Steamie

Something else I'm working on... let's call him Steamie for now. The body was made out of PVC pipe and an Xmas ornament. Then I sculpted arms and legs using wire and epoxy clay. The arms are attached using magnets which allow some articulation. Bobbins, styrene and wire management hose make up the wheels. Paint to come.

Printmaking

Hmmm, it's almost the end of the year again. In addition to oil painting this past semester, I enrolled in a printmaking class. We learned various techniques including drypoint, etching, aquatinting, lino block printing and lithography. It was pretty complicated and technical at first, but when we finally got to print some pieces, it was well worth it. Take a look...

 

Evil Eye drypoint

King Eye etching

 

Evil Eye aquatint

 

Flower Girl etching

 

Daliphant lino block print

 

Muertos lino block print

 

 

 

 

Expanding my skills through oil painting

In all my years in the arts, I've never really done traditional canvas painting, so I decided to enroll in a painting class at the local community college. Oil painting has always felt like it might be more difficult, and smelly, compared to painting with acrylics, so I went with oils. It's almost the end of the semester and I've finished two paintings—I'll skip over the color and gradient charts we did. The first one is a still life and the second is a painting from a photograph I took a long time ago.

Finally finished a piece!!! SteamMech

Lots of bits and pieces of other projects laying around the workshop, but I finally got one piece put together. Plastic, wire, epoxy clay, and acrylic paint.

DIY dust shield

Using your Dremel usually results in you being covered in dust from whatever you're carving. Here's my ghetto dust shield made from a clear disposable plastic cup. Works like a charm.

Figure Sculpture class

Been taking a figure sculpture class at the local community college to improve my modeling skills. Certainly helped my clay sculpting skills, learned some anatomy, and fun with raku! Here's what I accomplished. I'll definitely be going back in the fall to take some more classes. Highly recommended!

Muertos Sigue Rodando

Just decided this piece needed some reworking. I wasn't happy with the fingers and the eyes, so here are some new photos.

Octomickey Snapshots!

Some snapshots of the finished piece! Look who's controlling the Mickey mech!

OctoMickey Paint Update WIP

OctoMickey gets some color! Almost done!

OctoMickey WIP

Finally working on a new project!

WhirlyBot

Well, WhirlyBot is complete!!!! The figure stands about 11" high and is made of PVC pipe, plastic Xmas ornaments, plastic picnic knives, aluminum tubing, epoxy putty and more than 250 brass nails.

WhirlyBot WIP

Work in progress of a new project...

Brass nails I purchase while on vacation in Japan and I'm finally getting to use them in a project.

Here's the new project! Basic sculpting is complete, but lots of details to come including the riveting...

"Riveting" in progress.

Jacques R

The future of speedy hares everywhere! My latest wooden block piece takes the speedy rabbit of lore and adds some new mechanized features for even more fun and excitement.

Muertos

Finally done with this piece! Overall, from a distance it looks good, but close up looks like crap. Painting turned out to be problematic. The line-work was done with paint pens. The black line-work was done with a black oil-based Sharpie pen while the white was done with a Japanese Zig Painty pen. The Sharpie performed very well despite the tip falling out a couple of times. The white pen was terrible! You could only draw a few lines before the tip started to dry out, which then required a resting period with the cap on before I could start again. Now that I know the Sharpies work well, I'll have to source some the next time I'm in the U.S.

Enjoy the pics...

Muertos WIP

Finally back to work on the projects started a few months back. Love the black Sharpie paint pen I've been using, but problems with the cheap white paint pen I bought locally...grrrr. Slow, messy progress.