Plum Root Crazy
I dun gone plum rut' crazy, folks! I couldn't hep myself and started adding even more foam root structure to the tree today. It needed some root augmentation after all the expansion in the canopy. I also jerry-built the sole indoor branch with a nail and hole rig so that I can remove it when I'm working on the interior. Plug n' play. I also added more crumpled newspaper to spots on the upper branches, shaping as I went, and fixed a few more metal mesh roots to the indoor and opposite outdoor wall. All of the above will be covered in a coat of strong brown kraft paper, or two, and be very strong and solid.
I have to say, I really enjoy sculpting giant trees out of mesh, newspaper and masking tape. Who knew?!
The other thing I learned today was that taking photos all around the set to document the process had an added benefit of revealing things that need improving that I don't "see" or notice in person. Something else to keep in mind to do, on purpose, with projects.
Two New Art Quotes Today:
"Most people don't recognize opportunity when it comes, because it's usually dressed in overalls and looks a lot like work." --Thomas Edison
"Art should make you interested in life, not in art." --Michael Winter
Here's one I found in somebody's sig at the Sculptor's Forum: - "Any experiment of interest in life will be carried out at your own expense. Mark it well. "The Libertine" "
ReplyDeleteAnd I love making natural forms like trees and terrain, especially crazy stuff like caves or craggy mountains. Or trees!
ReplyDeleteThey are wonderful! and I love all the photos of the branches on top - I can see how you can go on and on. What a great idea to use foam as an underlayer... I will be making a 'bower' in my online class that I am taking this month, and may have to steal your idea...
ReplyDeleteGreat Shelley!
ReplyDeleteJust looking at the archives and I noticed a post that mentioned that your grandthather had models of some of Hollywoods biggest (Past) Stars. Do you know what happed to them?
just Wondering
-Ben
Great quote, Mike. I've never made any papier mache this large scale before--and I like it!
ReplyDeleteThanks for visiting, Ulla! I had to look up bower to know it was a shady place under trees, sounds lovely. Steal away!
Thanks Ben, thanks for "archive exploring" No, I have absolutely no clue what happened to those life masks. Hopefully they were put somewhere safe for the future. It was pretty amazing to see Clark Gable and Marilyn Monroe looking down at you for reals.
I only visited that grandfather once and remember well his mold-making workshop downstairs. That's what's so weird about my making molds and special cimema effects now. It was like my cells chose what I like most to do!
It would sure be a shame for those molds to be lost, They might be at a museum or something. Did your grandfather live in another country because you said you only visited him once?
ReplyDelete-Ben
Wow, that'd be kind of creepy, looking at a cast taken from a dead face! Or are they not death masks?
ReplyDeleteOh, no, they were life masks, taken whilst the people were living for use in special effects, as the basis for prosthetic or make-up design of some kind--I guess, although now that you mention it--I remember looking at stars that would have had no logical reason to have prosthetics! Scary! I recall Jimmy Durante and all the stars of early hollywood up along the wall, dozens of them. So why would they have had life masks I wonder now.
ReplyDeleteThe family story was that my grandfather worked for MGM on the Planet of the Apes and other films as a special makeup effects artist, but this discussion has caused me to check for the first time at the IMDB confirmed crew listings and I do not see his name even as an uncredited member. I don't know how to spell his name. He was Greek and it had not one but two "x"'s in it. It is possible that he had a professional name as his real name was so foreign and extremely difficult to say and spell.
Still, now I wonder what the hell was going on. It is possible the whole story was a lie. But then why would he have had all the stars heads in plaster?! (cue confused, tumultuous music.)
Oh, and to Ben, I only saw this man, my mother's real father, once in my life because my family history is "non-traditional", wacky, and slightly sortid.
I don't know how I could get to the real story now.
I tried spelling his name at IMDB, one more time, as a REALLY wild guess... And now at least I know I wasn't imagining those masks as a child and that my grandfather has passed away...
ReplyDeleteSteven Clensos
Ok, I'm remembering more now. I know he worked on Apes as part of that ground-breaking make-up effects team because I saw the OSCAR™!!! He had it in a glass-faced cabinet upstairs in the dining room and I asked what it was for and he said, "I was on the team that worked on Planet of the Apes"
ReplyDeletePlus, in rooting around on IMDB I found that the producer of Apes, Arthur P. Jacobs, was also the producer of Goodbye Mr. Chips at MGM on which my mother's grandmother worked as a script girl! Which could explain how Steven might have met my grandmother in the first place! Woo, I feel like a private detective tonight!
Thanks!
Correction: I forgot, my great grandmother worked on the 1939 version of Mr. Chips as an assistant to Irving Thalberg, which makes more sense. The story I always heard was that Mr. Thalberg liked having her on hand and relied on her for good work on several pictures.
ReplyDeleteWow, It's all So exciting.
ReplyDeleteHiya, Shelley!
ReplyDeleteI am loving the quotes, the trees, the stories. I love coming to your journal and seeing the marvel that's unfolding. ♥
Hiya, Shelley!
ReplyDeleteI am loving the quotes, the trees, the stories. I love coming to your journal and seeing the marvel that's unfolding. ♥
Fantastic ending quotes, that go so well with what you were saying in your post.
ReplyDeleteYour tree is going to be stunning, it already is!
I agree with you, about stepping back and taking photos, to see the details that are overlooked yet brought into focus with the camera's eye. I find if I leave something alone and return a day later, the same discoveries are made, things I haven't noticed appear before me in evident color!
Hi and thanks Hila! xox
ReplyDeleteHi Elena, I so appreciate what you said here and take it to heart.
And Thank you for hearing and getting me and being involved, Corey. It means so much.