Staying on track - no excuses!

It’s a dark, rainy Tuesday evening as a bad weather front makes its way over the country.

Wasn’t sure what to write this week though I have been doing stuff.

New work started

Abandoned the part-made armatures started last week (for now) as I’ve decided to do some half sized pieces so I have work at a range of prices.

Started with a smaller head. It was going to be mixed media.

Turned out to be the same size as the others I did. The comparison piece had long limbs so I shortened the leg wires but not enough. Bit annoying. And I just couldn’t help myself and added more and more pulp to it until it became my normal sculpts!

Looks quite nice though; it’s a 3D version of the pink leotard dancer. The support leg has been a trial as the kneecap wasn’t pointing in the same direction as the calf muscles indicated. That’s a super tricky angle to get right.

This pic shows the chaos of living/working in limited space!

New techniques

I also made some more hands after seeing a video of someone making felt dolls. Dunno what she used to make hands with so I thought, hmm, it only has to be something to firm up the wire. The cotton wool mixed with Paverpol version isn’t working as I want so I opted for embroidery silks instead. Had a weird sort of burgundy colour in my box of colours which I don’t much like and tried that.

Did one finger wire at a time then twisted them all together. Dabbed a bit of superglue on the end to start off, dribbled more glue down the wire then carefully wound the threads over it. Once all the wires were in hand format, a bit of weaving outlined the palm and separated out the fingers more. This just might work. Next ones will start from the palm end and finish at finger tip to avoid having any lumpy bits there from the glue.

The more-pulp-than-mixed-media sculpt has one hand like this and the other was coated in hot glue (another experiment). Doesn’t make a smooth coating so I won’t try that again.

So I'll have to do some more - shorter fingers and try again to get a head size and body which will produce the scale I want. Ho hum. I should be more careful rather than just bashing on with something and not checking proportions better.

That writing thing

Have also been drafting some pieces intended for Medium. I mentioned some weeks ago that I really like writing (no really? I hear you say, wondering how many words she’s written this week…).

Well. Anyway. I’m just typing madly on one topic right now...which turned into two or three other topics. But that’s fine. Just get the ideas down first and sort it all out later.

Not done things

What else should I be doing? I did say this blog would be an honest look at how a late starting artist attempts to get things off the ground, so here I am, fessing up.

Oh yes. Those Ts&Cs for Shopify. And all the bitty crap you have to do get it running. I just got so bored reading up on it all. And I still haven’t finished writing descriptions of the uploaded paintings.

Is the sudden attack of sculpting a procrastination tactic? Could be. Why? Because I haven’t sat and worked out my next steps? I don’t have a definite plan and I function best with clear goals. I have fuzzy ones, yes. But not clear enough. I think that’s it anyway.

And…Brexit. Am seriously looking at how to leave the country! There’s an option which needs some thinking about and that kind of ties in to the planning thing. But it’s not certain yet what the choice will be. May not have long to wait to find out which ways things will go and it may not change my mind about things either way.

So…delaying tactics. I see it. I know it. Then I was thinking over this in the dark, early hours and realised my ‘reason’ for delaying doesn’t really hold water.

I’ve said this before - art isn’t a career. There’s no progression, courses, qualifications that you must have to move to job A, opportunity B or whatever. It’s free range so I could just have a collection of things going on for now while I work on the bigger idea. If I’m not putting effort into getting work out there and selling anything, then I’m just playing games really.

Which is pretty lame. So I’m going to go and finish those product descriptions now.