This morning I also took some photographs of my movable pieces in the studio!
These will be the images I will be selecting my business cards and press pack imagery from!
Everything is up! All pieces are in place!
The little hares are also all tacked down with museum glue, so if a plinth does get knocked, they should all stay on!
The head is secure, cured and very stable!
I’m actually quite surprised as I thought it was going to be much harder than it was.
After chatting to Ingrid I was advised to change the paintwork on ‘The Origin of the Jackalope’ to something more neutral as to show off the modelling more clearly.
Initially I was apprehensive and really disliked his need look, the brown paint was quite shiney.
But after touching it up and some getting used to, I believe it is more effective.
Also it shows the gilding up much better
Today I also attatched the bronze head to ‘The Goddess’ piece. I did this much the same way as I attatched the ears to The Mad Hare.
Pre-firing I created holes in the ceramic neck area. These holes did need filing in the end due to being slightly uneven, but this was easily some with a small rounded file. I then measured out metal rod to the right size so that the head fitted nicely, and the rod went all the way through to the base of the hare by trial and error (measuring acurately was impossible due to the small opening and uneven hole in the bronze head).
I was surprised to find the rods actually held a large proportion of the weight so I secured the rod with car body filler, filled the head with it and popped it on. I then propped it and left it to dry.
And he’s fully re-painted and touched up!
And the ears stay on!
Whey!
The new ears are on!
Same technique as last time minus tech dem help. Also instead of using car body filler to mold them to the head I’ve used milliput – this should be stronger and stick better
These look to be holing on much better, so much so that after leaving them for a few hours I decided to paint them with a base coat of grey acrylic as I did with the body and last set of ears. I also touched up any loss of surface on the body, mostly where I had to re-attatch the leg, with acrylic.
After looking at my bronze pieces next to my ceramic pieces it became very clear that they make the painted gold parts look very ‘painty’ and ineffective. Acrylic just can’t live up to the sheen of real metal.
My lecturers agreed and which their advise I purchased some 22 carat golf leaf in ‘Rouge’
After learning hot to use it yesterday and applying some to my pieces then and today it looks so much better.
The pieces have a much better flow now too
I did have one little miss-hap though, I applied a little too much pressure while gilding this poor fellow, and snapped his wee horn!
But that’s nothing a little epoxy glue and milliput can’t fix!
It turns out, the ears were too heavy after all.
Because of this the piece would tilt and one ear would not stay attached to the head
As I was trying to fix said ear, something slipped, causing the piece to tilt, the front leg to break and the other ear to smash into a board and break.
It was not fun.
Therefore I decided to remake the ears smaller and using paper clay so they are much lighter
Samantha Emily Alland 