Painting my cow. Also Art Focus

I was mentioned in Art Focus September/October 2014. I thought I would post that here. :)

http://issuu.com/ovac/docs/artfocus-septoct14?e=1732622%2F9113598











Also I thought I might as well post progress shots of the resin cow head. I started painting it to see how it would turn out.

I first used a white spray primer.
Then I air brushed brown and black acrylic to get into the lines.
Then I started painting with oils. Not sure if you are supposed to paint on Resin with oil but I figured I primed it and painted with acrylic, it was worth a shot.

Here are some photographs of my first oil layer. I plan to do at least one more layer of paint if this layer ever dries.  If this piece turns out I may do a series of them... more plans to follow.
Regardless I plan to cast some wax cows tonight or this weekend.

Before paint

with first layer of oil

first layer of oil

First layer of oil

First layer of oil

Moo!

Art Focus!

Here is another progress pic of my oil painting in progress... it's been slow and steady. I have been working on it here and there while getting some other work done this month. I added some detail to the water droplets on the cows nose today. :)

Previous Progress

New Progress

Water on the nose

ALSO! I had a photo of my work in Art Focus Magazine this month. You can see it Here

here is a photograph of it if the link doesn't work for anyone.

That made me pretty happy to see. :)

Summer Post 1

Graduation and summer have arrived. I graduated in May. I received the OVAC outstanding student award. You can read about it here.

It was a great honor to be chosen for the award and it made me very happy. I used some of the award money to purchase canvas, paints, an easel for my studio, and a black and decker matrix with router attachment.  It was a great way to end the school year.


I have been working on the small cow head. I will post in progress photographs of the mold making process soon. I thought today I would post some in progress photographs of my newest cow painting that I have been working on. It is still no where near completed as I took an extended break this June to move but now that my new studio is all set up I have begun work again on it.

  

So there are some various in progress shots of where I am and kind of my process this far. Most recently I had added green drool and worked on darkening the background a bit.

I will psot more Photos soon. Thanks for sticking with me through this absence! Glad to be back working. :)

Cows and melty things

It's been a while since I posted so I thought I would come on here and share what I am doing.
For sculpture I am working on two sculptures at once so that I am never waiting around for something. I have a foam dog which I will post about when it is a little farther along. I also have these miniature cow heads.

The cow heads were sculpted out of oil based clay. I then made a mold box out of some foam core board. I poured a rubber mold around the clay cow head and let it set up overnight. Now I am casting wax mini cow heads. The plan is to do five or so white ones and also try doing a few colored ones just to see how they turn out.  Whichever turns out better I will use those five for my show.

I will take the five cow heads and mount them to a pedestal and melt them to various stages so that there is a progression from not melted to almost fully melted. The pedestal plus the melted cows will then be shown together.

Clay Cow Head (5-6"?)

In the mold box

pouring the rubber

finished mold with hot wax inside

Three wax cow heads

 I am also doing some miniature paintings for the miniature art gallery I am helping curate for the Oklahoma State University Artists Society. I don't know if these will be in it or not but it is fun to paint this small. These paintings are only a few inches big. I am finding it kind of hard to paint that small with my current brushes. The paint globs on thicker and doesnt dry very fast so it is actually more challenging than I expected for something so small. I like working bigger much better I think.

Early on.. to show size and progress

This is probably bigger on your screen than in real life. This is after a couple

of hours

And last but not least my ceramic cow head got into Momentum :) Momentum will be in Oklahoma City March 7 and 8th 8pm to midnight. :)

http://www.ovac-ok.org/events/events_momentum.cfm

Ceramic Calf/Cow head- Got into Momentum OKC 2014

Final Semester Progress Update #1

I thought it might be a good idea to post some of my progress this semester. I have been very busy. I jumped right into finishing where I left off last semester. I planned over the winter break and rewrote a lot of things like my artist statement and bio. I also did a lot of sketching and planning. As soon as the semester started I got to work finishing my melting platform.

I melted the first wax head. (The one with the aluminum core). I found that the aluminum pulled the heat out of the wax quickly once I got down to the final layer.  I also melted another chocolate cow.

I have well over 50GB of video footage from the melting process. I plan to spend a lot of time in the next few weeks editing it down and seeing if it is presentable in that format. I also have photos which I plan to post later tonight.


For oil painting I started out by beginning a new painting to go along side of my drooling dog painting. It is the same size and format. 32x34. I would like to see these two together with possibly a projector projecting dripping water/drool from them.  The cow is still in progress. I plan to add some food in his mouth. (He was eating some kind of weed or grass when I took the reference photo). I also plan to add more detail and contrast. This is still pretty early on.

Another progress dump

It's been a crazy couple of weeks. I have been taking some progress photos but I need to take more. Here is some of what I have been working on lately.

I got the ceramic shell off of the outside of the aluminum head. Then sawed at where it connected to the cup it was poured from and broke it free.

These next few photos are in progress shots of the head being ground down and fixed up. Went from the angle grinder to eventually buffing it to a much shinier finish. I will upload completed photos next time.

close up early on

Add caption

after moving up a step or two.. still not finished in this photo but more even

I thought I would upload a more current photo of the cow tile painting.. Not much looks like it has changed here. I just upped the contrast on some parts and started to fix the grass a bit more.

Close up of its fluffy head texture.

I thought I would throw in a photo with my fat hand for size reference (cat scratches and all)

idk why I am posing with the cow..

Started on another set of paintings. This is a cow at the table and a dog at a table. It is very early
along and rough at this stage. I was trying to get the dog to fit in right

worked on making the dog work in this pose.. realized his head was too large. Everything at this point is like
an underpainting. I plan to clean all of this up.

Removed hair from the head. Started fixing eyes.. etc.. I feel like in some aspects I took a couple steps backwards
with this head. It is going to take more hours to get it to a place where I am happy with it.. Got to even back out the nose, fix the eyes and moth and neck

another angle. Eyebrows temporary too

Where's the hair??? haha.. pony tail chopped off at this stage. I will post more photos once I settle on how it will finally look.

Put the cow in its frame today.  Going to paint the frame black most likely.

Tiles played with a bit here... not final arrangement necessarily. Just one possibility.

closer up

another angle. Now to paint it and prepare it for hanging.

Thanks for looking. Updates on ceramics glazing, photos of painted frame, photos of aluminum head, and photos of final clay head soon to follow.