Posts Tagged ‘Sculpture’
Trinity
09 Nov
Some things are just too cool to pass up. In addition to posting progress on my own work, I like to post links to fantastic art sites or specific posts in someone else’s blog. I’m not sure what the etiquette is for posting someone else’s work, but I think it’s probably OK as long as you’re talking about their piece and giving proper credit.
The piece I refer to is called Trinity and is by Jen Stark. The article is found in the Illusion website. It is simple in concept, but incredibly interesting to look at; capturing your gaze and holding it. Repetitive geometric shapes and progressive color palates are always fascinating and this piece is no exception. I hope you like it as much as I do!
Jen Stark’s “Trinity”No Comments
Posted in Sculpture
Taking shape
12 Oct
Now, over the top of the armature that you’ve already seen, I begin to add paper twisted into rolls in order to flesh out the neck of the giraffe. By doing this, I’m imitating the musculature of the giraffe’s neck. The twists are first reinforced by wrapping with masking taped, then I hot glue them roughly in place.
Fleshing out the giraffe’s neck
With the shape established, I then cover the rolls with flat brown packing paper that has been folded into several layers in the shape of the area I’m covering. This paper is just stuff that I rescued from the trash in order to reuse and recycle! I also use a lot of masking tape for the under structure, partially for strength and partially for the relative water-resistant nature of it. That way, when I go over everything with papier-mâché later, the water in it won’t soak the brown paper beneath.
Neck and head with flat paper added
I still have to flesh out the head, and you can see that I have begun to do that, but in the next post I’ll focus on that process. What animal sculptures does this inspire YOU to try?No Comments
Posted in Cloth-mâché, Papier-mâché, Recycled and Re-purposed, Sculpture
The giraffe continues
29 Sep
Ok, since I completed the armature for the giraffe sculpture, I needed a stand of sorts to test my mounting system. I also needed something to hold it stationary while I worked on applying the mache. I build a simple x foot with a 2×4 upright. To this I bolted the hangers I made to slide the base onto. These same hangers will eventually get bolted to the wall when I’m finished with the giraffe. Obviously I had to weight the back side of the stand for balance. Here’s what the armature looks like hanging on it.
What animals have you created art representing?No Comments
Posted in Cloth-mâché, Papier-mâché, Recycled and Re-purposed, Sculpture
Faux safari trophy
28 Sep
I’ve had an idea for a long time that I wanted to do a “faux animal trophy”. I’m not necessarily a safari enthusiast, but there’s something odd and comical about mounting an animal’s head on a piece of wood, so I thought, why not make one that doesn’t harm any animals and looks even funnier than the real thing?
In keeping with my mantra of reusing things, I built an armature out of scrap wood and junk screws. The armature has a base that is the shape of the “cross section” of the animal’s neck. My plan is to build out the piece using paper and cloth mâché and I’m not sure if I’m going to make it realistic or funny, but the result should be a lot of fun.
Armature for the the giraffe
I’m also not sure if I’m going to steampunk it or not…we’ll see! Clearly, you can see that my “safari animal” is a giraffe and it’s about 5 feet long! Yup, that’s going to stick out into the room a bit! Fortunately, it’s not going to be too much of a head banger because it heads up towards the ceiling as it goes out into the room, but what an impression it’s going to make! I’ve turned to picture below so you can see what I mean about it heading up as it goes towards the ceiling.
Giraffe; “hanging view”
Let me know what you think. Would you make it serious or funny?No Comments
Posted in Cloth-mâché, Papier-mâché, Recycled and Re-purposed, Sculpture
From scrap to steampunk sunglasses
14 Sep
Even though my mainline is steampunk zeppelin airships, one of my latest projects has been to fashion a pair of steampunk sunglasses. Now I know that goggles are a steampunk icon, but I’m a bit of a sunglasses collector, having accumulated about 125 pair over the years. I have new wave and punk rock styles, Buddy Hollys, Venetian blind shades, owls, John Lennons, grannies, hippies and all sorts of themed varieties. What I didn’t have were any that were of a steampunk nature, so I put on my thinking cap and designed a pair. Of course, I had to stay with my mantra of “recycle, re-use and re-purpose”, so I built my sunglasses using materials that would have been junk otherwise. With a little painted patina and antiquing, some suede scraps and a lot of plastic pieces and parts, I was able to fashion a pair of wearable, however somewhat impractical, wild and crazy steampunk fashion sunglasses.
Lens detail
Most of the pieces are re-purposed plastic pen barrels, odds and ends of metal, brass screws, scraps of suede and toy parts. The lenses are actually welding goggle lenses that have been inserted into vitamin bottle lids.
I’d love to hear your comments! How would you have made these?4 Comments
Posted in Recycled and Re-purposed, Sculpture, Steampunk
Corrugated Art
30 Aug
Today, I’m posting about a cool artist that I found online. Mark Langan from Brunswick Hills, Ohio does some fantastic pieces using corrugated cardboard. As you all know, my artistic passion is reusing/re-purposing scrap materials into pieces of cool art and corrugated cardboard is often one of them. It’s cheap (usually free!), easy to find and easy to work with. Of course, I love papier-mâché and corrugated winds up being part of my pieces, even if it only gets used as armature.
Mark Lagan’s corrugated Uncle Sam
I really appreciate an artist who does beautiful works and uses materials that would have been waste otherwise.
A corrugated logo by Mark Langan
Corrugated cardboard is such a strong and versatile material that it lends itself to many different applications even if you’re just referring to art. Mark takes his art to a level that honors and flatters the recycling movement and I love his work!
Rock on Mark!2 Comments
Posted in Recycled and Re-purposed, Sculpture
Steampunk Pirate Ship
25 Aug
Now here’s something not everyone is doing… This group, headed by Andy Tibbetts, is building a mechanical, land-going steampunk pirate ship! Named the C. S. Tere, the group plans to finish the “ship” with sails of fire. Building this metal beauty took the combined effort of dozens of people who spent hundreds of volunteer hours welding, painting, cutting, lathing, grinding and more. Clearly the effort paid off as the C. S. Tere made its debut at Burning Man last year.
These are the things I love the most. People building cool things out of reused or scrap materials! This is why I construct my airship sculptures out of paper mâché and other scrap materials. Something beautiful and useful from something bound for the landfill.
What cool things are you building?No Comments
Posted in Metal Works, Recycled and Re-purposed, Sculpture, Steampunk
Steampunk loft
18 Aug
My daughter came hopping up the stairs tonight, bouncing off the walls with excitement at the Yahoo Real Estate article on a Manhattan loft that is steampunk from stem to stern. Complete with zeppelins, gears, portholes and countless other Victorian vintage, this Chelsea apartment is a steampunks dream. Functional levers, gadgets and gizmos in brass, copper and other materials make it interactive as well as charming.
Visually, the place is so stimulating that I think I’d have a hard time relaxing there, since I’d be too busy looking and playing with all the cool art. Perhaps though, the place could use one more airship piece…
What do you think?No Comments
Posted in Papier-mâché, Recycled and Re-purposed, Sculpture, Steampunk
Vent tubes
03 Aug
So in case you were wondering how to make a cool and convincing steampunk vent tube that you would see on something mechanical, coal-fired, steam-powered or something lighter-than-air…say like…an AIRSHIP, here’s how I do it. I have a bunch of medical surplus tubing connectors. They use these to connect rubber hoses in ventilators and such. What I do is trim off any sharp edges, which there shouldn’t be too many of if it’s medical supply pieces. Rough it up a bit with a piece of fine sandpaper and then hit it with your favorite metallic brass or copper spray enamel. When it’s dry, add rivets with metallic puffy paint and then patina the piece with some green acrylic paint. What you wind up with is something like this…
Vent tubes
To add these to the Diabolus, I glued pieces of bamboo skewers into them with the sharp ends sticking out. I could then push them into the sides of the airship. Before I did that, I created a flat plate for effect using cardboard with puffy paint rivets as shown.
Flat plates
Once painted and patina antiqued, these become the bases that the vent tubes get pushed into for the final effect shown below.
Vent tube installedNo Comments
Posted in Papier-mâché, Recycled and Re-purposed, Sculpture, Steampunk
Steampunk wristwatch
28 Jul
Along with showing how I build Victorian steampunk airships, I like to post to ArtSmith CraftWorks about other cool steampunk art that I come across from time to time. Actually I run across cool steampunk stuff ALL the time and I’ll start posting about them more here. The latest cool thing I found was actually an “Instructable” that I grabbed the YouTube URL for. A guy who’s deviantArt username is “gogglerman” shows how to custom craft a very cool brass / copper steampunk wristwatch with a mechanical iris covering the face.
What kinds of awesome art have you created? Drop me a comment and let me know. I’d be happy to show it off on this blog!No Comments
Posted in Recycled and Re-purposed, Sculpture, Steampunk
Turret installation
23 Jul
Installing the observation turrets into the sides of the Diabolus first requires cutting a hole in the mâché. Due to the curving shape of the airship’s sides, the hole could not be just a simple circle, but rather a complicated ellipse. I had to hold the turret alongside the airship and lightly and carefully trace its contour into the side, allowing the pencil to follow not only the edge of the turret, but also the contour of the Diabolus. Once the hole was traced and cut, the turret slid in fairly easily and was glued into place.
Observation turret in place
With the turret in place, I bordered around it with brass trim and riveting for a strong finished look.
Turret from below
And with the “brass” trim applied, adding some patina with acrylic paint to the side of the airship gives it a weathered and aged look. Below is another view of the Diabolus showing both turrets and their position relative to the rest of the airship.
Both turrets in an inferior view
Stay tuned for the next installment!
Do you have any cool stuff you like to do with recycled or re-purposed materials?