Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Experimenting with Paper Clay ctd. - Goddesses All - part I

It has come to my attention that I am easily led. And quite possibly schizophrenia. But I prefer to think of myself as flexible and intuitive!

When I make art I generally start out with a pretty clear idea of what I am going to make. This pretty much guarantees disappointment since many things don't turn out the way I envision them.

This time my vision was of a male vampire. An old time vampire with a black cloak flowing around him. The cape had that very high collar  that came up over his ears and of course a red satin lining. He would skulk around in the shadows.  All was going well.

Note: I am keeping the photos small this time as there are so many.  I believe you can click on them to enlarge.

He was going to be manly, with a beaky nose and deep eye sockets.


Below ...on my beautiful new/old duvet cover from Jitterbugs - is a slim box that I rescued from the recycle bin to use for the torso armature.  I added the legs to see if the proportions were right.


This is when my schizophrenia began to manifest.  An insistent female voice made me understand that this sculpture I am working on is not a male and certainly not one of those ubiquitous vampires.  


Contrary to what some people would tell you, I am easy to get along with so once I understood that I had no choice in the matter I plunged into re shaping the torso with more layers of newspaper.  I was well into two nicely rounded breasts when  "The Voice"  (Hey that would make a good name for a TV series) piped up insisting she wanted only one breast.  I complied.



On the left is the torso with one breast.

On the right are the neck and shoulders. I inserted a piece of plastic into the neck opening in order to allow the head piece to swivel around more easily.

Feminizing the face...adding more chin, flattening the beaky nose, add some cheek bones and fleshy lips.  I am beginning to feel like a plastic surgeon who specializes in sex changes,

I added a wooden bead for the knee and made a hollow in the torso where the hip can swivel freely.  Or so I thought!
Leg with initial paper strips laid on. Sorry it doesnt show up too well on that expanse of newspaper. It makes for easy cleanup of my work surface.



Toes were shaped on tooth picks and inserted into the foot.





Now this is where whirling thoughts of Goddesses and Warrior women began to take shape.





Why not put her in a  yogic pose called Warrior Two?  Form with no feet looks out of proportion.

So much for the movable joints I so carefully constructed. They now only serve to weaken the structure as the joints move. I will have to do some hard thinking about how I can remedy this.

Feet added. Still a bit of tweaking to do as regards proper placement of feet and direction of knees
This ain't what I would call the proper form   for this pose.  Sister Marie ( my former yoga teacher) would be horrified if she saw this wobbly warrior.


Sigh.  Back to the drawing board.

Be back with more pictures as the work progresses.  Still have to do arms, refine shape, support wobbly limbs, add paper clay and gesso and paint.   

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