bandaging) and coated the gauze with Mod Podge.  Once the Mod Podge was dry, I had a surface that paper clay would stick to, and I covered the entire surface with paper clay.  I made two half spheres of the clay and put them in place for the eyes.  Unfortunately I didn't take a photo at that stage.  But take my word for it - it was pretty crude and there wasn't much to see.  Oh, and I stuck the skewer in the bottom so I could stand it in a piece of Styrofoam to dry.

Today I worked on the next layer of sculpting.  I added a bit of volume to the upper sides of the face, then added upper and lower eyelids.  Next came the nose and muzzle, then the ears.  The ears are cardboard triangles, cut in a concave curve along the bottom to fit around the head.  I curled the cardboard ears to form nice curved (the ears attach to the head in shallow 'C' shapes) and lined the insides with a thin layer of clay.  Next I stuck them in place and added rolls of clay at the base of the backs to hold them in place.

Once the ears dried for a few hours and stiffened up somewhat, I was able to add clay to the backs.  Now it's ready to dry until tomorrow. 

Frog Fairy in the Garden!

Fiona doesn't seem to notice the frog fairy that's come into the garden - good thing for the fairy!

As you can see, my frog fairy doll is finally completed.  In the other photos you'll be able to see the details better.

Her wings are chiffon stitched over wire.  Her antennae are beads on wires glued into (I'm sorry to say!) holes drilled into her forehead (ouch!).

I might ordinarily have decorated her outfit even more.  For instance, I tried to find little silk roses the coral color of the bodice to dot over the skirt.  I couldn't find any locally, and ordered two batches off Etsy, but neither of the colors were quite right.  In the end, I decided it was OK because this fairy is for my infant granddaughter and the fewer little pieces that might conceivably come off and find their way into her mouth, the better!

By the way, the sequined flower motif at her waist is from an old pair of flip-flops.  When they wore out and it was time to toss them I cut off those decorations and saved them  You never know when bling is going to come in handy...

My favorite part about this piece is the splaying fingers and toes.  When I researched frogs I found information that they have seven toes on their front feet and three on the back feet.  I really had my doubts about seven toes.  Can that be right?  Anyway, I had trouble just fitting five, so I guess she's anatomically incorrect.  But then, frogs don't usually fly!!!