Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Space Lab Show


This past week I had my BFA critique as well as a space lab show. I thought that my BFA critique went fairly well. There were a lot of good ideas and thoughts about my work. Some of them were inspiring and other ideas were not exactly what I am going for with my work. I feel that the sound comment from Michael was a cool idea as well as dropping a skull and documenting it. I felt a bit of hostility in both of the critiques that happened on Tuesday, but I think that Miranda and myself composed ourselves very well. The fact that professors came up to us after our crits and gave us praise and words of encouragement was nice and also made me feel that we were the bigger people and are doing a great job. BFA crits always have a tendency of slowing down my momentum and making me think about everything that I am doing.
I was very pleased with the way that the show came out considering everything that was in the show was made this semester.

Three Strikes

Worth its Wait


Precious Metal II

Pearl
El Muerto del Dia

Monday, October 17, 2011

Finishing Touches


Yay!!! The bats are finally finished! I sprayed them with the clear matte spray paint, then splattered them with a gold model car paint. I was a little bummed that I wasn't going to be able to use gold luster on them because I thought that other paints would look cheap. I'm no blood splatter expert, but I think that they came out really good. I ordered some bat racks so that they can hang on the wall like trophies...Much like a murderer might keep to remember his kill. I was hoping that the racks would come in for my BFA critique, but they haven't showed up yet. They will definitely be hung for my space lab show on Thursday. And I am planning to display them at the gallery on Pearl.


This is the skull that I am going to use for my "Confetti Death" piece. I have hinged his jaw open dramatically wide to emphasize the severity and urgency of the confetti spewing out onto the floor. This piece will be displayed at the gallery show on Pearl.


Here are some of the pill bottles that I have started painting for my "Passed Away Peacefully in His Sleep" piece. The plan is to spray paint enough of these bottles to be able to make a pattern on a bed, much like a quilt. I have enough bottles to do this but it is going to take me a lot of time and spray paint to finish this one. I plan to have this piece finished for the show on Pearl.


These are the skulls that I have made for the "Worth its Wait" piece. The bottom skulls are mostly finished except for adding a few gold teeth to one of them. The top skull still needs to have gold luster applied. It should be finished for my BFA critique, if all goes well. This piece will also be in my Space Lab show on Thursday as well as the Seminar show on Pearl. I am very happy with this piece, the skulls came out very nice, and I think that the gold luster on the entire top skull will just send it over the top.

At the BFA Critique and the Space Lab show on thursday, I also plan to show a set of the brass knuckles that I made, which will be called "Precious Metal II," a smaller skull with a pearl luster on it, which I'm calling "Pearl," and a raku fired skull called "El Muerto del Dia." El Muerto del Dia is a play on the mexican holiday Day of the Dead. The title translates as The Dead of the Day.

I am nervous, as usual, about my BFA critique tomorrow, but I do feel very confident about the new work that I have produced over the last few months.

Monday, October 10, 2011

You Can't Take it with You

$11,000 worth of uncut one dollar bills

Splats on Bats



I started trying out methods to make the "blood splatter" on the bats, and from previous splatter paintings I knew that this technique would work. I basically suck glaze or paint, 3/4 to half way, up the oversized straw. I then hold the clean end of the straw up to the air hose nozzle. Aiming at the target you pull the trigger a...n...d...SPLAT! You have splatter.





I tried a few different glazes on some pieces of wood and found that the thicker one worked and looked better. So, I tried it on a bat.


My original plan was to use splattered clear glaze on the bat, fire them to cone 06 so that they wouldn't shrink down any more, then to trace all of the clear splatter with gold luster. After thinking about it for a little while I realized that it would be quite a challenge to get the gold luster on there perfectly, and once it was finished the white areas might come across unfinished because they would still have a bisque appearance.
So I tried a few different things in the studio to see what type of effect they would have on the white bisque. I tried different oils, wax, and lacquer and nothing really looked good. Finally I went to Home Depot to look around and I found a clear spray matte varnish. The varnish gives it a little bit of a sheen, which takes away from the dry bisque look.
I also found a few different types of gold paint to try instead of the gold luster.



This week I made an extra "just in case" skull, and will continue to make a few more next week.



Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Uneventful Events

This week has been pretty uneventful. I made a few more skulls and a few more bats. I hope that I have enough extra ones now so I can move on to the next stages. I did a test fire of a bat and a skull to see if there would be any warping and how much shrinkage there would be. The bat only shrank an 3/4 of an inch, and you can't really tell that much around the girth of it. It didn't warp any that I could tell, which is comforting. My plan is to finish firing the rest of the bats and skulls this week so I can start glazing and have them ready for Dan and my space lab show on the 18th of Oct.

I also started spray painting a few of the pill bottles for the "Passed Away Peacefully in his Sleep" piece that I am working on. They came out pretty good but it takes quite a few coats to cover up the writing on the labels. I was thinking about removing the labels, but on the other hand I like the way that they look with the labels. They look more realistic, of course, with the label. I suppose I could try a different kind of spray paint.