If anyone is still visiting here….I’ve moved once again!

Everything new under the sun is at:

http://www.jenxer.com

I won’t be making any more updates to this here page you’re seeing right now.

Jen

I was in the art supply store, when I passed the rhinestone display, and I couldn’t resist.  I bought five packets of 5mm clear rhinestones.  Then I made this guy:

nekkid

He was supposed to be red, but the stupid “exterior hardener” I added to the mixture bleached out the dye.  His transformation began.  Here he is at 175 rhinestones:

hoodie

Here he is at 700 rhinestones:

disco pants!

I’ve bought 385 more rhinestones, but I don’t think I’ll need them all.  I don’t intend to cover the rectangular area in the back.  It’s a little surprising how completely cathartic and relaxing it is to glue tiny sparkly things on a tiny red (orange! grr!) man- except for the crotchy bits.

The only reason I keep going with the resin casting, despite all evidence to the contrary, is that I’ve had some measure of success.  For example:

I tried, yet again, to get a good mold from a lemon (or in this case, a lime- it just met the “shape criteria.”).  This particular outcome was instrumental in my decision to just cough up the hundred-or-so dollars, and get some decent moldmaking material in a larger quantity that 1lb. at a time.

It started out well enough.  I built my mold box (like I should have done the last time).

I tried to adhere to the lessons I learned from the previous attempt.  I glued the lime to the bottom, so it wouldn’t float up to the top, wasting moldmaking material beneath it.  I glued wooden sticks into the corners, to further economize the moldmaking material usage.  It should have turned out great.

But I’m sure you know where this is going.

I also decided to try making another man-mold at the same time.  I carefully built his mold box in the same manner.  (At this time, I realized that the shape of traditional coffins probably came from trying to achieve economy of wood use.)

The problem arose when I mixed the moldmaking material, and realized I didn’t have enough to do both molds…after I’d already poured the lime mold, and was halfway through filling the man-mold.  I had to make a quick decision about which of the two I’d choose to “survive,” and the lime lost.

If I’d had my 5lb. tub o’ stuff, that wouldn’t have happened.  I can’t wait for it to get here.

…like brains from the oven!

Brrrrrrrains!!

I made this little lovely from Sculpey.  Sculpey is a clay that stays soft while you work with it, but then you put it in a regular oven, and it becomes ceramic-like.  This piece is going to (eventually) go inside another resin casting, but I’ve yet to finish the plaster portion for it. 

The suspense is killing you, I’m sure!

I’ve been trying to think of the best way to make a template, if you will, for creating a skull (a round object) out of copper sheet (decidedly not a round material).

By the Power of Clayskull...I have the Power!!!

(Jane- notice the thing in the bottom right of the photo?  I haven’t forgotten; mojitos or not!)

There’s been one resin man I’ve been working on for quite some time.  I got the idea that it might be cool to create one that had a skeleton entirely made of copper wire.  I started with the legs, which were easy enough, but when I got to the pelvis, the whole thing fell apart.  How do you make something, which is essentially a plate-form, from wire? 

I then decided to “expand my palette,” and use, well, whatever I could get my hands on.

skelly w/o arms

His eyes are LED lights, his spine is a spring (Tigger!!).  The “ribs” are woven into the spring, creating a very cool vertebrae-type effect.  The skull is wire mesh; I’ve never been very happy with the way it turned out, and I’m working on changing it to copper plate (hopefully).

I am actually trying to keep up this site!  This time, I have a valid excuse (or two).  My computer crashed, necessitating a complete reload.  Then, after I got it reloaded, it got a virus- and had to be completely re-formatted.

Sigh.

So now, I’m back.  And I’m going to continue as if I didn’t just take a month or so off from this thing.

Continuing the lemon mold…

I taped the two halves of the mold together, filled it with plaster, and hoped for the best.  I left it overnight to cure.  When I came back in the morning, I was a little afraid of the result because of the massive crack down both halves of the mold.

I started trying to pry the two halve apart, and was pleasantly surprised.  Inside was something that very closely resembled a plaster lemon!  However, it was clear that this mold was a one-shot.

Eventually, I had to take the thing out back and beat the crap out of it on our concrete patio to get the rest of it out.  I am now the proud owner of a plaster lemon.