Harnessing the Cardinal and the Butthole Snowman

Bringing the Cardinal into Being

This idea has been with me for almost 2 years. Starting with a watercolor sketch I did in February 2022 I think. I did a pretty decent acrylic study of it a few months ago (I'll post a picture at the bottom of this post so you can see what I'm referring to when I talk about it.)

When I went to paint it on a bigger canvas, it brought on a mini meltdown (see my video Self Portrait: the Beast and the Void to see that.)

Now I'm beginning again. 

And I'm really trying to harness it and bring it down into reality. This is the first piece that I made a little model, or maquette, for. 

All the other maquette drawings I've been posting about are more like exercises. To get a feel for the process of making a 3-dimensional object, lighting it, and drawing it. 

I modeled the head shape, using a paper clip and wrapping some of the clay around it. 

Then I set it on a medicine bottle which kind of works for the basic shape for the torso.

I liked was the texture of the clay. 

In my original study, the face is very smooth. the bumpy, cracky imperfections of the clay made me start to think more about bringing organic texture into the form.  

This was interesting to me, because my biggest hesitation about making models and creating reference was that it would take some of the spontaneity out of it. This just totally proved that wrong. It showed me how narrow minded I had been. 

The main thing that sent me to crazy world before when trying to paint this idea was the fabric that I want to drape over the crescent head. (Check out the original study)

To help me solve the fabric problem, I put this hand drum on top of a big jar of painting medium (to emulate the head and neck, kind of a T shape.)

Then I draped a pillow case over that. 

To see how the fabric would sit against the upward angle of crescent head shape as the form turns, I put a bottle on the end of the drum and leaned the fabric up against that.

Sounds like a technical manual to describe it in words like that. Look at the picture. It looks like a horrible conceptual modern art sculpture.

The reason I used the drum and the jar and the bottle was to make it life size. 

If I used a smaller piece of fabric over the clay model it wouldn't drape and fold the way I want. 

However, to get an idea of how the shadows would look on the clay model, I folded a piece of facial tissue over the part of the model where I wanted the fabric to go.

First I drew some small quick sketches of the model from a few different angels and tried to find the big shapes and rhythms of the fabric. 

Then I did a more rendered drawing.  

As I was studying the model and the fabric I became curious about the type of shadow that the crescent head would cast. That's why I put that box next to the model. 

I don't know if I'll use this shadow in the final piece, but getting information like that and thinking about that type of thing makes me feel like I'm on the right track with this. 

This session really helped me a lot. Especially with the fabric.

Happy Dec. 7 everybody

Today when I walked in to work one of my students gave me a target gift card for Christmas. It had a picture of a wacky flamingo on it.

She said "I picked this one out for you because the flamingo looks crazy and you're both crazy."

And she told me there was a $100 on it. The back of the card said $5. Last year she told me there was $100 on the gift card she gave me and I believed her. There wasn't $100 on it. I think it was $15.

We painted snowmen for class. When it was time to paint the buttons I accidentally slipped and said we were going to paint the butt hole.

The kids erupted into chaos. They went crazy laughing so hard. I had to take the paintbrush out of one girl's hand because she couldn't stop giggling and her giggling was making her brush shake uncontrollably. I was worried she was going to ruin her painting.

They kept calling the painting the butt hole snowman. 

Have Fun

Goodnight

Sweeties