2015 Progress Report: January

I apologize for a being a little lazy with posting. It'll get better from here on out. This entry along with the next few entries will focus entirely of pictures of the progress I've made so far this year. The first picture at the top is my mixed media project Duality which was completed last year. The only reason I'm showing this is because not everyone will think to look at my portfolio on Facebook when I make references to past projects.

This piece is named Duality. It was completed in 2014 and served as a blueprint for the first few projects I would be working on in early 2015

1/15/15: I started off the new year with a new project. Normally, I don't like starting too many new projects without finishing up more old ones first but the first three projects I started were meant to be used as experiments for new mediums.

Before this was finally named Stone Cold, this was known as P1.

1/15/15: P1 has a similar design to my 2014 piece Duality. This was not an accident. I liked that design a lot of wanted to see what else I could do with it. It's not the same either. With the first three projects of 2015, I wanted to take that design and have it evolve while retaining some similarities. It should be noted that the P1 design is much smaller than Duality.

1/16/15: Chickenwire work was done with P1. Due to how fragile the piece is, I had to use extra hot glue around the thin edges. P1 was made to be very thin on purpose.

1/16/15: The bottom of P1.

1/20/15: The canvas work has been done. It really wasn't that easy with this piece. On parts of this, I had to cut out the canvas in long lines and run them along the sides of the holes in order to maintain the overall shape I wanted.

1/20/15: Even the bottom had canvas work done to it.

1/20/15: This is would would eventually become The New Dawn, although it started out as P2.

1/21/15: P2 made quite a bit of progress in just a few hours. Like P1, it also heavily borrows it's design from Duality.

1/21/15: This is what would eventually become Dissonance. At the time, it started out as P15. For the last few years, several projects have used the name P15. This is because I keep finishing them and there are always more than 15 projects that I'm working on. P1 was balanced on three sides at the bottom. P2 was balanced on four sides. P15 was balanced on two sides.

1/21/15: Here's the bottom of P3. There's not much to see. Like with most of my work, I made a area at the bottom were I eventually placed a name label.

1/21/15: The design of P3 is similar to the other ones but starts to stray away from that basic design.

1/21/15: The gesso work was done on the top half of P1.

1/21/15: The gesso work was done on the bottom half of P1.

1/23/15: Regular molding paste was placed on the bottom of P1 in order to create a stable surface and to add just enough weight at the bottom that keeps the otherwise extremely light sculpture from easily getting knocked over by accident.

1/23/15: The chickenwire work was completed on P2. It wasn't easy.

1/28/15: The chickenwire work is done. This one was difficult to work with. It took a lot of glue to hold everything in place.

1/28/15: I finished up the initial cavas work. It was a little difficult because of all the little pieces of canvas I had to work with.

1/28/15: The bottom of P2 after the cavas work was complete.

1/28/15: More difficult canvas work. I had to tightly wrap think pieces of canvas smeared with hit glue around the think parts and this took a long time. If the canvas looks dirty, that's because I'm using older cancas that was used for doing clay work on and other things. The nice thing about canvas is it has multiple uses and can still be used for projects like this.

1/28/15: I'm trying a medium I never used before. It's Pumice gel. I figured the easiest approach would be to let it dry in layers.

1/28/15: The gesso work on P2 has been completed.

1/28/15: The gesso work on the bottom of P2 has also been completed.

1/28/15: The gesso work on P15 has been complete.

1/28/15: The gesso work on the bottom of P15 has also been completed.

1/30/15: The molding paste work on the bottom of P2 has been completed. I know I mentioned this before but the reason I do this is to add further stability to the piece, to weigh it down a little so it won't be too easy to accidentally knock over, and to flatten out the bottom a bit.

1/30/15: The molding paste work on the bottom of P15 has been completed.

1/30/15: The Pumic gel work has been completed. This actually wasn't as difficult as I thoought it would be.

1/31/15: I spray painted P1 with flat black spray paint. I always use the black spray paint for projects like this so I can hide the white areas and it wouldn't be noticable if I missed a spot with the acrylic paints.

1/31/15: The bottom of P1 was also spray painted. This was also done for concealment purposes. It also allowed me to get the ares I might have missed when the piece was turned upright.

1/31/15: I'm using another gel medium I never used before. This is a glass bead gel.

1/31/15: Yet another medium that I've never used before. This is fiber paste. It's similar to molding paste in a lot of ways but it looks more like plaster when it dries and has a slight texture to it that molding paste does not have. I'll probably end up using this a lot in the future.