Pig Update: Shades of (Benicia) Blue

I was pretty disappointed with the way my glaze turned out. I only blame the one holding the brush on that (aka "me"). Ah well, lesson learned.

Pig is no longer so innocent and unassuming. He's developed an interesting personality lately. I finished the sculpt this morning, then tonight did a little sanding and applied the paint. I used Magic Sculp for the addition of the eyebrows, lips, tongue, and to hold the wing wires in place. Awesome product!

For those of you that wonder what paint will stick to glazed ceramics, I highly recommend you give Krylon Fusion for Plastics a try. That stuff is AMAZING! You still have to be careful before it cures, and I wouldn't go knocking it about if it can be avoided, but it's held up well on the test skulls I sprayed a couple months ago.

So the pig has his base coat of paint, and he is a lovely shade of Benicia Blue, or at least a reasonably close version. Ever since I did the concept sketch for the pig, I wanted to paint him Benicia Blue.

 Eyebrows added to disguise the little eyes close together. I'm painting new eyes in. I was messing around with the magic sculp the other night and decided I wanted to give him a tongue, so the lips had to go with it. A tribute to Mick Jagger and Gene Simmons! Gave him cloven hooves too.

 Wing armature. The wings will be constructed out of copper wire.

 The other side.

Top/back. You can kind of see the outline from the glaze. To disguise that will either involve clever pinstriping, or some leafing AND clever pinstriping. May go with copper leafing just to tie in with the copper wings.








My deadline? I have to have this back to Artcentric by January 3! Eep!! Ah well, I do most of my projects like this under pressure, so cue the Mission Impossible music!!

Pig Update

Time is ticking away! I have completed the sculpt on the pig for the Parade of Pigs. Now the painting and wing building can commence.

Yes, the Dragon Pig's mouth is a tribute to Mick AND Gene, why do you ask?

Painting a (Ceramic) Pig for a Cause

I started painting my pig tonight. Early in October, I wrote about the Parade of Pigs put on by the Benicia Education Foundation and Artcentric. Decided to throw my lot in with the local artisans and students painting up piggy banks for a cause. I know there were many who applied, so I am happy my design one of the 20 selected.


The pig is a ceramic piggy bank that, when finished, will join the rest of them to be distributed to local shops on First Street in downtown Benicia to act as a way to collect donations for the schools in Benicia. That will happen in early January. The pigs will be in their host locations until May, when they return to Artcentric to be auctioned off. Again, the funds go to the cause.


So now I need to find a host store on First Street. One that has a lot more foot traffic than my humble place of work. Or maybe more than one place to split the time?

Tonight I started applying some glaze to the ceramic, but I'm not doing JUST glaze. I have other ideas, involving spray paint, 1-shot (anybody surprised?), leafing, some sculpted wire, and other things. I will be posting progress pics along the way.

Here are some of the beginning shots:

Blank canvas.

Looks so innocent, so unassuming. So ready to become…

DRAGON PIG!!

To the left, a very rough sketch of the idea.  Beginning to rough in the face sketch for future reference, and beginning the glazing process.

Continuing the glazing process. Figured to keep durability in mind, I'm glazing the area surrounding the hole on the top. The rest will be in my preferred spray paints and 1-Shot.








UPDATE: 11/30/11
Due to election coverage and my editor being on paternity leave for 3 weeks, I wasn't able to work on the pig until tonight. The final coats of glaze are applied (the design is still the same) and it is awaiting a firing. Once fired, the blue areas will be nice and shiny. The rest of it will then be subjected to my crazy ideas. Stay tuned!!

An Armor Ring in Copper

I love armor rings. The articulation, the hint of it being a part of weaponry, the “Heavy Metal” aspect to them… so when Julie Mauerer posted this tutorial for an armor ring, I HAD to do it! A great challenge in metalsmithing, soldering, and cold connections (riveting). I am excited for the semester to start back up so I can make a few more of these with different decoration.

 Thankfully my fingernails did not have the “pinstriper’s manicure” when I took this photo. The ring fits comfortably, but it is a little too heavy to wear for painting. It throws my hand’s balance off.

I wanted the ring to have a distressed and battered look to it, achieved by scuffing with a series of files (I attacked it!) and antiquing. The burnished look resulted from tumbling with steel shot.

Been on a Brief Hiatus

Or is it “long time, no blog”?

I have been caught up in a lot of other things lately, and sadly I have neglected my blog!

To make up for it, let me share one of my “in progress” pieces… another 3 wire woven cuff much like the 3 Wire, Unleashed I created last year. Same base, but I've gone in a wildly different direction with it! One thing I have kept very similar to the last cuff was the treatment on the clasp. That will be the same.

Like the twisty crazy wire? I’ve been obsessed with the sculptural wire jewelry for a few years, and I am determined to learn how to do it! Unfortunately, other than Remy Heath’s wonderful Woven Sculpture Pendant tutorial, and a few other very basic “rainbow weave” tutorials, there is very little in the way of documentation on how to do this. So, I am muddling through on my own just like everybody else that wants to learn this technique! It is a lot of fun, like a deranged jigsaw puzzle.

This piece has been in progress for about a year now. I pick it up, work on it until I get lost, then put it down again for a period of time. I haven’t decided whether I am near a stopping point or not. But it has been a lot of fun to let the mystery unfold!