Antlers

I have been working on the antlers for my deer mask for the past several months, in particular on attaching them in something less than a ridiculous manner. In my mind, a deer mask is largely an excuse for a human to wear antlers, so the antlers must look good. If the antlers look "off" the whole mask will look wrong.



(Gratuitous cute pic alert!!) I started making my antlers by tracking down this set of real whitetail antlers in the wilds of eBay. Whitetail antlers in particular are more on a human scale, as opposed to say, mule deer or fallow deer antlers, which can be huge. I made a paper mache version of these antlers by taking a positive cast of them in Celluclay. (For more about this method, see this post here.)



I also needed plenty of reference photos, for which this book (found on the clearance table at a local bookstore) was my main source. The picture on the cover is particularly helpful. (Gratuitous factoid alert- I also learned from this book that antlers are the fastest known growing tissue in the animal kingdom, growing at a rate of half an inch a day.)



And here we have the first attempt to attach the cast Celluclay antlers to the mask. If you compare this photo with the photo on the book above, you can see that the two short tines in the center of the rack are too short, spaced too widely and make too much of a "V" shape. You can also see that the two main beams are too horizontal. In the reference pic above, the beams are more vertical and have a gentle, shallow "C" shape.





Attempt number two. Here the beams are more upright and starting to take on some of that "C" shape, but the tips are too close together, nearly meeting over the center of the mask while on the real deer, the tips line up roughly with the middle of the ears. The ink sketch superimposed over the photocopy demonstrates this.







Attempt number three. The two middle tines have been lengthened and straightened, and the right hand antler has the "C" shape I've been trying for. However, two of the tines of the left hand antler are too short and straight, and something very funky is going on with middle of the beam. The photocopy/ink sketch of the top view shows that the curve of the beam needs to be tightened, and the end needs to move forward.







Attempt number four. I've lengthened and curved those two short straight tines on the left hand antler. I've also started to tighten the curve of the beam of the left hand antler, particularly towards the back of the mask, but in doing so I have once again moved the tip of the antler too close to the center of the mask. As the top view photocopy/ink sketch shows, it needs to be moved out again, and perhaps shortened.



And, here is the mask in its current state. At this point I'm happy with the overall look of the antlers, though the left hand antler has some weird lumpiness going on that needs to be addressed. Next I need to define and refine the mask's overall texture. Then, off to the moldmaker!

(Gratuitous factoid alert- on a trip to Wikipedia to check that my antler terminology above was correct, I learned it is now believed antlers act as parabolic reflectors, vastly improving the hearing of their wearers. I'm not kidding. We'll see if paper mache antlers can do the same!)

Open Studio Wrap Up

The Vermont Crafts Council Open Studio Weekend is over and done for another year! I enjoyed meeting all the visitors to my studio, artists and families and customers alike.




The above is a photo of me that appeared in the Sunday, May 3o edition of the Times Argus for Open Studio Weekend. (Looks like the clay sketches are thinking about taking on the photographer.) There was also an interview with me about Open Studios in the May 20th edition of the Montpelier Bridge, you can read it here: http://www.montpelierbridge.com/May20-10Bridge_1-14.pdf (You'll have to cut and paste this address into your browser, as this link is giving Blogger fits. My interview is on page 6.)

And yes, of course... the winner of this year's Mask Giveaway was Richard Andrecen of Hinesburg, VT! Congratulations! The mask is already on its way!

The 2010 Open Studios Weekend Mask Giveaway!

I will be giving a mask away again this year for The Vermont Crafts Council Open Studio Weekend! To have a chance at winning a mask, you can either visit in person on Open Studio Weekend and sign the guestbook with your name and address (I have to have a way to contact you if you win!) OR sign up online to either Follow my blog or suscribe to it via Feedburner. Current blog Followers, Feedburner suscribers, or people on my mailing list are already automatically entered! I will draw one name at random on June 15, 2010, and the winner can have thier choice of one of the two masks pictured above (or similar).

Good luck and looking forward to seeing you!

All Species Day 2010

I've been quiet on my blog lately, holed up in my studio working on the deer mask and trying to attach the %&$#@!!! antlers in a somewhat less ridiculous fashion. Fortunately the junior maskmaker at Sans Souci Studios has been more visible.



Here is Isabelle modeling the jaguarundi mask that she and her father made together for this year's All Species Day. Incidentally her stuffed kitty "Sneeky Peeky" is dressed up as a person.



Jaguarundi? It's a South American wild cat. Isabelle is way into cats, and we're guessing she likes the way the word 'jaguarundi' rolls off the tongue.

All Species Day? It's a yearly pageant held on the first Sunday in May, put on by local artists and consisting largely of young kids wearing homemade animal masks and costumes marching from Hubbard Park to the lawn of the Capitol Building in Montpelier.



And, as you can see, the occasional grownup dressed as a Na'vi.

Ooops

Whoops, I realized I entered in LAST YEAR'S dates for Open Studios- the dates are in fact May 29 and 30, Memorial Day Weekend! Pardon my brain cramp there!

Vermont Crafts Council Open Studio Weekend 2010

Sans Souci Studios will again be open to visitors for the Vermont Crafts Council Open Studio Weekend this year, on May 29 and 30, 2010, from 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM. Come learn about maskmaking methods and see finished masks available for sale!

The Vermont Crafts Council Open Studio Weekend was named one of Vermont's Top Ten Summer Events in a competition held by the Vermont Chamber of Commerce in 1997. Nearly 300 artists and craftspeople in all imaginable media from across the state participate. The Vermont Crafts Council publishes The Vermont Studio Tour Guide, a free map booklet with directions to over 260 participating sites, which is available at Vermont Information Centers, from individual studios and galleries, and by request. Additional information about Open Studio Weekend can be found online at http://www.vermontcrafts.com/ or by calling the Vermont Crafts Council at 802-223-3380.

Hope to see you there!

SPA Member's Show 2009

Once again it's time for the Studio Place Arts' annual Member Show, and once again my masks will be there for your viewing pleasure. The show is from November 17 through December 31, and the reception is on Saturday, November 21, from 4 to 6 PM.

Studio Place Arts (or SPA, as it's known to its friends) — is a community center for the visual arts that has operated in Central Vermont for more than eight years. Located in a building that was once considered a "blight spot" in downtown Barre and nearly torn down, SPA now houses numerous artists' studios, holds eclectic art exhibitions and offers a wide range of arts and crafts classes to the community. For more information about SPA, please visit http://www.studioplacearts.com./

On a side note, I scared my poor cat Teaze half to death getting ready for the show. She came tearing in from outside, already terrified of the vactor cleaning the storm sewers outside, and encountered the wolf mask on the floor in the foyer, on its way out the door to the show. She screeched to a dead halt, froze in place with all her hair standing on end, and then turned and went shooting upstairs. She was anxious about coming in the door for the rest of the day. While I feel bad for her, I think it was quite an endorsement for my mask!

White Rabbit Mask Commission Part 2

During our last thrilling episode, our bold heroine had just finished a mask sculpture in a blazingly fast twenty one hours. Tune in this week to see if she can actually make a mask before Halloween!

I positive cast the mask in Celluclay over the plasticine rabbit sculpture and let it dry with the help of a fan. Then I cut it off, reassembled it, filled the seams and added the hair texture with more Celluclay. I just got a new batch of Celluclay and don't know if it's because it's been reformulated or just because it's fresh and new, but it was so much smoother and took texture so much better than it has before. (For more about positive casting, see this earlier post here)



Here is the mask with texture freshly applied. The hair on the nose and muzzle looks rather schnauzer-ish, so I later sanded it down.



Here is Brian the hapless hubby modelling the mask with the flash going off in his eyes. I've tamed the hair texture somewhat, as well as sanded down the eyes, the nose, and inside of the ears. At this point I deemed the mask was ready for paint!

The customer sent me this wonderful traditional Aurthur Rackam illustration for ideas for colors.



I love this color scheme, with the creamy/yellowy white, the sepia undershadings, and brownish/reddish eyes and nose. That is one seriously wierd looking bunny though!

And.. (drumroll please).. the finished mask!







I added just a tiny bit of metallic copper paint to the irises, so that the eyes will flash when the customer moves his head. Overall I'm really pleased with how this mask came out.

And... as an added bonus, this is the only Sans Souci mask to date that is really two masks for the price of one. What a deal!

White Rabbit Mask Commission Part 1

A challenge! A customer asked me if I could make an Alice in Wonderland White Rabbit mask for Halloween. I had only a month, and I usually need around a hundred hours to finish a sculpt, often more, and at least twenty or thirty to make an actual mask. I really didn't think I had time, but I had also wanted to make a rabbit mask anyway and see if perhaps, in the two or more years it's been since I've started a new sculpt, I'd become more proficient. So I took it on.



First, I made a clay sketch on a miniature armature, to get a basic idea of masses and shapes without having to shove around pounds of plasticine. I then used this little sketch as a reference for the full sized sculpture.



Here we are fifteen minutes into the big sculpt, and Arnold the Armature is picking up your signal loud and clear. Those little bitties on the sculpting table in front of him are snails, frogs and slugs that Isabelle sculpted after sneaking into my studio one day.



End of Day One. The armature is covered and the resulting lump is somewhat rabbit shaped.



End of Day 2. Looking a little more rabbit shaped. The little clay sketch I made at first is visible in the background.



End of Day 3. Ready for liftoff! Muzzle and brows have also been refined.



End of Day 5. Per customer's request, ears restrained, cheeks narrowed down and eyebrows refined some more. At this point I am pretty much satisfied with the sculpture.

During this project I discovered some amazing new time saving sculpting tools- the digital camera, the scanner, the printer and my lightbox. At the end of each day I would take pics of the mask, print them out in black and white, and sketch changes over them I'd want to make the next day. This helped me stay focused and saved hours of needless fiddling.





These are two sketches I did to show my customer ideas for new ears and cheeks. He opted for ears somewhat between these two possibilites.

I also found that if I took pics of the mask on one side and then kept the tripod and the stand in one place, I could spin the stand around and get a picture of the other side of the mask that when flipped over, would line up very closely to the first. Then I would print out both pictures, trace around the major lines in red, flip one picture over and then lay them down on my lightbox to see any significant differences between the two sides. This was very helpful if one feature looked "right" one one side but "off" on the other, I could tell right away what the difference was.



A pic of the right hand side of the mask, outlined in red, with an area from the left hand side superimposed in green over part of the ear.



A pic of the left hand side of the mask, outlined in red, with an area of the right hand side of the mask superimposed in green over the eye.

So I had a sculpture I liked after only twenty one hours of work, which is far as I'm concerned is unprecedented.

Next, casting and painting the mask!

New Cat Mask

Finally, a new cat mask in my Etsy store! I am extremely pleased with this mask. I used Titebond III Ultimate Wood Glue, a kind of waterproof wood glue, for the first time when I cast this mask. I had bought cases of Weldbond Outdoor Wood Glue which much to my displeasure went bad in storage, so I had to run out to the hardware store to try whatever outdoor wood glue they might have on hand- and it might have turned out to be a very fortunate thing! The Titebond is very, very thin and watery, which might seem like a disadvantage but... it was not necessary to mix it with any water to cast with it, so I got next to no warping. The three pieces of the mask dried fairly true to shape, all the seams went together well, and there was much less refinishing work than usual- hurrah!

So I believe my store is relatively well stocked for Halloween. Now I just need to decide what I'm going to be when I go out trick or treating!

Sans Souci Studios in Japan!

I was thrilled to recieve these pictures of my masks from a customer at the Design Festa in Tokyo this past May!









It was a particular thrill for me to have masks in Japan, as I am learning to speak Japanese (as of today, on Unit 20 of Pimsleur Japanese II!) and a huge anime fan (just finished Death Note, great show!) According to my customer, the Design Festa is held twice a year and is one of the largest arts and crafts shows in Asia. To learn more about it, check out this website: http://www.designfesta.com/index_en.html

What I Did Over Summer Vacation

My focus this summer, whenever I could get into my studio, was to try build the stock back up in my Etsy store and replace the five masks I sold recently: one for use in the dance festival in HI(see previous post); one for use in a music video in NY, and three for use in a culture festival in Tokyo. Here are my efforts so far.



This cat mask will be my last mask made of Celluclay. I had to try Celluclay just one more time, and I found that not only are Celluclay masks heavier- this mask weighs in at two pounds, over four times as heavy as the same mask made of paper strips and glue- but they don't really take all that much less time to make. Because it's so heavy I offered it for sale at a significant discount in my Etsy store. Maybe I should have offered it at less of a discount, as it's on its way to a new home already.



I love this unicorn mask. I confess when I first got this white Kanekalon hair I thought it was so ugly I stuck it in a cabinet and left it there for years, but I love the way it looks here, that stark flossy white contrasting with the pearly white of the head. I'm tempted to keep this mask.



And here we have Sneer, my grinning wolf mask, with a cool punked out new 'do. The long mixed black and red hair is commerical hair used for extensions; the short black hair represents my efforts to make peace with my new sewing machine and learn to weft hair myself. For those of you who are dying to learn to weft your own hair (or just figure out what the heck that means) check out this very informative article: http://www.nonidolls.com/weft.html

To tell the truth, it was amazing I got anything at all done this summer, considering this was going on outside my studio window through much of it:





It was almost impossible to concentrate with the backhoe working mere feet away and the entire house shaking. But,contractors who previously wouldn't even return our calls were lining up to give us quotes and schedule dates to start work on our long neglected front stairs and retaining walls, so we finally got that work done. I guess the McMansion market has dried up a little.

Before pic:



During pics:





After pic:



I am very happy with how the work came out.

It was also amazing I got any work done given the number of wonderful, refreshing trips we got to make this summer, not that I'm complaining! We went to the Sterling Renaissance Festival in NY:



And to the Cape:



Doesn't my hair look positively carnivorous in this pic??

And also on a camping trip in Groton State Forest here in VT.



So now that I'm all relaxed and refreshed and have a newly renovated house to work in, it's time to get back in my studio! Next on the to-to list is another cat mask to replace that one that just sold. Until next time!