Look who's back again

Hey guys, I'm really sorry for the lack of updates on my part these past few months but I will be getting back to regular updates with some new projects that I'm hoping to get finished during the summer. (including putting up some old sculpture pictures that I should I have gotten to posting a long time ago) Thanks for all your patience and I'll try my best not to disappoint.

Tiny Paper Umbrella Tutorial

Back as promised, with a little how-to guide for this cute little 100% not waterproof accessory.

I initially came by this cute tutorial by Lisa Snellings (whose sculptures are incredible, to no one's surprise) when I was trying to search up an easy umbrella design since making an umbrella with clay would be too heavy for my little sculpture figurine to hold. I only made a few small changes to the design to fit my own art style. Let's get to it. 

 1) Cut out a circle of desired size. A small one for mice. A life sized one to carry around with you and pretend you're a paper doll. The possibilities are endless.

 

 

2) Fold circle into eight sections by folding it in half again and again and again (this must be folded that exact amount of "agains" it's very important)

 3) To trim the edges neatly, I drew some guidelines from point to point but you can certainly eye-ball it.

 4) Admire your work and take a 5 hour lunch break

 

5) When you get back thoroughly stuffed,  cut along one of the folds until you reach the center

 

6) Overlap that sucker and glue it down strong.

 

7) OPTIONAL: At this stage I still felt that the umbrella was a little too flat so I lightly pressed some of the sections between my thumbs to create a fold (as shown above). Do this for all eight sections. There's no real precision for this step, just eye-ball it and see which fold works best. In this case I did two examples, with the first having folds closer the the center, and the second one a little farther.

8) Paint the desired color and stick the handle through the center. You can use a toothpick or a thick wire if you want a curved handle. To help make it easier to get the stick through, use a push pin to poke a hole in the center before pushing it through. Finally, use some gloss varnish on the top to give it that "wet" look. 

And you're done! 

In Lisa's tutorial she has a smaller circle on the underside of the umbrella for support but even though I skipped this step, I found that it still held up pretty well. Even so, I suggest that you add some glue for extra security.

Rain Snail Sculpture

Another addition to the sculpture series that I posted earlier this week! I'm resisting the urge to post them all in one go since a good majority of the sculptures still need to go through a final edit. This is a mixed media of sculpture and digital painting and took 12-13 hours to complete (in which the majority of that time was spent dyeing and drying the leaves and painting each individual snail).

For purely self-indulgent reasons, I'll be posting up a little tutorial later on how to make that tiny umbrella in the background so check back if you're interested.

Bird Cage Sculpture

One of the few sculptures I’ve been working on these past few months!

The central idea for this series revolves around the existence of possibility and how it is especially present in early ages.This is shown in concepts inspired by childhood games and memories between my sister and I in our younger years and it was crucial for me to keep that sense of vibrancy and creativity alive in each piece.

This is a mixed media of sculpture and digital painting (as seen in the detailing on the birds), and took a total of roughly 11-12 hours to make.

The rest of this series will be posted soon when I finish touching up things here and there.

"star" fish

This is a painting I finished for a school project using acrylic paint on a block of wood. (size: 16 x 10 in)

I'm incredibly relieved that the lighting in the cave turned out and I'm very satisfied with the overall feel.

Glee sculptures

These are the first sculpture series that I'd ever done back in the summer of....2012, I believe? This was back when I started experimenting with this type of structure (using Crayola's Model Magic clay). Each one took me roughly 3-5 hours give or take, depending on the overall size and complexity of each individual figurine.

I'll be posting up some more of my recent sculptures later on in addition to several illustrations, so stick around!