2018 Progress Report: April

The month of April was all about getting my P2 project (later renamed Prison of the Mind) finished and ready for my show. Sadly, while the project did get done, I do not have any pictures of the final product to show at this time. I'll have to include it in a future post. A lot of long work hours went into that project despite it's small size. The process that involved drawing was tedious and took a really long time. In the end, I was happy with the final result. The upcoming May progress report will focus on the projects that didn't get finished in time for my show and the progression of those projects.

Just to let everyone know, now that the summer is here, I'm preparing to do more work on various unfinished projects as well as investing time into making new button designs. This work does require a major investment on my part. Though I am not begging, if anyone wants to support the development of these projects, feel free to donate to my Patreon.

https://www.patreon.com/Jon_Erich

4/2/18: I finally began my drawings. They are based on pictures taken of my left eye and my mouth.

4/3/18: The drawings have developed quite a bit since the previous day. This is the phase of the drawing that I always refer to as the rough phase. It is where the drawing is progressing to the point where I get an idea of what the final results might look like, but there are still too many rough spots to be considered finished.

4/10/18: I believe this was the last day before I started using the pastels. I was supposed to use pastels, but I forgot to bring them with me.

4/11/18: I finally started using the pastels. Notice how most of everything looks softer and brighter than it did before.

4/16/18: I made a soft black border using a combination of charcoal sticks and black pastels. Part of the reason for doing this is for the aesthetics while the more practical reason is because it tells me what will be in the middle of the ceramic piece I will end up laying over these drawings.

4/17/18: The two drawings are finally glued to the ceramic piece, though the work on the project is still far from done. 

4/17/18: This is the back of the ceramic piece where the two drawings were glued down. Though it is hard to see, notice each piece was marked as top and bottom. As I mentioned in a previous post, my original intention was to have it be piece sheet of bristolboard with two drawings. It would have made the gluing process less of a pain.

4/17/18: This is the piece of foam board that were be the back of Prison of the Mind. The wood piece where the hooks will hang has been glued down. The thicker piece of foam board are glued at the bottom so the piece will be balanced on the wall. The outline in the middle is where the printed label will go.

4/17/18: Bristolboard has been glued down in the middle since I prefer to glue the labels down on white backgrounds. Chicken wire covers the wood and bottom hump in order to give the piece a somewhat organic aesthetic.

4/20/18: The laminated label has been glued down.

4/20/18: Canvas now covers the back and sides of the piece.

4/22/18: The canvas has been gessoed.

4/23/18: Molding paste work was done on the back. The back had to be done prior to the sides so that the specific design-style on the side can be preserved.

4/24/18: The sides and inter parts of the piece are done.  Now I need to paint them.

4/25/18: The painting is done. It took a while and a combination of many types of acrylic and metallic paints  to make everything look consistent with the ceramic parts of the piece. This piece still isn't done. It still needs work and sadly, I do not have pictures of the final piece ready yet.

4/25/18: The back has been spray painted as a undercoat. The white square that remains around the labels in the result of the label being covered while I was spray painting. The white at the bottom is the result of the spray paint getting stuck to the table. Within the following two days, the back along with the rest of the piece will be finished.