Cookie, cookie, cookie starts with 'C'

Holidays, 2010--Robin Verble's annual Christmas party.
I was tasked with cookie-cutting and decorating the sugar cookies; I asked if I could do them free hand, and when she said yes a tradition was born. Behold!

2010's Dinosaur Nativity:

 (click to enlarge!)

and 2011's Zombie Santa's Workshop:

Melancholy Comics: 1

Apologies for the size; this is as big as I can make it. I hope it's still legible.

From 2009--This was going to be a piece of a larger project with black and white ink narrative interspersed with mixed-media dream sequences, but I've since moved on to other endeavors. The over-arcing theme of the project was about self-discovery, but I've become much more comfortable with myself over the last five years and have shed the angst that originally fueled these works.

Still good exercises in visual storytelling though.

Tiramisu

A cocoa-powder stencil of a barn owl on the dessert I made for last Thanksgiving.

Spring-time Mega-post!

What better way to celebrate the advent of spring than with bouquets of flowers? These ones happen to be made of clay, but still convey the burgeoning splendor of the season.

These are a series of sculptures that I made for family members a few years ago: the first two are Christmas tree ornaments gifted to my sisters Sarah and Elise respectively. The ornaments are replicas of their weddings bouquets. I made one a few months ago for my sister Anais, as she was recently married last May, but I have yet to take any photos of it (her wedding bouquet was calla lilies and freesia). The third bouquet posted here is a brooch I gave to my grandmother.

Each sculpture went through my usual M.O.: super sculpey baked at 275 deg. (with finer details baked previous to bouquet assembly), painted with acrylics, and sprayed with a fixative finish.

Tulips and roses:

 

Sunflower and irises:

Calla lily and tulips:

A wee bit devilish

Here's last year's pumpkin:

Here's last year's pumpkin with a candle in it :-)

It's supposed to be a little imp hiding behind a leaf in the underbrush. The hardest part, but most satisfying in the end, was shaving down the leaf to a minimal width that would allow a fair amount of light through and show the silhouette of the imp behind it.
This was largely carved by dremel although the big spaces were taken out with a knife. I cut too close on the tail and the ears and ended up clipping them off, but it was easy enough to reattach them with little pieces of toothpick. On Halloween night, some drunk asshole put his knee through it--an unfortunate fate, but this sort of art is always ephemeral anyhow.

Pirates on the Panama Canal

This pirate costume was cobbled together for a pirate-themed birthday/going away party my last night at the BCI field station a couple summers ago. Not a Halloween costume, but a costume nonetheless. Though everyone was doing intensive field work, parties were not uncommon (3-4 during the 6 weeks I was there). From the box of party knick-knacks available in the study lounge I found a belt to cinch one of my field shirts with and a floppy hat that I pinned up to make a tricorn. The cravat and sleeve ruffles were made with paper towels and masking tape, and everyone's eyepatch was sharpied notebook paper except for Dana who sported a piece of driftwood (3rd from left above). Lastly, I borrowed a razor from another student to make a more roguish shape of the facial hair I'd been growing out all trip. Quite dashing, no?

--"You asked me to draw you a tattoo of Poseidon. You never specified I couldn't draw him with a monster dong. . . 


. . .yeah, that's sharpie."

October

Time for a batch of Halloweeny posts (i.e. pumpkins and costumes)! True, it's been October for almost 2 weeks, but I've been out canyoneering in SW Utah. I'll start off with my costume from last year: the Egyptian deity Horus.

I started with a clay mask that I sculpted directly on my face because I had nothing else to lay it on to keep its shape. I packed tin foil onto my face and began laying on slabs of clay. After I had the right form, I found that it would stand up if placed over two upside-down kitchen bowls--one big (forehead), one small (chin). From there, I finished the details: semi-circle cuts for a feathered look, nostrils, shaping the eyes, etc.

-Here's the mask in the oven:

Then, as with anything else I make with super sculpey, I painted it with acrylics and sprayed it with a finish/fixant. The colors are based off of the peregrine falcon, with a few creative liberties to accommodate for a human contour.

-Profile:                                                                  -3/4 angle:

The rest of the costume was essentially a black leotard with a white Egyptian-style loincloth and an ochre cloth head-dress. Unfortunately, only one picture of me fully dressed exists, and I don't currently have it. As soon as I get it I'll update this post.

Now to start brainstorming for this years costume!