In 2010 I will......

RESOLUTION

Drowning in Life

Alright, so again, my blog has suffered from the ravages of time and neglect. The last few weeks have been almost unbearable, much like my temperment it seems. And if you, dear reader, are one of those who I deal with on a somewhat regular basis, I'm sure I've probably offended you....hehehehe.....deserving or not...

I'll see what I can do to get things back up and going.

In the meantime, I leave you with this image by one of my favorite artists:

Drowning Girls by Roy Lichtenstein.

"I don't have big anxieties. I wish I did. I'd be much more interesting."

Roy Lichtenstein

For the daughter

For my big sis.

Me and the hubby in costume

Michel as Alex from Clockwork Orange.

Me as a drunk Zombie....before I fixed the make-up. Not as god as my costume last year, but it was made in less than 30 minutes.

Final (rough) shots of the busts

Final pics of the Bust

These pics are a wee bit overexposed, but the final finish was accomplished by dry brushing antique gold metal pait onto the textured form. Besides the paper mache clay texture, I added a rough wash of paper mache glueépaste to the model to give it a very rough look.

I really wish I had some side profiles to these....

 

These were both given to people I respect and love. The bust at the top with the collar was given to Darryl, a bartender who has always been there to help me out. The night I brought it in, he loved it and made sure everyone knew it was hand crafted and that he loved the both of them. The night of the show, we ran into a few problems and Darryl rose to the occasion and helped me more than I would ever have hoped. In respect to his efforts, I offered whichever one he liked the best to be his in appreciation.

The other bust was given to Nicol, a dear friend who loved itès work equaly as much and appreciated the work it took.

I should probably mention this is a faut of mine, always GIVING my stuff away when there is a profit to be made, but I accept this fault as part of who and what I am. I have never given a piece to anyone who did not recognize the work, love and resourcefullness it took. Additionally, I would never give anything I made to someone who I would not expect to enjoy it and appreciate it for what it is.

Stage Set

Rough Shot

A while back, I posted an image of vampire power loss....thought it was a good idea. Here we are a year later and it's come back as a video!


http://vampirepowersucks.com/Default.aspx

Mummified Fairy

The other day I came across a Mummified Fairy Tutorial. 

My friend Nicol and I went absolutely ape-shit crazy thinking about how creepy it was. So, I stopped by the Dollar Store on the way home and picked up the supplies I needed and it turned out great!! So much so that I ended up giving it to her, cause, well, she really loved it.

Sorry there are no process pics, but if you go to the tutorial, you will see almost exactly what I did anyways.

Haunted Tree Stump

So this project was one I've been debating for a while. I was in a creative mood and not feeling like bringing down the recycling. So, i taped 3 2L bottles together twice and interlocked them into a tall form. Then I wrapped a piece of cardboard around them to make a cylinder.

I added strip paper mache and added toilet paper tubes for old branches.

I then added the paper mache clay to beef up the structure.

When the clay was added, I used a butter knife to shape the bark.

LOVED how this part worked out.....nice and clean. After this, I started to add colour.

 

Shot with the hand to give you an idea of the scale.....about 2 x 2l pop bottles high I would say.

Haunted Busts

So, yet another inspiration from Stolloeen.  The haunted busts struck me from the first time I saw them and I was determined to make some for myself.

I started off with some skull heads from the dollar store (to save on time) glued to old liquor bottles.

 

I cut out a basic form I wanted from cardboard, masked it up with masking tape and tweaked the design a bit.

 

At this point, I had a few toilet paper rolls available to me, so I cut them in half, taped them up again and made them into the base for a cape type form.

 

 Here you can see the shoulder plates that were added.

Here is a pic of the boys together after I added the paper mache clay (oooOOOoo so much fun to figure out.....). On a side note, DO NOT let paper mache clay sit at room temperature overnight....the smell is ungodly. Also in this pic you can notice the rib cage and sternum added under the collar.

Finalized Pumpkins

So, here's some pics of the stages of the pumpkins. They are currently on display at the Office of the Dartmouth General Foundation.

This is my favourite one...my roomie has deemed it the 'Cancer Pumpkin'.

Here's a texture shot.......mmmmmmtexture.

Top shot of them as they dried.....the greener ones have a more 'undead' look to them.

This was the second to last stage. I had brushed them with a glue/water/orange paint mix. The orange was added so I knew where I had covered. With the surface already being white, the glue was hard to see, so a heavy tint that would help in the shading was added. They were then sprayed white for highlight ideas and then green for the tops, and then a quick airbrush of a yucky black to give a little contour base.

Pumpkin Update

These are the most recent photos of the pumpkins I've been making. Done with the paper mache portion, I've now covered them with paper clay and begun moulding them to their final forms. I'm very impressed on how easy it is to use and how well it holds its shape. The only question now is how well it will dry to the form and whether or not it will pull off or dry as a large piece and potentially crack off.

Once they are primed, I plan to paint them simple and natural with my airbrush as a practice.

New Tool to my growing Armada of Creation (Registered Trademark Pending)

So here's the new baby to the armada......just wait and see It's a Paasche VL3, sold as a kit and bought from a woodworker in Antigonish County. Originally sells for about $200-$250 Canadian, I got the whole deal for $64, postage in. Haven't sparked her up yet, but it's just a matter of a day......muhahahaha

Pumpkin Spice Goodness

Slept like a log and woke up knowing there was goodness to be had when I reached the kitchen. I gotta say, certainly worth the effort, though the pumpkin spice itself rose to the top and my first sip was rather bitter. Scooped that off the top and everything is heavenly!

Here's the recipe if you want to enjoy the fabulousness of Pumpkin Spice Latte.

Holly Homemaker extension

Tonight I baked Pumpkin cakes and muffins. Why?

Because I found a recipe for Pumpkin Spice Lattes, and it required 2 tablespoons of pumpkin pie filling. Pumpkin only comes in friggin hug and massively huge cans, 2 tablespoons doesn't even make a dent in it, so there'd be so much waste.

$20 later, I have the supplies to bake. I haven't baked since Junior High School. Hell, I made my 3rd batch of Jello the other day for crying out loud.

So anyways, here's some shots of the finished baked good, and a shot of the Spiced Pumpkin Latte mix. I saved it in the fridge for tomorrow.

I have to say that in a few short hours, I managed to clean my kitchen and bathroom top to bottom, clean the hallway and baseboards, bake all that stuff (without ANY 'kitchen power tool', everything I used was hand cranked or wooden spoon....hell, even the allspice was ground in a marble mortar and pestle), clean out my fridge, make a run to the grocery store and the dollar store, change and re-assign the space of the cat's litter box, rip apart, scrubbed down and reassemble my espresso machine (oh my lord she's a'shining!), clean and restock the cat's feeding and watering bowls - silver platter and crystal no less- and change all the garbage in the apartment.

I think I'm gonna sleep well tonight, if not slip into an exhaustion induced coma.

Little Pumpkins

Another fun thing from Halloween I picked up from STOLLOWEEN. A great Paper Mache artist and he offers tutorials for all of his work for anyone with the desire to recreate his work. I can see why people like me do, and the better portion of the planet don't. Paper mache is a messy, time consuming, tedious process that people like me love. To me, it's a meditation and time to myself that I dn't get all that often with my crazy life, made more crazy by the day.

Creepy Portrait Phase 4

Well I was in the zone and didn't take any pictures until it was done. Previously, the 'eyes' that were cut out was really just a piece of paper with 2 dots on it taped to the wall behind the image. After a quick trip to the dollar store, I picked up a few tennis balls (as well as a huge assortment of other things that I *thought* I needed) that I cut in half, sprayed the inside white and then added a quick dot of black to for the pupil. That's the magic of the whole portrait As you move around the room, the eyes seem to follow you around.....ooOOOoooooo scary.
I sprayed down the white wallpaper with a deep red after masking the face (HA HA! Learned a lil sumthin' from before) and darkened it up a bit.....Ok, a lot. Then I masked the background, and rattle can sprayed the head again to blank it out and re-did it. The left side of the face is a bit too pointy for my liking, and as this is still a practice/fuck around stage, I can still tweak it a bit.
The frame I used is an old one I salvaged from a restaurant I used to work at and was being used as an inspiration frame in the bathroom. Basically a collection of magazine clippings and such, held onto chicken wire with clothespins. The problem is that the portrait is about 1 1/2" too narrow for it to fit perfect, so I'm debating either building a new frame from cardboard/coroplast or making a matte *shudder* for this.
Well, at least the wallpaper look is still there, though muted. To realign that would be a pain in the ass, but not all that much work really. I'll look at that and maybe bring it back up a bit.

That left cheek bone is driving me batty, so that's gotta go. Though the right one has a wicked level of shading on it and I'm quite pleased with it.

Perhaps a bit more detailing on the neck/shirt collar portion. I left that area cause my eyes were going crossed.

And finally, around the eyes needs a lot of work. Not so much the surface, which frankly is fine by me for having NO referance photos, but the actual cut edges need to either be cleaned up a bit OR simply painted black and allowed to be rough.