Monday, July 4, 2016

lorikeet



Put a bird in it ;) 

A busy week in Artlandia. I spent a chunk of this week in the car (oy!), but also working, getting things back into order at home, and visiting with family (thumbs up!).  There was still enough time to carve a new lorikeet (it's a smallish bird afterall - about 10.5") Maybe the desire for a lorikeet came from thinking about the big tree block...we have a print date! July 9th [ :D !!!] And since there's really no such thing as "extra" time, I added ornamentation to the borders of the tree block (couldn't help myself.) 

 



Being away from the studio for more than a week, my hands started to peel - I have thick callouses inside my hand between my palm and fingers, and the side of my middle finger is flat from carving.  The only way I could think to "fix" it was to get back to carving...

.

Hand from one year ago






















I'm not very good at remembering time (hence the blog - external memory ;) ), but Facebook helpfully reminded me that I carved the face and hands of the figure I'm still working on a year ago this week. 

On the one hand, it's hard to believe it's been a whole year, on the other hand, I feel like I've learned a lot in terms of figuring out how to make the rest of the body and attach it, and learning digital and sewing techniques to support it.  


Head from 1 year ago
Facebook also reminded me that 2 years ago, I was learning how to carve.  
...and within 6 months, I made a better one, so I forgive myself ;) .


2 years ago (haha - kind of embarrassed
by this now, but I was just learning).















Surprisingly, (or not?) this week two years ago, I was also carving a parrot (which I discovered when I went into the file to pull the skull photograph - sort of like how I realized after the fact that every February for the last 3 years, I've carved a bunny? - maybe it's the weather that puts me in mind of  certain things?)

It's hard for me to see technical improvement on a day to day basis, and each block is unique, so it can be hard to compare, but I think the new one is more dynamic and the light is better understood/controlled (? maybe? )



Hmmmmm - enough introspection for the day ;)  - in the outer world, beautiful flowers.

My flowers survived!  Thanks to my kind friend Tom for watering :)! This
was my favorite this week - such a good example of repetition with variation, right? 

Not exactly a flower, but saw this interesting constellation of mushrooms during
my travels.
Summer bouquets for the yard :D !
Saw the end of a rainbow going into the grass.
And in puppy news, Rocky is now headless - he was a good and faithful
squeaky toy.