Flee Market Signs (2014)

Since a couple of years my aunt helps organizing a flee market that benefits the church.
They have some old road signs and my aunt thought it was a nice idea to get new ones and asked for my help to come up with ideas and make them.

We had some conversations about it and these 2 were our final ideas:

I knew it would take a lot of work to paint these on boards of about 1 meter, so I asked if she was able to help to color them. My aunt knew a lady who can do a good job at painting, so she took one of them to her.

First I drew them using pencil, than I traced my lines with a permanent marker. Later on, after the paintings were finished I redid the tracing and gave it a layer of varnish to protect it from the rain.

My drawing of some flee market things.

The finished sign, which the artist lady finished.

The other drawing.

My finished piece.
The colors aren't that clear due to the sun being on the wrong side of the sign.

Faux Bronze (2014)

One of the things I have learned at my Wood- Marble imitation classes is feax bronze. Which is a technique to turn an ordinary sculpture into a (fake) bronze one.

As a practice model I've used a cement statue of a lion holding a crest. (Which I use as a book stand.)

Finished sculpture

I started by applying a brown coating of acrylic paints. Acrylics are used because cement reacts on other types of paints.

Beginning stage:
I forgot to take a before picture in time.

Brown Sculpture.

After this coating, the sculpture is painted with a special Antique Bronze acrylic paint. This is a more gold tone of color than regular bronze, which is more orange/ copper colored.

When that has dried properly, the whole sculpture is coated with "stove polish". It's a black substance used to, as the word implies, polish stoves. Once this is rubbed on, rub it off again using a clean cloth. If you have a big sculpture, do this in steps; as you don't want to have it dried up and unable to rub it off anymore.

Now it looks already a bit older as the black residue remains in the deeper area's.

To finish it off we used some (gold) bronze powder to accent some highlights using a dry brushing technique.

Finished right side

Finished left side

 In the mean time I've already done some more statuettes, I'll put them here once I've got the pictures ready.

Riddick Spaceship Node Backpack (2014)

For this years Elf Fantasy Fair I wanted to dress like Dahl from the movie Riddick. She was 2nd in command of the help troops.

With such an outfit you always need a suiting backpack to store your stuff. I decided to make the Spaceship Node (Battery) that were stolen in the movie and taken on their backs near the end of the movie when they retrieved them.

Movie Node

My Replica Node

I started with a 3D drawing, which I converted to a 2D AutoCAD drawing. With this drawing I was able to make templates used to saw out.
There were quite the number of pieces, because I had to work with a lot of different depths and rounded curves.

The many pieces; top, front, bottom, sides.

How it looks when everything is glued into place

Node after sanding.

The original node is glowing a bit. I wasn't able to work with perspex and lights, therefor I choose to paint it white and the borders would be turned grey to give it a bit of an illusion of light.

After the glueing I had a lot of work sanding everything to get a smooth surface. I used filler to fill up small gaps and differences. This again was sanded.

The Node after the first layer of primer

2 different colors of primer are used. I used white primer for the white parts and grey for everything that wouldn't become white.

I used a water based paint to finish it; this dries easier, therefor it's possible to do 2 layers of paint on a day off.
This round I've done several coats and a full layer of filler to achieve the flat surface I wanted.

1 of many coats of paint.

The backpack also needed a lid. I was lucky enough there was an oval shape on the top. I used this shape to make a lid:

Lid

On the lid were some glowing "Buttons". I used furniture decoration nails which I painted white. I cut off the nail part and glued them in drilled holes in the lid.

To keep the lid in place I used small 3mm magnets. There were also glued in drilled holes.

Finished Node; front side

Finished Node; Perspective view

Top view without lid.

Top view with lid.

 I've made some shoulder pads. These held a small harness at which the Node could be placed.

Wedding Statuette (2014)

A good friend of mine was getting married and I wanted to make them something personal.
I thought it would be nice to make them a little wedding statuette of them in caricature.

Finished piece with a lighter to show the actual size.

First off I made a quick sketch:

This is a terrible draft; I messed up her face.

Nothing special about that, more a draft to tell me things I should pay attention at and how their position would look like. Also I did a small study about wedding clothes and hair. They didn't give me any tips to use, so I just had to choose something.

I started with their heads. I figured that if I wasn't able to do their faces I wouldn't need to continue on their bodies.

The "rough" version. Lateron I remove/ add more clay to finish details that aren't right yet.

The most tedious job is haircuts. Her boyfriend has a bit curly hair without bold spot. Therefor I had to put hair by hair on his head. These are small rolled up pieces of clay, folded once, slightly curled up and pushed into place.

Almost halfway with his hair.

Since the faces turned out alright I started with their bodies.
For that I made a wire frame. I've worked before on things without a frame, but that didn't always work. It was recommended to use some sort of frame.

The wireframe; 1 piece for their legs, 1 piece for their body + arms. These are hot glued together.

I kept 2 separate figures because that's easier to work with and paint.

Later I glued their heads in place and added hands.

The groom. His right hand is missing.
It will be glued in place after he's painted.

The bride; her left hand is missing.
I can't fit them together when their hands are already on.

Now it was time to paint. I used pictures all the time to get their natural color about right and to add things like birth marks.

Groom in color

Bride in color

Back view

Front view.

I added a layer of varnish a nice plateau and put them in a bell jar, which actually fitted perfectly and added their names + wedding date.

Finished piece.

And if you're curious if it looked anything like the wedding couple when it comes to clothes/ hair:

Not really!

She had a dress with small sleeves; he wore a dark grey suit with a green tie. Her hair was a-symmetric.

But the most important thing was that they enjoyed their gift and it does look like them.

Wood/ Marble Imitation Course prt 2 (2013 and up)

Ever since my last post about my course about Wood/ Marble imitation I've made some more examples.
Please note that the actual colors look better than how they do on picture.

Next on my list is gilding with gold leaves and to bronze a small statue.
At the moment I'm almost finished with "Fountain" Mahogany.

Walnut Stretched (2013)

4 Windowed panel with Walnut Root wood (2013)

Walnut Root wood (2013)

Italian Walnut (2013)

Mahogany (2013)

Mahogany Flower Right Curved (2014)

Mahogany Flower S Curved (2014)

Chalkboard "Warm-up 4 Hoop" (2014)

This year the bi-annual "Samenloop voor Hoop" ("Walk of Hope")  is being held in my town.
My father organised a team of relay walkers. With that team we also have a market stand. My dad wants to sell warm drinks. That is how he came up with the "Warm-up 4 Hoop" team name (it's half Dutch).

I wanted to help out a bit, so I made a chalkboard for him to put the drinks on and the prices.

Finished chalkboard

It's a board of MDF with a pre-made pine frame, some clay, paint and a chalkboard sticker.

My father came up with the cup as a team logo, which I turned into a 3D model made out of clay.

3D logo

3D logo with the bottom text.
"Samenloop voor Hoop"

 The frame I coated with a brown primer. I added a thin layer of white paint to give it an older antique look. I also sanded the edges of the cup and plate a bit for that same reason.

The letters are done by hand. I used white paint and added some shadow lines with a darker gray tone.

Jigsaw Puzzle Plant Pot (2014)

Next to the garbage bin flower pots I also made a pot from a jigsaw puzzle.

I bought a puzzle mat to roll up your unfinished puzzle and with it was a free (but not a very pretty) jigsaw puzzle (1000 pieces). I decided to make something out of it and that became a flower pot.

I started with a circle of cardboard, to serve as a flat base. On that I put a plastic pot to use as a guidance to build around.
With some wood glue I glued every piece into place. Some pieces were trimmed to get 1 straight edge.

Side view of the finished pot, without color.

Top view of the finished pot, without color.

 Every 5 layers or so I would stop and put something heavy (a book) on it so it would flatten the surface and pressing the glue together.

Because I noticed the pile of pieces was running down very fast I decided to gain some extra height by glueing some of them vertically.

When all was done I spray painted the pot in a silver color.

Finished pot; side view

Finished pot; top view

The orange plastic pot isn't so nice, I'll change it with a black one.

Inside there is a small plastic container to prevent leaking when watering the plant.

Note: This was a very good puzzle for this type of project. Because all pieces had 2 holes and 2 pins aligned to each other. So no irregularities like 4 holes or  2 pins at associated edges.