This is a chair.

Final project...complete! Plaster casting is fun...if your silicone sets & if you aren't in two hospitals in one week. I have to thank my instructor, Matt Boonstra, for helping me finish this project. If he hadn't made the rubber mold for me there would have been a much different outcome....thanks Matt!

I decided to do casts of boots. What girl doesn't like shoes? The point I was trying to make was everyone can "wear the same shoe" but it's how you decorate your shoe that makes you an individual. I was also making a statement that can we judge someone by their appearance...is anyone person more important than another? Is the "pink boot" less important than the "army boot"? It's all in the eye of the beholder, in my opinion.

Here are a few up close. Everyone liked the army boot, I think because I added my husband's Vietnam Era dog tags.

   

I am so excited to learn that my bamboo teapot received honorable mention in the juried student art show! I was more honored when I found out that mine was the only teapot awarded a mention. This is the teapot that I got so upset about the outside finish. Thanks Sung for making me finish it when I wanted to grind off the gesso & start over!

I LOVE Antony Gormely's art!

I have never been exposed to a lot of sculpture until the OSU Art Department took all art students to Texas last year. And while at the Nasher Sculpture Center I found Antony Gormley's sculpture, Quantum Cloud XX. I think I could have walked around, away, up close, far away from it for hours! Something triggered a thought about him today & I wanted to see more...again. I LOVE his art. Here is the link to his chronology  http://www.antonygormley.com/sculpture/chronology  see if he grabs you like he does me.

Project 2 - Autobiography

Sculpture project two was supposed to be an autobiographical piece. I racked my brain and finally decided that I'm not one thing I'm many things...I have all these little compartments: daughter, sister, wife, mother, grandmother, co-worker, friend...lots of things. This is the sketch my instructor & I discussed using. It was lots of "not pretty" compartments with pieces dangling off...because we all know I'm hanging by a thread most days! After much discussion and several days we decided that we were both (okay, mostly me) excited to try something a little different. And my answer was the QR code...all these little cubes that when put together created one giant piece of information. 

Here I am in QR code:

 Then I start the process of construction. Let's see, my code is 21x21 pixels that's 441 pixels read that as 441 1 7/16" wood blocks! Which means I made many, many...many cuts! Here is bucket #1 of blocks.








 And after a couple buckets it turns into a box o'blocks and then some more!

This is what happens if you try to take your work home and don't pay attention to the cat. 

Next came the actual fabrication...india ink, wood glue, liquid nails and clamps, oh my! The big hitch in my project was not thinking to break it down into small sections to build. I wasted days counting blocks to ink when I should have built each 7x7 square then combine them into the big picture. You can see here the different stages of the project, inking the individual blocks (note the really cool texture the india ink gave the wood grain, it looks like velvet), lining them up in a jig ready to glue, then clamped in the jig to dry, on the back left area you can see a couple squares glued but not cleaned up. 

And here is the final (or almost final) product. I added the little squares around the bigger one because I felt I needed more than just the code. Since, hopefully, you've scanned the big piece you know it says "I am karen." then it should make sense that the little pieces represent members of my family.  Each group of 9 blocks has an attached qr code for a different family member. Such as, one says "I am Betty. I am Karen's mother". Some have more information than others but they all have I am Karen's "whatever" in the text. 

I have to say this is probably one of my favorite finished projects. I love the interaction between the sculpture and the viewer. The geometrical shapes and the texture of the wood grain are two of my favorite things for any project. 

Note: I plan to make more family blocks to create a family tree.

My sister Linda, who will be the only one to read this, says I need to make up some with sayings on them like welcome, Martinez House est. 1983, OSU Cowboys even sayings or quotes to sell.

So many ideas, so little time!

Click here to post comments!!

Okay I asked everyone in my office & we can't figure out why my comment box won't show. We did find if you click the title of any post it will magically appear! SSSOOO...if you want to comment...click the title...please comment! No, really, comment!

I love RED!

Here are the final stages in the pomegranate process. After hours & hours of carving & shaping I got the clay as close as I could to the shape of the real fruit. I added some texture by pressing steel wool into the surface, then when it dried out a little more I ran my hand over it to remove any leftover metal on the surface. Actually I was afraid it might blow up & damage someone else's piece. This is what it looked like before the texturing.

I forgot one major step, the hollowing out. Hollowing out is tricky business! It's like baking cookies, if they aren't all fairly uniform in thickness you can have burnt parts or parts that aren't baked through. I'm sure it's more complicated than that...with the whole exploding potential but you get the idea!

This what it looked like after I painted it. Can you tell there are about 5 layers of spray paint on it? Yellow, 2 reds, purple & brown. I applied them layer by layer then rubbed it off with steel wool to create the highlights.That is the original, month old, pomegranate beside my mammoth piece. You may be able to tell it is a little "leathery"!

I'm okay with my finished piece. It's more "rustic" than the other pieces in my class but that is my aesthetic...rustic. I like it! I wish I had photos of the other students work...it is AMAZING! I can't believe the talent in that small class.

Here fishy, fishy!

Okay, it's been a while. But we've been busy!! While our veggie sculptures were drying we got to learn about all the scary machines. Our exercise was to cut out this fish using most of the scary machines. I really need to apologize for not being good at figuring out which way to turn the chop saw for the bevel. I have a hard time figuring out the angles when I back up and I've been driving for....uuummm years!

  This is my naked fish! It's not bad.

.  Same fish, with scales on!  Doesn't it look much happier now with scales? Someday when I get the stain out I'm going to stain the backside that has the pretty grain showing. I know I should have stained first but...I'm an instant gratification type girl!

This is after I started taking away a little of the clay. I am still scared of taking away too much.

PS I love my iPad and the Skitch app! And yes, I know I had way too many "so's" in that sentence.

This shows the back end of my piece. And the pretty pomegranate sitting beside it! Look how bumpy it is, when I was holding it in my hand it looked perfectly round. Point of view is everything in art! This photo also shows how far behind I am compared to my classmates.

Who knew?!

Wow! Who knew choosing a fruit or veggie would be so hard? And who ever heard of a coyote squash? But my heart belongs to the pomegranate! Who wouldn't love that color and great texture? Who knew they aren't round? And who knew you'd have to slam that 50 pound slab of clay on the table for...ever..to get the air bubbles out? I'm sure the more compact the slab got the heavier it got! Now the hard part for me..getting started!

First days of Sculpture 1

I have been so excited to start Sculpture class. But I was so intimidated after the first class! The thought of doing representational work is so scary. Doing a blog..scary! To set the tone I've decided the name of my blog is going to reflect me...karen's krazy kreations. All my work tends to have a "family" connection and to carry that forward I am using 3 "k's" in the title, representing my name & my daughters names (Krystal & Kasssidy)...they are my kraziest kreations...so far!