Maudlin Marionettes: Snail Skates and Exoskeletons

I have all these new ideas swirling around in my head.
Sadly, they'll just have to shrivel up and die of neglect, because I also have half a dozen unfinished projects laying about that I simply must finish before starting anything new. But there's only so many hours in the day, and a limited supply of motivation in my bones. And so many other interesting things to do :P

These are two that I'm trying to finish right now...



untitled as of yet, working title is SnailSkater...
(snails instead of skate wheels make for quite a slow getaway. Or pursuit.)



They Promised Me An Exoskeleton
Haven't quite decided where to go with this one, thinking of maybe adding a bit of goldleaf??

Pandora continues...

Almost done!!!  After several weeks away, I'm finally back in the studio.  This time I worked on the box, the gold designs, her face and hands...  I still have a bit more to do on her hands and maybe a few other details, but for the most part she's done...

'Air à danser

Pandora's current incarnation...

Finally getting somewhere with this.  Still contemplating what to do with her robe and the background...  then I have to get to work on her face and hands, and the box...

Here's a photochopped pic of the direction it may be heading...

**note** the woodgrain across her face/hair isn't quite so conspicuous in real life, the scanner tends to highlight it.

and so it goes...

Pandora's coming along nicely...  nice and slow...  frustratingly slow, if you must know.  all those little cloudy bits are a bit time consuming.  But I'm having fun with it, also doing a couple other pieces on the side...

It was supposed to be Pandora letting all the little evils escape, but then I realized that they're not quite 'evil' enough, so it must be hope escaping...  Or is hope evil too?

P is for Pandora. And Pomegranates.

I've been working on this off and on for the last month while I was in Michigan. It's going to take a while to finish, as all the subtle ones do.  I'm thinking of going all Klimt-y on her robe, deep dark red, with a dark indigo for the background.


So I started another, just to finish something. But this is going to take several days too. Oi.

*update* here it is finished:

Whilst the sleeping tempest gathers might

Yay! Finally finished this thing.

Scanning this just doesn't work, too many reflections from the gold (as seen here).  

The camera worked a little better; but the gold always exaggerated every stray ray of light, with a dark me-sized reflection in the middle.  I finally figured out that all I needed to do was cut a little lens hole in the middle of a sheet of drawing paper to block out my reflection and get an even reflection, and angle it in a slightly north-easterly direction about a foot behind a cloud-diffused ray of southern sunlight.  Whew.  I need to get a better photo setup.

Still had to photoshop it a bit, but it turned out more or less looking like it does in real life.  Well, it's way cooler than I could capture, the dragons scales reflect the light as you walk past it.  Oh dear, don't tell me I'm going to start posting videos of drawings :P

Gold is worse than wood!

11"x14"

I've been working on this piece for a few days (in addition to finishing one piece a day, I'm trying to have a larger one going at the same time). I found my old stash of gold leaf and thought I'd try it out on the wood. So of course, instead of doing some test pieces first, I dive right into this behemoth. A bit big for an experiment, but I love the challenge of figuring it out as I go along.  Especially when I don't really know if it'll turn out or not.  Keeps me from getting bored with the whole process.  Still needs a lot of work, but the hardest part is done.  Although I'm not sure I'll try gold leafing individual scales again any time soon.

So, the birch: If you don't go too thick, the coloured pencil sits on the top of the woodgrain so the picture seems to move as you move past it.  Different colours fade in and out, shadows deepen, highlights vanish and then reappear. If you look at a piece straight on it may look dull and flat, but take one step to either side and there's a face bursting out of the wood at you. That's one of the main draws for me, the reason I love working on wood.

I've kind of figured out how to photoshop the birch pieces so they look at least similar to the originals, but this goldleafing... Hmmm. It does the exact same thing, multiplied about 10 times. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love the way it's turning out, but it's going to be a bitch to photograph.  

How the hell do you take a straight-on photograph from a 45 degree angle???

The edge of the moon

4" x 7 "
coloured pencil on wood

Like a sunset going down

6.25" x 8 "
coloured pencil on wood

closing your eyes (won't make you blind)

3" x 4.5"
coloured pencil on wood

Not sure I like this one as much, this cheaper wood (not the birch I prefer) gives a courser look...

Shift

4" x 12 "
coloured pencil on wood

That's What Keeps Me

5.5" x 9" 
coloured pencil on wood

With this one, I stained the wood before drawing on it.  I like the look of it, the way it brings out the woodgrain and warms it up.  I think I'll do more.

a little more each time I crumble

3" x 4.5" 
coloured pencil on wood

I was going through my old life drawings thinking I could use some of them, and found a sketch I'd done back in Chicago.  I transferred it onto a small wood panel, and coloured it in...  The background of circles/bubbles/cells/stones is something I've used over and over in my work.  

More to come...

And so it begins...

I am, at this moment, filling out the application for Art at the Source, "an open studios event sponsored by the Sebastopol Center for the Arts and focusing on artists based in western Sonoma County".  Yay!!

So, I need to greatly expand my portfolio, to pad it with less intricate and time consuming (ergo, less expensive) works. With this in mind, I have set myself a goal of making at least 5 pieces each week priced under $100.  This is the first, to get the ball rolling