Tuesday, April 27, 2010

A New Beginning - At the Foundry - The Back Story On The Piece



A NEW BEGINNING
Edition of 40
(inches tall, 24 inches long, and 11 inches deep)


It's the 1840s. Jacob came out to make his fortune trapping beaver 10 years before. One winter, he was caught by himself in a valley surrounded by mountains, who's passes were impossible to get through, because of a sudden snow storm. He was near starved when he was found by two Blackfoot Warriors. They took him back to their encampment, to brag how they captured this white man. He was treated badly, and forced to act like a dog. Doing anything the woman wanted him to do. Gathering wood, making fires, watching over cooking meat.
One day, Jacob was gathering wood, when he heard a terrible scream. He ran to see what was causing the terror. He saw a flash of gray fur, then a woman running with a club in her hand. His eyes again focused on the ground, where he saw terrible sign. Wolf tracks and it was dragging something heavy in the snow. He broke a straight stick. and using it as a spear, he took off after that wolf.
There the wolf was, dragging a baby by the cradle board. The mountain man ran faster than any time in his life, caught up the wolf, and threw the makeshift spear at it. It buried into the side of the wolf, it yelp in pain and then dropped the baby. He ran off into the underbrush to die. Jacob, quickly gathered up the baby, and gave it back to a very grateful mother.
From that point on, Jacob became part of the tribe. Eventually he fell in love with a young girl, named RED FLOWER. He went through the custom of bringing gifts of horses and furs to the father. He accepted the gifts and RED FLOWER accepted Jacob.
He stands next to her on her horse, a new life growing inside her, and he realizes that the riches gained from furs, were tarnished in the light life's real treasure, a new family, and A NEW BEGINNING.




Monday, April 26, 2010

A New Begining - Finished Today

Please go to Maggie's Notebook to view a short western film, "Absaroka", a submission to the Wyoming Short Film Contest. Please put in your vote "5 Stars" for this film. I want to thank Maggie's Notebook for putting this on her blog.

Started "A New Beginning" on October 16th. Today, I made 3 changes to the design and finished it. Tomorrow, I'll go over it one more time, and fix those things I may have missed, then in the afternoon, I'll take it to the foundry in Bozeman Montana.



Final Photographs today.



Sunday, April 25, 2010

A New Begining - Finishing up the Indian Woman

Please go to Maggie's Notebook to view a short western film, "Absaroka", a submission to the Wyoming Short Film Contest. Please put in your vote "5 Stars" for this film. I want to thank Maggie's Notebook for putting this on her blog.

I've worked all weekend on this piece. so if you missed anything please scroll down the page to catch up.
Well I decided I needed to get in and work today. Never work on Sunday unless I have to, and today I had to.
Started by working on her left arm and hand, then moved up to her head and face. Started to put detail in her hair, and change her hair a little. Ended up the day working on her deer skin dress. Finished up the left side of the dress and then the right side of the dress. Just a little more to do on this piece and it's ready to go the the foundry.



Final Photographs. The first shows the Crow Indian model in the dress I'm working from.





Saturday, April 24, 2010

A New Begining - The Mane and Texturing The Horse

Please go to Maggie's Notebook to view a short western film, "Absaroka", a submission to the Wyoming Short Film Contest. Please put in your vote "5 Stars" for this film. I want to thank Maggie's Notebook for putting this on her blog.

Finished the mane of the horse today, and then spent the rest of the day, just texturing the horse's skin. That's about it. Spent literally hours texturing.



Final Photographs today.





Friday, April 23, 2010

A New Begining - Horses Main, and Naked Female

Please go to Maggie's Notebook to view a short western film, "Absaroka", a submission to the Wyoming Short Film Contest. Please put in your vote "5 Stars" for this film. I want to thank Maggie's Notebook for putting this on her blog.
Ok.. today's title may take some explanation.. lol
An artist friend and myself, shared the price of a wonderful artist's tool. It's a 24 inch tall sculpture of a female figure. One half of her shows all the muscles, tendons and bones, the other half shows what she looks like with skin over the muscles. Finding anything on the female anatomy is near impossible. So for those of you who need this you can get it from AnatomicalFigures You can also obtain the male figure as well at that site. This is a five star item.
After I finished unpacking and storing away the female figure I got onto the clay of the horse. I had to finish the surface of the horses skin, by putting a slight hair texture into the clay. This consumed a huge amount of time. It had to be done before I added the mane. Then I started the mane of the horse. To whoever in Khabarovsk Russian Federation, looked at my blog today, man even Google 3D Earth shows the river froze there. Thank you for viewing my blog.



Final photographs.



Thursday, April 22, 2010

A New Begining - Horses Head Today - A Friend Needs Your Vote

Please go to Maggie's Notebook to view a short western film, "Absaroka", a submission to the Wyoming Short Film Contest. Please put in your vote "5 Stars" for this film. I want to thank Maggie's Notebook for putting this on her blog.
Finished the right hand of the Indian woman. Then got busy on the head of the horse. It was just to big for the body of the horse. So major surgery today again.



Final Photos



Wednesday, April 21, 2010

A New Begining - Lion Skin, Indian Woman Today

More detailing. Detailing is the most time consuming part of any sculpture. This piece is so complicated, it just takes a huge amount of time, detailing.



Today's Photographs.





Tuesday, April 20, 2010

A New Begining - Major Surgery Today

I cut the Indian woman in half and removed the upper part of her body. I had a figure of a male rider, that I had started a long time ago for this horse, so I took that figure and cut him off just above the waist. Then I put the woman's head back on the figure. It matched the head measurement of the old figure, and it saved me a few hours.



Final Photographs today



Monday, April 19, 2010

A New Begining - Legs, Flanks, and Tail

Started out the day working on the horses back legs. Then looking at photos I took a horse in a nearby field, I noticed my muscles weren't matching up in the flanks of my horse. So I spent a while figuring out which muscles I'm looking at, and which ones are actually being compressed or tightened. So that took up a lot of time.
I then started and completed the tail of the horse, which really popped the horse into shape.



Final photographs.


Friday, April 16, 2010

New Begining - Horse Legs

Started out the day feeling like I could own the day.. Got to the studio to go gang busters on the horse, and over the next few hours started to feel a bit impish... so mostly worked on the horses legs and rear flanks today. If I'm feeling better on Saturday, I'll get back in to work on the horse some more.

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

A New Begining - The Mountain Man Today

Left the cell phone at home, and locked the front door to my studio. I didn't want to be disturbed today. I finished the mountain man today. I gave him chine whiskers that were typical in the 1840s. Finished his hair and fringe on the collar of the jacket as well as on the leggings.
Friday I'll start back on the Indian girl and finish her up then.
Yes I said Friday. I have a previous event to attend tomorrow. So I'll be back in my studio on Friday.



Photos from today.


Tuesday, April 13, 2010

A Spot Of Snow Today

Started out the day shoveling snow and sweeping the white stuff off of my van. Got to the studio, and started to work and the lights went out.. then came back on. Worked for 2 or 3 minutes and off again, then back on, then off again, this time for much longer. So rather than fight it, I decided the weather had won and I was going to throw in the towel today.




Saturday, April 10, 2010

Monumental Clays Finished Today

My last day on the clays today. Iron Horn and Silent Arrow were finished this afternoon. There's a sudden down feeling I'm feeling. Am I sure they're done. Of course they are, it's just the culmination of a week on hyper. Heading back to Montana in the morning.



Final Photographs of IRON HORN.


Friday, April 9, 2010

Final Day On Silent Arrow, First on Iron Horn

Early this morning I started the final detailing on SILENT ARROW. About 10 am I left one clay and started the final detailing on IRON HORN. I spent the day fixing pings and dings in the clay. It's been in the Mountain Trails Gallery for a year and a half. So to say there was some damage is an understatement. Fortunately I had lots of extra clay bead strings, that I made almost 2 years ago to patch it up. Tomorrow, Saturday, I should be able to finish IRON HORN.



Final Photographs.


Final

Thursday, April 8, 2010

Silent Arrow - Nooks and Crannies

It was a day of contortions. Today I finished the clay of SILENT ARROW. Tomorrow I clean it up and then I'll get IRON HORN started. I figure I'll be working through Saturday.



SILENT ARROW at the end of the day.





Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Silent Arrow - 2nd Day On The Life-Size Clay

Started at 7:30 am today, and spent the day, fine tuning the bow scabbard, moccasins, leggings, loin cloth, knife sheath, and warrior's hair. I'm just about done with this piece. I'll try to finish my part of this piece tomorrow and maybe get started on Iron Horn tomorrow. That's the plan.. Not sure it'll work out.



Misc. photographs from today.