One man's trash. . .

O.K. I've been away from blogging for awhile. . .sorry about that folks! I've also been away from anything resembling actual WORK for awhile too so my most recent activity has been cleaning. . .and cleaning in my studio. Mind you, my "studio" is a 10 x 10 foot room that doubles as the dumping ground of choice for various things that have no official home. Yeah, I work in the JUNK ROOM, there, I said it! Don't laugh. . .you have one in your home too, you're not fooling anybody!

Anyhow, I need to clear some space in here and get back to sculpting. This is NOT an easy task because;

1. The entire main floor of our house is about 750 sq. feet.

2. Jim and I are both total pack rats

3. There are frequent differences of opinion as to what is valuable and what is not.

For example, the most recent addition to my space. :^\ Yeah, I've been known to go and pluck various treasures from the neighbor's trash after dark. Something which, BTW, Jim has voiced disapproval of in the past. Ironic, considering his recent acquisition of this ENORMOUS four foot tall stuffed Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer, wouldn't you say? "Why would they just throw something like this out? I couldn't just leave it there" He said, with a smirk on his face. Now, this gaudy (and somewhat smelly) item was dragged in on a Saturday morning as a joke, and indeed it was funny. But then Kermit, our French Bulldog, instantly developed an amusing love/hate relationship with it and Rudolph became a long-term guest in our home. *sigh*

This really doesn't have anything to do with sculpting. . .other than the fact that it's incredibly distracting and uninspiring and it's stinking up the place. . .I didn't have much else to talk about and I decided to write a small homage to it before I threw it down the basement steps. I wonder what the neighbors will think when they see it show up in *our* garbage pile in 10 or 15 years?

Trapped!!!

Well, o.k. so I'm not really "trapped" per say. . . but I feel like it! It's a sad thing when winter is *just* beginning and you're already feeling claustrophobic about being stuck inside while Jack Frost plays fast and loose with the snowflakes! I have things to do and places to go, but here I sit because I need to get my brakes fixed and I have to wait until Tuesday for my turn at the repair shop. I was looking for ways to keep myself amused during the most recent mini-snowstorm (which kept me from absconding with hubby's car and making a late night shipping run to the 24 hour post office at the airport) so I made some good progress on the Strawberry Jam colt and listed something to Ebay. I haven't listed anything in years, but I've got this odd item that I've been meaning to sell and Ebay was the best place I could think of to put it. http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=290280895695&ssPageName=ADME:L:LCA:US:1123

Pretty neat huh? I had planned on framing it in a shadowbox with a mat. . . but I'm running out of wall space in my little house. :^)

I'll have photos here soon of the Strawberry Jam remakes. Once I looked at the photos from the last post again, I realized how over in the knees the NSH filly was! EEEK! Too much time spent trying to re-do the pastern angles without the padded shoes and not enough attention to what I was doing to the rest of her legs in the process! AAAHHH! hahahahahahaha!

Life after the unicorn!

Whew! I can't believe I finally finished writing all the unicorn stuff down! I have to admit that I seriously regretted my commitment to documenting that project about 4 posts into it! I swore that I was going to finish the blogged journey though and I did. Anyone who knows me will know what a BIG deal it is for me to actually finish something I started!

So, here we have a couple of pics of some things I am working on currently. Well, actually, I started working on them just before Breyerfest in July. I continued working on them *at* Breyerfest during free moments in my room. I am *still* working on them right now. . . but, eventually, something is bound to get completed. I bit off a little more than I could chew by tearing apart and trying to customize 9 resins all at the same time. That's a little self defeating move I like to call, counter constructive creative clutter clog. (O.K. I don't really call it that. . .I just made it up. . .but it does sum up the problem that I seem to run into again and again! )

The first two. . .yeah, I know there are three horses here, but the middle one is a control subject to highlight some subtle differences. . . anyhow, the first two victims are Strawberry Jam resins.


The one in the foreground is on her way to becoming a NSH filly. Her neck has been adjusted ever so slightly forward at the poll and throat latch into a graceful silhouette. She has a slightly dished profile that I am still working on. One of her rear legs was removed completely, cut up, and repositioned into anatomically correct stretched position. Since National Show Horses don't show parked out like Saddlebreds, she is now in a more appropriate halter stance. She will have a new mane and tail and her stacked shoes have been removed.
The one in the background has been made into a colt. His profile is a bit more bold and his neck is stretched out a little more than the original. I think it gives him some "attitude" that's fitting for a colt. His tail has been removed and will be replaced with one that isn't as flagged.

I have more to post, but I will try to get these completed before moving onto the next ones. These will be available for purchase, unpainted, when they are finished. I will probably accept offers privately or use Auction Barn so, if anyone is interested, please subscribe to my yahoogroups list for up to date information. (link is available through my website at http://www.boguckiresins.com/)

Let us never speak of this again.

FINISHED! With only an hour to spare, which is good because I needed that hour to drive it back to Lake Geneva.













I did get him looking *almost* new and undamaged again. It was reasonably simple to touch up all the rubs and scrapes (he sure got petted on his nose and horn a lot!) and refresh most of his paint overall, but the hairline fractures proved to be a bit more than I could figure out.








The best I could do was to rub white paint into the cracks and try to diminish their appearance. It worked o.k. but they were still visible from certain angles. The final coats of finishing spray helped to smooth them out a bit too, but I wish I could have eliminated them altogether.





I did add quite a bit more dappling to his body so that went a long way toward disguising a lot of little things as well. So, these are the last photos of this critter.





Strangely enough, I no longer wished I could have him for my very own. I was happy to be rid of him and he brought a good price ($3,000) at the auction the following afternoon. All's well that ends well eh?










In the future, please direct all requests for my participation in public art fundraisers to my manager. . .

Almost. . .

Ahhh, the last 24 hours! AGAIN! Whoopeee! I only stopped to photograph the finished resculpting before the paint went on. There wasn't any time to photo the paint work in progress so the finished pics will be the next and LAST entry about this project. *sigh*





So, the first pic shows the semi-repaired shoulder. I stabilized the broken pieces as well as possible and then sculpted additional decoration over the damaged areas. I had to get a little creative with that loooong crack going down toward the leg. Even the curliques are covering some sort of damage. ha! The Dragonfly was added to balance out the new vining because I couldn't stomach trying to sculpt yet another flower in that spot. Since I had added an insect to one side, I figured I should probably add one to the other side for some continuity. I threw in a couple of curliques on this side too. Be kind when judging my bug sculpting skills. I was exhausted and too darn tired to go looking for pics of any real dragonflies or butterflies. I know they're not the most realistic things around, but I had high hopes that some pretty paint would distract people from that fact.

!@#$%

Ummmmm. . .Yeah. . . so, that didn't work the way we expected it to. Once we removed the brace between the legs, it promptly cracked open again. The only way to be 100% certain it was fixed, was to break the leg the rest of the way off and start fresh. No wonder the previous fix didn't hold! That leg alone was VERY heavy, at least 10 pounds!

A glimpse inside the hollow leg stump and into the body. You can see the thin layer of fiberglass sandwiched between the two (interior and exterior) coats of resin. They must brush the resin into an open mold, lay the fiberglass on top, put the mold halves together and slosh another coating of resin inside the whole thing. That's just my best guess. . .I'm sure it's a bit more complicated than that.

We opted to go for a giant version of how the leg on a small resin horse can be fixed. Since the leg was already hollow, we skipped the part where you carefully drill into each section. We also skipped the part that involves fitting a thin metal pin into the two halves and opted instead for pounding a 2 x 2 into one side with a mallet. After packing the area around the wood with epoxy putty and letting it set up for awhile,

we fitted the other end of the 2 x 2 into the body portion of the leg which had also been packed with a generous amount of putty. We were careful to extend a thin layer of putty over the edges of the leg so there would be a tight seal between the pieces that would be easy to smooth and finish for a "seamless" appearance.

Once the two pieces were firmly pressed together, the holes that had been drilled for the earlier failed attempt at a repair suddenly came in handy. We were able to tightly pack more putty into the holes with the pieces in place to ensure a solid bond between the wood and the inside of the leg. Once everything was in place, we stood him up and adjusted the leg so it lined up properly with the hoof flat on the floor and the body weight supported evenly. About 15 hours later it was solid as a rock, ready to be sanded smooth, and finished with a fresh coat of paint! Yay!

Operation leg fix. . .

So, here's the plan. . . The leg is attached *barely* but it makes sense to try and mend it while making use of the small bit that's still hanging on. We'll drill a hole in the top of the leg. . .

Then we'll drag the horse off the table, turn it around, flip it over, put it back on the table and drill a hole in the *other* side of the leg. . .

See? A nice round hole! Looks like we've got something absolutely ingenious planned here!

O.K. now, take the horse off the table again, turn it back around, flip it over and put it back on the table again (be careful not to snap that leg off now!)

Look at that nice mesh cloth! Ooooh! We can wad it up, shove it through the little hole and naturally it will spring back into this exact position and we can use it as a backing for the superglue/baking soda mix that will magically bind this whole mess seamlessly together! Yay!

But first. . .pull the cloth back out through the little hole and spend about an hour and a half with a pen light, a chopstick, and a bent wire trying to position it correctly inside the leg.

Ahhh, sweet victory! Look at the beautiful skinny seam all packed with the miracle mixture.

Propped up and waiting to dry rock hard solid, holding that leg on like heavy duty cement, making it completely impervious to breakage, even if it falls off the roof!