What’s below here is my ongoing notes while I worked on this first face piece I made. The notes are as they were at the time, unedited.
4/17/16
Took one of my ‘fun’ sketches and laid it out on paper, then bent it with flatbar and round bar. Learned how best to bend em. The flat bar will make some neat shadows when lighted. Would be better if i had a metal top to draw on with chalk.
Figuring out what the background size should be, will it come off the board like the bugs?
Have tried various approaches to this piece, it has sort have become my test piece, stain and burn with grinded metal, paint and burn. Then i grinded down the outside parts, not all the way down though, left some paint. Then i painted over it with some primer, it wasn’t all the way mixed though, so it went over kind of watery, and also blended the burned parts in there. I was looking to lighten it up to create contrast against the face. Still not sure about it, it kind of looks okay, but now it just really shows how disconnected the head is from the background. I’d considered doing some black spray paint stenciling like the bug piece, but haven’t really jumped to it. As far as the different stain pieces, it’s something i’ve wanted to do from the start. I’m using a sienna red and cherry stain on sanded plywood board. Also, leaving some parts of wood bare gives me another tone. Some pieces i give more coats of stain than others. And then i also get the stain on the base board, as well as the texture of a different wood and burn. I do like this. But the top left hair portion, i don’t like the texture of it, and it takes up a good bit of room on the portrait. As far as the steel goes, the red in the hair kind of disappears, and the wood hasn’t been cut to fit in there better yet. I do like the contrast of the white lines in the face, kind of looks like chalk lines. I got some fluorescent red spraypaint to maybe add some extra zing to it and emphasis. Overall though, my instincts at this point are telling me that the board is wrong for this piece, that i need to figure what this face is going to be connected to. A background, another face.
Check this guy out now! It’s funny, some people see the face, some people (my wife) thinks its a rooster. I’m happy i started to pull the black stenciled lines out into the above and below. Need a little more of them for it to feel finished. Wondering if i should leave the stained shapes be or paint them instead. The white lines are great. I still need to better shape the wood pieces and glue them in.
7/10
I was looking at the face again at the wall, it’s flatness that I didn’t like. As I went to spray paint the hair with fluorescent, I took the wood panels off. Then i thought to pull the face off of the board a bit, like the bug piece. And I liked it better! Also in the changed light, there was more shadows, more interplay between background and foreground. I could almost stop with it right now, after I male that one spot floured cent by mouth. Thinking about stenciling some drawing style lines onto board but afraid, and then what do I put on there. I gained contrast, maybe even some movement.
I hit an anxiety bump today because i showed the chamelion and trinity knot pieces to Hollis, – 2 unfinished pieces, and it just hit me that ‘how much do i really have made? Oh god, not enough at this point!!’ Trying to let that down.
YUND Studios 