Friday, May 26, 2006

BIG TOP the PICKLED CLOWN


(click on image to enlarge)


(click on image to enlarge)


(click on image to enlarge)

I have created my second Munny for the "Munny Show" coming up in June at Capsule Gallery. I have always had a strange attraction to the imagery of clowns and they always seem to show up in my two dimensional work. For this Munny I decided to see if I could pull off one of my drawings of "Pickled Clowns" in three dimensions. Overall I am happy with how he turned out........ of course there are some things I would like to change but I am not sure if it would make him any better, or as they say in the beer advertising industry, "would the change really sell any more beer?"

As I did with my first Munny, I again applied Super Sculpy to the vinyl, sculpted the clay and baked it in the oven. Although this time I ran into a problem....... I had sculpted the head while it was setting on an aluminum post. I then proceeded to place the head in the oven at 275 degrees while the head was still on the aluminum post. I didn't think about the vinyl getting soft and stretching....... well the head got soft and stretched over the post and broke apart some of the sculpting I did....... it was a mess and a pain to fix.

I had more fun painting this than I usually do with my other sculpts. I really liked drawing the tattoos and trying to give the flesh that pasty "alive" look. I really didn't have any problems or set backs during the painting process except for when I was painting his hat. The gloss I used to cover and protect the hat would not dry. It remained "tacky" for a couple of days. (I think I just used a really old can of gloss.) I ended up coating it with an acrylic gloss and that seemed to do the trick.

I originally planned on having him wear underwear. I thought that if I made them dirty it would give him an even more creepy factor. As the figure started to develop I found that if he was to wear underwear it would end up covering too much of his belly and belly button and his butt. I put too much time in sculpting those areas that I needed to come up with something a little more revealing. So I decided on the black jock strap..... I think that this solves the problem well and still has the creepy factor.

I don't think that I will be making another "Clown" themed sculpt for awhile. I seem to have gotten it out of my system.

Remember, if you happen to live in the Denver area, the Munny show runs from June 9th through July 14th at:

Capsule Gallery
554 Santa Fe
Denver, CO
80204

Please come by and say "HI", it should be a really fun and interesting show.

On another note, I have to apologize that it has been almost a month since I have updated this blog...... again, I have been so busy that I just have not had the time. Work has been very busy. Freelance has been even busier.... I have been working on a majority of new clients and not on the same old "Original" stuff. It has been fun but I have to get in a different creative frame of mind when working on these new projects. My training for "Ride the Rockies" has not been going as well as I would like. With being as busy as I have with work and freelance assignments, I also crashed my bike a couple of weeks ago and I went down hard on my knee and it is killing me. I went down so hard that I cracked my knee cap. That has really put a dent in my training. I am able to bend it now with a little pain so I should be able to get back to riding. This weekend I have two very long back to back rides. It will be interesting to see how well I do.

Next on my plate for my vinyl customs is "Skumbo", Tristan Eaton's latest vinyl toy creation for Kidrobot..... this is for a top secret art show that will be coming up in the next couple of months. I am going to try and take photos in stages as I create this guy and post them here. Hopefully I can remember to do this while I am invololved in the creative process. I seem to get so involved that I forget to document.

Enjoy,

Jack