Update on the Carousel Project

It's the next to the last day in January and I'm still looking at what I have accomplished on the Carousel project.  So far, I have four menagerie animal designs reduced to the size I need by the grid method.  They are a giraffe, a camel, a cat, and a pig. 

I've completed three of the four armatures so far.  The pig is only half way done.  From looking at what I've accomplished, it seems like only a small bit of work for having worked a good part of the month on this project.  The animals are so small, three to four inches, that it really takes an extra amount of time to create the armatures.  Some pieces are so tiny that I have to hold onto the bits with tweezers.  I should have the pig armature completed by this afternoon. 

Hopefully, I will be starting to add the layers of paper mache' tomorrow.  As you can see from the pictures, I have not yet addressed the issue of the pole that will go through each animal.  That is not an oversight.  I want to get one layer of paper mache' onto the each animal to stabilize the armature before I start to deal with the pole. 

I'll be blogging more about the pole for the menagerie animals in a later post.

Carousel-Part 4 Camel and Cat Armatures

Camel armature.

I'm only a little further along on working on the armatures than I was when I posted on last Wednesday.  I have completed the camel armature and I'm working on the cat armature. Creating the armatures on any project can be a slow process, especially if you are working on something really small.  On this project, some of the parts are so small that I am using tweezers to hold onto them long enough to get them taped where I want them.

Cat armature.

The effort put into this part of the project will pay off in the long run, because I will have an armature strong enough to stand up to the damp paper mache'.  A few years ago, I started a project, but did not put enough thought into the strength of the armature.  In the middle of the evening, the whole thing buckled and landed on the floor with a thud.   The project was ruined.  I never did get that project started again.  So now I know to make sure that the armature has enough support for what is to come.  

You might notice that the camel and cat armatures have no tails.  The giraffe armature shown in a previous blog post had neither tail, ears, or horns.  All of those components will be added on later, once the menagerie animals have a couple of layers of paper mache' on them.  If they were on the project at this point, they would be over-sized by the time the final layers of paper mache' were added.

My goal right now is to get the armatures created for the animals before I move on to the next phase.  I want the armatures to be balanced, so that they appear to stand naturally.  That is important at this level.  If the animals are not balanced at this point, when the upright pole is added the animals will not appear to be level in relation to the pole.  In situations where the animal is not level in relation to the pole, people have to make a choice to go back and repair the animal or learn to deal with a pole that is tilted so that the animal appears upright.

The cat is my third armature.  I have a sketch drawn for one more animal.  Once they are complete, I will place them on the carousel to determine whether to stop at four animals or whether I can add a few more by staggering the animals on the carousel platform.  I'll blog more about this as I get to them.  The fourth animal may be complete by my next blog post.  Stay tuned for pictures.

Carousel-Part 2- Pictures

Giraffe drawn to scale.

Inside silhouette.

After much pondering about how to make my carousel, I decided to make a carousel of vintage menagerie animals, because seeing one in a museum is what really inspired me to do the piece.  I'm getting a good start on my carousel project.  My first task is always to do some research.  I find that reading about whatever I am working on gives me more ideas for things to work into the project.  I have learned a few things about carousels that I never new before.  For example, the side of the carousel animal that faces towards the outside of the carousel is called the Romance side.  The Romance side is generally more richly carved than the other side which is referred to as the inside or non-romance side.  Sometimes carousel animals are ornately carved on both sides.  It makes sense from a time saving perspective to not have to do as much carving though.

Poster board mock up to test the size.

Supports are toothpicks and poster board, and tape.

My carousel animals are not going to be carved.  They are going to be made of paper mache.  The book's instructions for carving aren't going to be that helpful, but the information on proportion is going to be really useful.  However, the proportions in the book are sized differently than what I need, so I am going to have to make some adjustments.  I am making carousel animals that are only half the size of their minimum measurements, so everything is going to have to be significantly reduced.  I'm working from two books, and both books say to scale up the patterns by using the grid method.  Neither of them says to slap the book on a copier and put in a percentage.  (I'm guessing that they had not thought that it would be a feasible wood carving project to make it any smaller than one-eighth scale.)  So, in deference to their instructions, I am using their recommended method of making a grid drawing to reduce the size of the pattern to one-sixteenth scale.  It is a good deal of work, but I'm trying to keep in mind that by working grid by grid I am improving my drawing skills as well as working on my carousel project.

I need to make sure that my animals are going to be the right size for the carousel, so I did a cardboard mark up of one of the animals.  Its easy to think that this was quickly done, but it was not.  To do a grid drawing to get the right scale and make the cardboard mock up took a day and a half.  The test animal was a giraffe.  It was the tallest of the animals, so it will give me a sense of the maximum height of the animals as well as the length and width.  The animal silhouettes are poster board, held together by pieces of poster board, toothpicks to strengthen the legs, and tape. 

As usual, I learned from my mistakes.  My first mistake was that I made the drawing of the animal without including the saddle.  It does not take anything away from the giraffe, but from a standpoint of building the carousel animal, it makes sense to have the back part of the saddle that extends above the back of the animal as part of the design when I make the paper mache sculpture.  I have to go back in and add that to my pattern.  At least I discovered that before I made more animals.

My second mistake was probably one that most people would not notice.  I put the Romance side on the inside and the non-romance side on the outside.  All in all, it is not a big deal, but someone serious about carousels would probably notice it since I'm trying to reproduce vintage creatures.  When I make something, I try to keep in mind that people can be really passionate about details.  From this mistake, I learned to make sure which side is facing the outside. 

I tried to take the animal apart, but I accidentally tore the leg off of it while removing the tape.  That is okay. It was just a mock up to check for size. Unfortunately, I did all the math in my head when it came to reducing the width of the animal.  Now I wish I'd written it down.  There are a lot of measurements to take into consideration.  I only used a few, to get a general shape, but it was a lot of work to figure it out since I had to convert from eighths to sixteenths and thirty-seconds to get the measurements I needed.

 I learned a lot about constructing the animal armature by making the mock up.  Specifically, that poster board by itself was not going to be enough support for the paper mache.  I will have to make a much sturdier frame to support the weight.  I'll blog more about that in future posts. 

Beginning the Carousel Project-Pictures

The spinning base hardware.

I'm beginning to work on the carousel.  Today, I am blogging about the base, and why it is important to let a project incubate in your mind for a while before beginning the actual work.  My initial idea for creating a carousel was generated after viewing a project for a string powered carousel folk art toy.  It was simple enough to construct, and the simple shape of the animals in the project left a lot of room for improvement.  I felt I could turn the project into something interesting.

Twelve inch diameter base.

The rotating action for the toy was powered by winding the strings around the center post to create tension.  Once the toy was wound up, you let it go and the carousel went around until the strings unwound completely.  I probably would have created that type of carousel if I had not let the project sit for a few days.  I had some concerns as to how long the strings might last and  whether they would become tangled as the project spun around.  Maybe, maybe not.  I did not build one to find out.  New ideas rose to the surface.

Spinner base and wooden platform.

I was pondering the question of how to make the carousel spin and wondering if a wooden lazy susan might not have been a better idea for a rotating platform.  I had seen some large ones at a home decorating store, that were twenty-four inches in diameter.  It would have been a great platform and spun easily, but they were fifty dollars.  Fifty dollars!  They were boards that had been painted and distressed.    Could I make something like that?  Maybe, but it would cost as just as much by the time I bought all the materials. 

It was at about this point that I shared my carousel ideas with my husband who said, "I have just the thing."  He brings out a base that he had at one time planned to use to create some rotating shelves in a closet.  The project never came off because we replaced our oil fired furnace with central heating and air conditioning, and we used that closet to house the air handler.  He had kept the bases (he had two of them) all of these years because "some day I'm going to do something with it."   And now, more than ten years later, I'm going to use it in a carousel project.  Two pieces of his "save it for later" pile have successfully been transferred from his pile to mine.  This is why creative people never want to throw anything out.  Sooner or later we will find something to do with all those bits and parts we keep hanging around.

So now I am faced with a dilemma,  the spinning base is heavy duty and I could easily build a larger carousel.  Two feet in diameter would be no problem for the base.  And it would allow for larger carousel animals, but, it will be harder to find a place to display something of that size.  If the project comes out well, someone may want to buy.  However,  if it is too large it could be harder to sell for the same reason.  If it is smaller, at least I will have a place to put it.  (Space for my art work is getting to be at a premium.  My husband is getting a little ticked off at the life size folk art pig I made that is hanging out in our living room.) So, plywood or hardwood boards?  Something purchased or a platform I made myself?  Larger or smaller?

Since this is my first attempt at a carousel project, I've decided that I will go with a smaller size platform and smaller animals.  A smaller size will allow me to experiment with  animals without having to spend as much time on each one.  When I start a project like this, I experiment with different methods for making the objects.  My first idea is not always my best idea.  Hopefully, by the time I have finished the last animal I will have come up with an optimal way to produce them.

The first picture shows the metal base.  The second picture shows the metal base covered with a wooden clock face purchased from a craft store.  It was the right size, and the edges were already routed to a decorative edge.  Now that I have the spinning part figured out, I'm ready to get going on the project.

On a twelve inch diameter platform the animals will be about three inches from nose to the tail or foot, whichever is the longer measurement.  That is about one sixteenth of a full size carousel animal.   Even at that size, I will probably have to do just a single row of animals around the carousel.  I think a double row would appear to be crowded.  But I'll have to wait and see on that.  Another option would be to stagger the animals in inner and outer rows.  I'll have to wait and see how it looks once the animals are created.

Next blog will be about figuring out how to make the animals.

More Mixed Media Hearts Experimentation-Pictures- and Carousel Update

I have been experimenting with art materials again this week.  As I mentioned in the last blog post, I'm using hearts as the base for the experiment because Valentine's Day is on the way and that brings hearts to mind. 

Black paint on foil.

This week I was testing how well different glues held when foil was glued to the cardboard hearts.  Last week, I used multipurpose glue and it held well.  This week, I was checking water soluble glues.  In some crafting situations, such as working with children, you would want to use a glue that can be cleaned up easily and will not permanently adhere to clothing.   I tested a water soluble glue stick and a brand of viscous washable clear school glue.  I have decided to list the glues as generic because you never know what kind of negative feedback you might get from companies for writing about their products these days.  (That said, any company that would like me to test their products is welcome to contact me.  My email is listed in the profile above.)    

Metallic gold and black paint on foil.

I rubbed the heart thoroughly with the glue stick and applied the foil, shiny side outwards.  I cut the foil about an eighth inch larger than the heart.  The foil was rubbed down against the heart to make sure that the glue had a tight bond with the foil.  Then the heart was turned over, glue was applied to the other side.  The excess foil was then wrapped around to the back.  More foil was applied in the same manner, except that extra glue was applied to the rim of the foil before it was wrapped around to the front.  What I found was that the glue stick did not hold the foil well.  The foil slipped off the cardboard heart as I was painting and lifting off paint, even though it had been given time to dry before being painted. 

The washable school glue was applied to the hearts with a paint brush.  Other than that, the process of applying the heart was the same.  The washable school glue did a much better job with the foil.  It held well on the hearts and has not had any areas come loose except for one area that did not get any glue on it.  So, if you are working in a situation that requires a water soluble glue and foil, the washable clear school glue is the better choice.  All hearts shown are the ones glued with the washable school glue.

I also was working with some paint effects on foil.  I came up with some interesting results.  Last weeks hearts had a lot of glue smeared on them due to how I applied the foil.  The glue acted as a primer and held the paint on the foil well.  Last weeks hearts also had multiple coats of paint.  This week, I deliberately made sure that no glue was on the front of the foil.  I wanted to see how acrylic craft paints acted on foil without a primer.  I experimented with black, metallic gold, and red craft paints. 

The results look much better in person than they photographed.  Glare from the lights, and reflections on the foil contributed to making the picture taking less than stellar.  I know about reflectors, and bouncing the lights to soften them, but I just don't have the equipment.  So, the photos are the best I could get with what I had to work with.

The paints did not adhere well to the foil without a primer.  The paint was very streaky and you could see a lot more of the aluminum foil through it  When paint was lifted off gently, it still took off a lot of the paint.  Only paint that was trapped up against the folds of the foil remained when I used heavier pressure.  The experiment yielded some interesting results though. 

The black paint over foil yielded a look of tarnished silver.  I painted both sides of the heart this way.  The paint was lifted off using a gentle tapping motion.  The heart looked like it was made of heavy metal.  It had a very industrial look.  I think I could find a way to use this in a mixed media piece if I wanted to make something such as a medallion.  Or represent something metallic that was very heavy, perhaps a man hole cover of a sewer? 

I painted one side of a second heart with metallic gold, and then overlaid it with black paint which was lifted off with moderate pressure using a paper towel.  Because some of the metallic gold paint lifted up as well, you could see some of the silvery aluminum as well.  It reminded me of an old piece of inexpensive metal jewelry that had been left in a drawer a long time that was chipped, faded, and tarnished.  I'm not sure where I would use this look, but it had a very nostalgic feel to it.

The other side of the second heart was painted with red paint and allowed to dry most of the way.  Then black paint was applied over the red.  The paints were lifted off with heavy pressure using a paper towel.  Almost all of the paint came off.  The red and black were only left in the crevasses of the foil.  It looked as if something shiny, like chrome, had been left outside to rust.  I really don't have an application in mind, but it really reminds me of the beginning of bicycle handles starting to rust.

Update on the Carousel Project
I have received one of my books on making carousel animals.  I am really excited about getting started on this project.  My first post about it will be coming up on Wednesday.

Hearts

While waiting for my books to arrive so I can do some research on making a carousel, I'm playing with hearts.  I find that after I finish a prolonged project I need a little down time before I begin the next one.  Creative play helps me unwind a little.  When I allow myself to play a little, I feel refreshed and ready to start my next project.  This time I chose hearts.  Valentine's Day is around the corner, so hearts were on my mind.

My experiment was to cut out a bunch of hearts out of a piece of poster board and see what they looked like when I used various arts and crafts techniques and materials.  I have only been working on this for a short time, so there aren't a lot of results yet.  The hearts in the blog today have holes in them for jewelry or attaching to a fiber project.

These hearts have no particular purpose.  I am just using them as a method of playing with different materials and seeing what happens.  The hearts could end up in a mixed media collage, craft project, or the trash.  It doesn't really matter because I am just playing.  Who knows, I might come up with some idea that ends up being submitted to a craft magazine.  You never know what will happen when you allow your imagination to experiment.

While all this is going on, my mind is running ideas for the carousel in the background.  My carousel won't be just a plain horse carousel.  It will have some sort of theme, although I haven't decided which one yet.  Sooner or later, the idea will rise to the surface.  Right now, I'm just mulling over possibilities: animals other than horses, Halloween theme, nightmare, dragons?  Yes, I went there, dragons!  By allowing my ideas time to incubate, I'll come up with something unusual.  It will be fun.  

The Clown Juggler Art Doll- pictures

 Once again I apologize for the disorganized format of today's blog.  The platform will not allow me to post the pictures in the space I want to post them.  Today it won't even let me post them in the order I want to post them.  When I add a picture, it drops my text way down to that it is hard to see.  When I move the text up it deletes the pictures.  I've run out of time to mess with it, so this is how the blog will have to look today.  Please look  below for the rest of my commentary.

As I blogged last time, I'm beginning a carousel project.  I'm still in research mode.  I ordered books from the libranry and guess what?  Somehow all of the books on carousels are mysteriously missing.They offered to purchase more books, bua a library purchase can take weeks to months, so I decided to order them for myself.  They should be here in a few days.  I was able to find a couple of books at a fairlly reasonable price, but books on carousels are expensive.  If the books I ordered are in good enough shape, I will donate them to the library when Im finished.  Other than that, I have purchased the material that I plan to use for the base, but that is as far as I have proceeded with the carousel project.I thought I'd post a picture of one of my previous projects today.  This is an art doll that I call The Clown Juggler.  I had just finished a very colorful quilt, and wanted to do something in black and white.  The result was this art doll.  This doll has a cloth body over an armature of wire, batting, and string.  His head and hands are bake in the oven polymer clay.  The hoops and stick are pieces of wire covered with white and black embroidery thread. 

The Clown Juggler was a part of a larger project that I have mentioned in previous blogs.  I had made a number of headless doll bodies with the intention of having the body part of a doll already made so I could jump right in to making a doll when inspiration struck.  It has been helpful in some ways, but not in others.  It was great to be able to jump right in and start the fun part of doll making.  However, there were times that I had a body this size and I wanted a doll that size.  Then I had to go through an internal dilemma to figure out what was more important to me at the time.  Also, there is more pressure in getting the head "right" on the first try.  In some circumstances, it meant a lot of deconstructing if the head did not come out properly.  Despite those drawbacks, it was an enjoyable project.  Although, as I mentioned before, it creeped my husband out to have all those headless doll bodies lying around.

This doll is not free standing.  He is held upright by a metal doll stand.  This was the last doll I made before I began experimenting with free standing art dolls.

Project Plans for 2013 and photos of 2012 Folk Art Projects

Spiral Gazing Ball.

Happy New Year everyone!  I wanted to blog about my project plans for 2013.  I also wanted to take a last look at the projects I completed in 2012.  Time is a funny thing.  It seems as if the projects took forever to complete while I was working on them, but at the end of the year I look back and wonder how the year passed so quickly.

Diorama: Devil Looking for Trouble in a Small Town.

My plans for 2013 are actually based on a synchronicity.  During the summer of 2012, there was a series of storms here that left my home without power for a couple of weeks.  I spent a lot of time at the library.  One of the books I was leafing through during that time was a book on folk art toys.  I saw a string powered carousel.  The toy components were very basic.  I thought it had some potential, and listed the idea as something for future thought.

Folk Art Pig.

Then, I was clearing out some (very) old magazines, and leafed through them to see if there were any articles I wanted to keep.  I found plans for making a rocking horse.  It gave dimensions and construction information.  That reminded me that I had considered making a carousel.  The plan moved up a notch on my radar.  But I really did not want to do just a carousel.  A lot of people are doing those, and while they are beautiful, I don't want to do something that looks like everything else.  I was pondering how I could make a carousel and how I could make one that was different from an ordinary carousel.

A few weeks ago, one of my friends called and asked if I wanted to make a day trip to a folk art museum.  We went not knowing what to expect.  Inside the museum was a beautiful carousel with hand carved animals.  I absolutely fell in love with it.  The animals were not horses.  They were zoo animals.  It was amazing!  I could have stayed there all day looking at this magnificent creation.

Wild Rose Walking Stick.

After coming across three instances of a carousel, I feel that perhaps the universe is suggesting that I make a folk art carousel.  When I keep crossing paths with an idea, it really seems to me that it is an indication for the direction that I need to go.  So my major project for this year will be a carousel.   I am planning on it being a mixed media carousel.  Some parts will be wood, while the figures will be paper mache.  I might be inspired to try carving as a side project, however, I don't think my first carving project will make it into the carousel.

Diorama:  Faux Tesla Coil.

My other planned project at this point is another walking stick.  This particular walking stick has a unique shape and has been hanging around for years waiting for the inspiration to come.  The bulbous top of the head has always seemed to have an animal head shape to it, but I could never quite figure it out.  Now I'm thinking of something in a completely different direction.  I was watching a television show on Easter Island, which started me thinking about Polynesia, and the oral traditions that they practiced.  I considered how dance and art cues played a part in helping to remember the details of the oral tradition.  So now, I'm considering that this walking stick may have a tribal design that details a (fictional) tribe with perhaps a line of poetry in the design.  The tribal design would represent pre-literate  ancestors, while the poetry would represent linking the ancestors to the manifestation of the tribe in the current literate world.  The walking stick poetry would have overtones of linking a shaman to the tribal ancestors.  That is a tall order.  I haven't gone any further with the idea than this.  However, inspiration has spoken loud and clear on this one, and I know that what is needed will fall into place as I begin working on it.

So those are my two big plans for the moment.  (I also have a couple more on the back burner, but more on those later.)  I don't have any idea how long it will take to finish these.  That is the good thing about making art without production deadlines.  When it is finished, it is finished.  As long as I work on something consistently, making some step on it each day, it will come to fruition.   The journey of making art is as important, if not more important, than the product.  My 2013 journey starts today.  I'll be heading to the arts and crafts store for supplies.  

I also wanted to take a look back at the art I completed in 2012.  I completed five pieces this year.  I don't stick with one particular medium because my interests are all over the place.  Also, if I keep working with some particular type of art for too long, I become bored with it.  For me, it is better to switch off from one type of work to another.  Then I can come back to a medium refreshed and ready to work in it again.  So the projects completed this year include a stained glass gazing ball, the Devil Looking for Trouble in a Small Town diorama, a Folk Art Pig, the Wild Roses Walking Stick, and the Faux Tesla Coil Diorama.  Many hours went into these projects.  From the standpoint of how much enjoyment I received from creating these projects, it was time well spent.