The strike of inspiration continues...Today I was able to continue work on a piece that was started back in January. I wouldn't have believed it was that long ago until I looked up the Blog entry -yikes! "The Strike of Inspiration" was about some fiberwork that I had seen by artist, Judy Perez and was so inspired by her Blog banner "Painted Threads," that I wanted to make a sculpture of a Humboldt Squid and a swimming Nautilus Shell. The clay work went pretty fast, fired well and then I opted to use some matte glazes instead of the Majolica glazes I first mentioned in my earlier Blog.
This week I finally picked up some 1/2" Cold Rolled Round Steel Stock for the squid tentacles. My first choice was to use at least
3/4" - 1" but at more than $60 bucks a stick for the 3/4" the 1/2" would work fine ($25), Plus, with the thicker size comes added weight which starts to not be very practical for your average wall mounted sculpture. Bending that round stock was a BEAR! I'm not used to hand bending such thick material -I took a couple of Aleve after that workout!
The Squid and the Shell have holes on their backsides that I drilled while still leather hard clay. The plan (today) is to wire the body over the tentacles o
nce all of the hot, welding and metal work is done. I'm thinking there will be some additional sealife embellishment including the strings of beadwork I like to use. I'm not sure what else... I'll weld up the Nautilus tentacles tomorrow.
