The Lady

So here's another bronze piece that popped out of my head last fall semester. I've always liked making nudes, eve since my first semester in sculpture. The themes of water and fluidity tend to happen in conjunction with them for some reason. I really don't know if she likes that she's melting, or if she's even melting at all, perhaps she's coming into being. I like that about this piece though, it's fluid, and can be interpreted in different ways. 

A snow covered City?

Nope, it's not covered in snow. I just had to take some pictures showing what one of my projects looked like in the cleaning stage, the ceramic/silica(?) shell is still covering it, and let me tell you, it is a beast to get out of all the nooks and crannies. Though once it's done and has had a nice patina applied, it, looks something like this. 

This is a completed city bowl (I know my titles are great aren't they), it weighs about five pounds, is bronze, and fits in the palm of your hand. 

I sculpted each of the buildings by hand from wax, it took a very long time. But I enjoyed it so much I had to do it again, this time with a vase. This one was even more work if possible. I had to pour it in two pieces, otherwise it would not have stood a chance of getting cleaned thoroughly again. 

This one is still in two pieces, I'm thinking about just putting a hinge on it and then it'd have the option of being closed or open. Because that's alot of detail I'd be losing if I just welded it shut. Though at the same time, the idea of having it be a hidden little world, that could be viewed through only little windows is also really appealing...

Piano dress progress!

So the piece is finished! Just only had a little time now to show my work, lol. This is what the skirt looks like finished, it clatters something awful when you wear it, cuz the inside of the keys are wood and all. 

Basically I made to steel rod hoops, one that had the keys on them, and the other that had the other half of the keys laced on in a smaller hoop which hangs inside the first. I wired the tops of the second ring so that it would hook onto the first and thus evenly distribute the keys and I wouldn't have to straighten them out all the time. 

Still requires a bit of straightening, but nice effect over all. :)

Also, here's a sneak peek into part of the bodice, this is the design for an attachment to a plain corset, bring out the strings and soundboard!

I'll post more on it when I actually have better photos of the finished piece.

Piano Dress

So ages ago, my mom was expressing a wish for the piano in our house to be dismantled and gotten rid of. This spurred many ideas, including the one below. I am currently in the process of turning the piano parts I salvaged (keys, pedals, and strings) into a dress. I'm so happy with how parts of it are turning out that I just had to share. (below are concept sketches)

So far the only constant is the skirt, the idea of the keys hanging around the border of it is a consistent one that I'm unwilling to let go of. 

The hoopskirt I made by roughly following the tutorial by Yiji at  http://yiji.deviantart.com/art/Cosplay-Tutorial-02-Hoopskirts-196061319. It's now taking up a good chunk of my little art/bedroom. Nevertheless! I am excited for it to be completed!

Ta da! It's a skirt! (Totes made the pattern up myself!)

Toymakers Dream

Here is the video that I completed for my Digital Effects class. The editing program I used was Adobe Premiere Pro 5.

          Quite a bit of work went into this video. For one I had to think about the angle of the shots and how I wanted the angles to match up when I layered the characters into the background. Which was solved by shooting as many different angles as possible and if in the editing stage they didn't match up then there were a few tricks I could use to swing it. Such as zooming in on a slightly wide image to make it a close up, or horizontally flipping an image (as there is no text or distinguishable imagery in the background of the shots I did that in, it works). Of course in any project the best bet to solving a problem is just to shoot it right the first time, but in a pinch creative editing can do fairly well.
           Chroma key is a tool I used to layer the video and leave out the green screen. Another thing I did was crop along the characters edges so that any irregularities in the green screen would disappear, for instance where shadows end unexpectedly. About a minute into the film there's a shot where I clearly cropped her shadow messily. To clean that up I would have to go back and drag a 16 point cropping frame closer to her body and animate it frame by frame, getting rid of the larger shadow completely. Animating an effect frame by frame is called key framing, and is very time consuming. I feel I did use it quite successfully for most of the video except for a few small moments.
         Overall, it was a fun class and I now have a greater grasp of what is possible within video editing.

Digital Effects

         Last spring I took a digital effects class, there was a great deal of creative freedom in it as it was the first time it was being offered and the instructor was feeling out the best way to do things. Because of this allowance I decided to branch off and try my hand at green screening and key framing within a narrative form set to music. Nothing to strenuous in the special effects field, but time consuming if not done well in the shooting process. 

        As you can see, I tend to become deeply involved in my projects and attempt to portray them as best I can. I had alot of fun figuring out this set up, which is where I was placing my green screened characters. 

 

       The storyline for this film was one of the simpler one's I've tried. I matched it to a song I found off of this website years ago that has continuously buggered around my head with ideas. Simply put my storyline is of a toymaker who is dreaming/remembering a past acquaintance. I portrayed him "remembering" by placing him and the woman he knew onto the tabletop and having them dance to the music. 

      The idea changed as I planned it, and became much more simplistic than I would have liked. Originally I had hope to have the toymaker dancing with an overlarge marionette, who would be played by an masked actor. Unfortunately I did not have the resources or time to pull that off for the class.

I'm alive, really.

I can be a slacker sometimes, but only when it comes to things that don't have a deadline. Like this blog for instance. I'm already halfway through the fall semester of my senior year. Where did the summer go? 

Anyhoo, here's a follow up photo of one of the bronze pieces I made last semester, it's done! (and has been for awhile)

In my next few posts, I want to start posting about a few of my video projects and the work that went into them. I made two of them last semester, so it'll give me something to talk about. :)

The Final Stages of a Bronze Sculpture

We're nearing the end of the bronze sculptures posts!

Removing the screws and cleaning off any of the little bubbles of bronze that may have occured during the pour is an important step as it gives the project a cleaner and more professional look. After the bronze is whole and complete and any extraneous pieces have been welded together the patina can be applied.

There were only three patinas made available in class, green, a warmer tone, and an almost black one, by far my favorite is the darkest one. To apply a patina all that is needed is to simply heat the piece and brush on the desired concentration of the patina. Heating the piece gets rid of excess moisture in the metal and allows it to be more receptive the patina.

After the patina looks good a coat of wax helps protect it, and it's ready for display!

Pouring

The pour! 

We poured aluminum and bronze several weeks ago. I've been busy with the last weeks of school so here it is! Finally. 

For the pour we placed our empty molds in a bed of sand so that there would be less chance of splitting. It was also important that before then we made sure there were no loose pieces inside the molds that would mess up the form of the figure.

We all wore plenty of protection and looked kind of like spacemen.

The metal cools and we soak it in water til it's cold enough to remove the mold.

The pieces can be dislodged by striking the end of the piece that the metal was poured into.  

Once the larger pieces of the mold have been removed the smaller pieces can be chipped off and the piece can be blasted with air to clean off any excess silica. After that the next step is to saw off the excess metal (the screw) and apply a patina or base, as the case may be. 

Anyway, it's practically summer, and it's a beaaaauuutiful day! 

Dipping Waxes Part 2

Part 2! Now the actual dipping begins. The screws have been attached and each piece has had the surface coated for protection.

The first layer of silica is applied in liquid form. The particles should be suspended so it is important to mix this well and stir it often.  It's important to dip the piece in slowly and to make sure no bubbles form on the surface of it. Any bubbles that form in the first few dips allow the molten bronze to bubble out into the space and only provide more trouble later in the work.

Depending on the size of the piece a different amount and kind of dipping is recommended. My professor suggested that I dip mine twice in the fine silica and three times in the coarse because of their small size.

Each dip needs to dry completely before the next can be applied, and the process can take several days. It is easy to tell when it's ready to be dipped again because the coating goes from a green to yellow. Below can be seen  first dip, the wax is still visible underneath the initial layer.

Below is an example of what the finished dipping should look like. The waxes are completely hidden and the forms are muffled.

Next update should have more on the process with melting out the waxes. 

Dipping Waxes part 1

The second set of waxes is finally done after many hours of work.  I've attached the waxes to a wax cup and started coating on the silica glass pieces. First I'd like to spend some time explaining the concept of sprews* and how they function. Sprews attach the wax piece that has been sculpted to a wax cup which will be the opening that the metal can be poured through.

 *It has been pointed out the me that the term is "sprew" and not "screw." Oops, my bad.

The main sprew needs to be thick depending on the size of the piece so that as the metal cools it does not block the flow. The smaller vent exists to allow the air to flow out of the highest point of the sculpture enabling the metal to push its way through the entire piece. This is especially important in larger pieces, in smaller pieces it is not as a big a concern unless there are appendages that may not fill otherwise.

Location of the sprews is very important, and as an older art student told me, "it is best to think of it as the way the metal will flow." I had quite a bit of difficulty deciding on placement of sprews on the piece above, because it is actually longer and very delicate. Finally it was suggested I cut it into separate pieces and treat them as such, and then weld the pieces together afterwards. This made the attachment of sprews much easier, because I did not have to worry about the wax bending or breaking during the coating process.

Part 2 coming up next time, with some actual dipping! 

Bronze Pieces Finished!

Bronze figures are officially finished now! I've coated them each with a patina, and some have several different kinds applied to different parts of them.

More wax figures! Below is the concept sketch for my next sculpture. It emerged after a several hours of contemplation on the image of the idealized and stereotypical woman and the restrictions it puts on women. The wax figure (on the left) is going to have several poles going through the body, with several more criss-crossing them locking the figure into place. It's evolved greatly since the original concept, but I like the direction it's going.

Sunflowers and Art!

It's springtime! Though granted there's always a chance of a random snowstorm in april it's beginning to feel an awful lot of like things should be green and growing. So I have begun planting! My sunflowers are growing like crazy and they only began sprouting on saturday. They inspired me to design a dress based upon them. 

As an artist and a student of art who wants to one day be a professional, I need to start getting my work out of the classroom. This april I am going to be showing some paintings in a local coffeehouse during our areas Homegrown Music Festival!

Previously it's been primarily about the music, but this year they are adding a visual aspect to it as well. So I dusted off a few of my favorite paintings from 2010 (and one from 2011, accidentally labeled it the wrong year though) and submitted them! Two of the three I entered were accepted!

 These are the two paintings I entered that were accepted. The one above was painted in acrylic in 2010, and the one below is a watercolor I did in 2011 (though I completely spaced, and thought I did it in 2010 for some reason when I submitted it).