Another commission to share today, one which took me forever to do. I mean, I started them fine, back before summer… but then it was summer. Busy with grooming and mom being sick and visitors and all sorts of busy summer things.
Up to that point I had only done the structure of them, ie cardboard, masking tape and wire so I needed to move onto the clay or papier mâché part. Since the buyer didn’t want these finished in fabric, I decided to use air dry clay for the whole thing.
And I’m glad I did cause I love the way they turned out.
Given the brief for these guys was ‘something easy to dust’ I opted to spray them with white gloss paint, something I’d never done before as a finish for my work. But I’m really happy with the result.
This is one dog I especially loved doing. He belongs to a friend of mine and he’s a beautiful boy with a lovely personality and serious ball addiction.
He’s some kind of terrier mix with huge ears and a crazy coat.
Here is a close up of his face and those massive ears.
And a little 3D visual.
So, how did I achieve that coat you ask? Well, I thought the best thing for it would be to use gauze. I raided my medicine cabinet and took out some gauze which I dyed by soaking in coloured water: the black was diluted acrylic paint, and the tan was… you guesed it! Black tea!
I then cut up the gauze strips into sections and laid them over the figure in a way that matched Dizzy’s colouring and the direction of the coat.
I then brushed the gauze to loosen it up and give it a more ‘hairy’ appearance.
It worked out pretty well even if do say so myself.
Mind you, the coat is not soft and flowing. I had to fix him with PVA glue to make sure he stayed intact, but he’s a sculpture, not a toy, so I figure that doesn’t matter.
The friend that commissioned him asked about his eyes. I don’t do eyes on my dogs. I’m not really sure why, they just seem better that way. Maybe its because I don’t feel I can do them justice this way, not like I can in my paintings. Maybe its cause without eyes you can project your own eyes onto them, your mind automatically fills in the blanks and imparts the emotions that you want to see in the figures.
Maybe I’m full of crap. But I’m the artist, so I have creative license. Ha.
junk4joy 