throwing bottles into the sea

Over the last year or so I've made an effort to get my work 'out there'. I contributed work at an open house automata exhibition which was fun and plenty of friends came plus lots of nice comments from other visitors.  Work at Lilith of Avalon is selling well and I'm just making a second batch of treecreatures.
Now I'm submitting work to the Grant Bradley Gallery in Bedminster. They are having an open submission exhibition and I've entered the 3 pieces below. No guarantee of acceptance but fingers crossed. It's a lovely gallery, often showing cool and unusal work and although very stylish isn't snooty or highbrow.
Will find out the results on May 21st.

Tree creatures revisited

It must be nearly 3 years since I made any of these guys but they have been selling well at Lilith of Avalon in Glastonbury so it's time to make some more. I don't normally go back to a style or series of work as I enjoy trying new ideas, materials and techniques but spending a couple of weeks working with sculpey was fun and challenged my modelling skills.

Below are photos of various pieces taking shape.

I started with a bunch of heads to get back into the swing of it. The piece of card with the hole is so the wire hook slot through and can be kept out of the sculpey while modelling.

 

 

 

 

 

Once I''d made a few heads I moved onto figures. I ran out of the beige sculpey I normally use and ended up with Super Sculpey, which is cheaper and easier to model with  but a less pleasing colour.

 

 

 

The plan is to make about 8 figures to take down to Lilith of Avalon in Glastonbury at the end of May. So far I have 3 finished and another 3 in progress.

Deranged scratchings

I wanted to share a cool site by a digital artist called Digital Desperado.
I'm always fascinated by this medium because I haven't a clue how to do work like this, so a blog showing the process is very insightful.

http://derangedscratchings.blogspot.co.uk/

The Crew

What started out as a one off piece to experiment with mesh to create clothing has turned into a series of Gnome like workmen. I'm working on a backstory for this bunch of steampunk hill billy gnomes and have at least one more character to add, the Gaffa, who will be the boss. The plan is to try and photoshop them into some industrial locations.

The Demolition Man

I wanted to do another gnome/dwarf figure where I made use of wire mesh to make clothing. This one took a while and spent a few months sat on my bench unsure of who he was but finally took shape....
I started with wooden shapes for the feet as this gives a strong and stable base. Galvanised wire is bent into shape for the body and fleshed out with cardboard and masking tape.

I'm going for a sort of gnome/dwarf look, so the slightly pissed off look is enhanced by a cigar from a piece of dowel and the goggles are pipe fittings, Ive coated them with pva and stained them with acrylic rather than spraying them (it was raining so couldn't go outside to spray) and this eems to be fine, in fact the acrlic adheres better than the normal spray I use.

The trousers are mesh coated in masking tape and white tissue paper. I like the baggy and crumpled look this gives.

His belly is built up from DAS, I apply a coat of pva to the armature before building this on, which help it adhere.

 

The armature for the arms was a bit bendy so the DAS has cracked a bit, next time I'll use thick brass for the arms as this is much more rigid. The body is coated in pva and then stained with brown acrylic.

I've given him a leather jerkin, studded with split pins,and bent to hang around his paunch. At this point I wasn't sure what he would hold, the original plan was for a large spanner but this obscured too much of the figure, so a thick piece of dowel with a piece of coarse string becomes a stick of TNT.

I found some lovely bits of blue transparent plastic in the scrapstore which makes up the barrel of a ray gun.

His napsack is from shaped wire mesh and all the belts and staps are parcel paper coated with masking tape.

Lots more TNT. I opted for a subtle shade of parchment rater than the iconic orange to give it an old fashioned look.

The spanner, originally intended for his hands slips nicely into the straps over his shoulder, giving him a nice busy look from behind.

The hair was a lucky accident. It's stained artist sponge which had slowly fallen apart from overuse. It looks great as hair and really adds to the look I was trying to create (Mad Max, steampunk gnome). It took a while to recreate the look of the original bits but I will be using this technique again.

Sir Pembroke-Smythe, explorer and adventurer.

It's been a while since I've posted any work here, partly because I find facebook easier to use but also because I've just not been feeling very creative lately. A couple of half complete pieces have been sat glaring back at me which hasn't helped either. Normally when I need a creative kick start I cleanup my studio as a tidy space helps me work and in the process I often find odd unfinished work that sparks ideas, plus a trip to the scrapstore will provide exciting treasure for stimulating the creative juices.

I found this sculpey head which was originally going to be a tall thin mad scientist and decided to create a short fat British general with skinny legs. I think the idea may have come about as I'm reading the Flashman books. The wooden clock face courtesy of the scrapstore seemed an ideal base.

As I started to build the basic armature he slowly evolved into a skinny old figure in an oversized robotic suit. I always like making weird steampunk type suits and this one has been floating around my imagination for some time.

 

The basic shape is built up from thin corrugated card edged with copper wire. Once the shape is blocked out I take care applyong the masking tape as this provides the outer surface onto which I paint. Just like a suit of armour the suit is made up from individual segments as are the boots.

 

I use a lot of corrugated card as it is remarkably versatile, both flexible and strong. It's important to get the corrugated grooves running in the correct direction though. Here the line can be seen going in a vertical direction which allows te card to ben in a curve for the neckpiece. I gently rub the card over a rounded surface (the edge of my workbench) to get an even bend and the wire edging helps keep it in shape.

I wasn't happy with the finish on his body so I covered it with papier mache toi give a more even finish. The text of the ppaer will show trough the paint slightly giving an intersting finish.

 

I felt he needed a bit more interest so I've given him a mechanical arm made up from bits from my scrapbox. The hand is oversized, a mix of Hellboy and Umbrella Academy for inspiration here.

His powerpack is a joint section of plastic piping sporayed black with various funky bits added.
As he's taken shape his suit has become more of an environment/exoskeleton suit so Ive added bits of armour and protective plates, secured with split pins to act as rivets.

The paint job starts with a wash of yellow ochre rubbed into the textured surface. I then add shades of burnt umber stippled on and rubbed black with a paper towel to give an old rusty weathered look.

The steampunk 'tricorder' again made using stuff from the scrapbox and brass rod.

The finished sculpt.
More photos here.
By the way anybody else having problems uploading photos form their pc on blogger? I've had to do this on my ipad as the upload box won't let me access photos.