Design Fest Sculpture: Ladies and Gentlemen, Wolfie 2!

So because wolfie 1 failed, (thats just a nickname I ended up giving my sculpture by the way) I had to think of a new concept that would not only be sturdy, but also charming.

I figured that the look I was going for with my first sculpture was fearsome, and menacing. When push came to shove (no pun intended) my sculpture would not stand even after fixing its legs. So rather than even more countless attempts and more time wasted, I decided to start over. Hey, I know when to quit!

So I came up with a concept of the wolf once more, sitting this time. His weight would be more even distributed, and I would work on details rather than stance. Also, I couldn't quit make him as fearsome as I had originally hoped, so, I decided, why not make it charming instead?



I would trade scary for charm.


I decided I'd put a grin on its nightmarish face, and have him holding red's basket. Spiked, black fur...he was going to look awesome!
















So I bought more clay, 15 pounds this time, including some I had left over and got to work. I used ink instead of black paint when I was finished sculpting, because I thought it would require less coats, plus would give me the blacker than black look I wanted.


I knew I couldn't keep wolfie on the make shift board for display so I went to home depot and bought this round wooden board. Its the perfect size, and durable enough to hold everything I put on it. But it needed some color...
































I thought twisted branches might add to the over all fairy tale effect. Plain black was just boring!
After mounting Wolfie onto the board, I thought it could use some more decorations. It just looked sorta boring.

So I went out to our back yard and picked some branches off of our lime tree. These looked plenty scary, and they were prickly too! Ouchie!











After using a glue gun and some clay to hold up the branches, the look on my piece was almost complete!

















So I added a note, with the name of the piece, my name, my major and what was used to create it. I burnt the note over the stove, to give it that old parchment feel. I painted a "picnic blanket" for red's basket. Then, I put the basket in the wolves' mouth, and viola!

Design Fest Sculpture: Wolfie 1

So as I mentioned in a previous post, I am going to enter two pieces for Design Fest 2009 with the story Little Red Riding Hood as my theme. The first entry was the mousepad, and for the second one, I wanted to do something I've never done before, a clay sculpture.

Challenging, oh yes!

I wanted to create a sculpture of the wolf from little red riding hood, stand on all fours, and turned slightly, growling menacingly. I wanted him thin, lanky and all black, almost like a shadow creature, rather than an actual wolf, with huge horns to push that concept. Something out of your nightmares.

So, with that in mind, I purchased 10 of Air Dry Clay and got to work.














The problem with this original sculpture, was that it's legs couldn't support it's rather heavy weight. I even used two cans of beans to stick under it's belly while the legs dried. But when I removed them, he was VERY fragile.

And after a few minutes of standing completely on his own, he fell after a slight nudge...


I had to think of something else, and quick....