ART GALLERY OF DREAMS - The Finally

In the Studio with Garyo - Day Five
This is the conclusion to my creating Nacho. If you haven't tuned in on Day One, Day Two,  Day Three, or Day Four click the links, so you can see the whole process. Recently Green Whisker Works, my NY-Based studio, had a contest on FaceBook. The contest was simple, go on the Green Whisker Works page do the "like" thing and then post a picture of your pet. After the deadline, I put everyone's name that posted in a hat a randomly pulled out one lucky winner. The winner was Brenda Dungan Edmonds and her little dog Nacho. So she sent me lots of wonderful pictures of this cute little guy and I set to work on immortalizing him.

Darth Nacho! Actually I've presented the clay in pictures to Nacho's owner and after a few tweaks she has approved the sculpt. So I'm fencing him into this odd box made of foamcore to make a mold.

ART GALLERY OF DREAMS - Part IV

In the Studio with Garyo - Day Four

If you haven't tuned in on Day One, Day Two,  or Day Three, today is Day Four and Nacho is really coming together now. Recently Green Whisker Works, my NY-Based studio, had a contest on FaceBook. The contest was simple, go on the Green Whisker Works page do the "like" thing and then post a picture of your pet. After the deadline, I put everyone's name that posted in a hat a randomly pulled out one lucky winner. The winner was Brenda Dungan Edmonds and her little dog Nacho. So she sent me lots of wonderful pictures of this cute little guy and I set to work on immortalizing him.

I've carved one eye in and now I need to do the second.

 Poof! Now we have two eyes carved. There is a problem, but I'll get back to that as I need a break from the eyes for a bit.

Going for detail work now I start adding fur texture to little Nacho. I'm using a hard plastilene clay that is soft when heated and hard when cold. This lets me both model or add, as well as carve in the clay. That way I can get great detail without having to switch into different medium.

The soft and hard abilities of this clay really help me out when I take a look at the eyes again. If you look back at the pictures showing the second eye carved, you may notice at the moment Nacho the sculpture is wall-eyed. To fix this I can warm up the clay again for one eye socket and reposition the eye in the socket. It still needs a bit more tweaking, but you can see both eyes are now closer to looking at the same spot. So I finish up this day with a bit more fur and hopefully finish the fur and eyes on Day Five.

Garyo

http;//www.greenwhiskerworks.com

ART GALLERY OF DREAMS - Part III

(RE-POST: THE MISSING BLOGGER FILES...)

Day Three
At Green Whisker Works... With GaryO


On day three I'm doing a lot of detailing and refining of the sculpture, so there isn't as much radical progress as Day One  and it's really just tightening up of what I did on Day Two . So I thought I would share today in a time lapse video form, so sit back and enjoy the funky beats while I compress 6 hours into 3 minutes.

WHEN LIFE SHAKES YOU UP - SHAKE UP YOUR LIFE

FIND YOUR ART GALLERY OF DREAMS

GaryO


I've often seen the big picture while working for others, much to their benefit. For One company I put together and spear headed a IT program that networked thousands of offices in half the time and at a huge reduction in down time. While at another I pushed for an out of the box application of their technology and expand outside of their radio only market and into digital advertising on movie theater screens before the movie starts. For New York City I was part of a team that took them from a software roll out that was doing one job center every four years to a software roll-out that was four centers per year. At my last company I designed and rolled out a web application that stopped the wasteful practice of producing and printing a regulation book that was outdated by the time it made it to the staff and made it instantly available and up-datable online within days of the regulation issuance. After the cutbacks that lead to my layoff at the MTA. I found myself looking harder than I've ever had to look for a job in one of the worst recessions this country has ever faced.

I was getting more and more disheartened, but I had something that kept me going, my sculpting. With much encouragement from my family and friends, I began making a business plan for something that I loved and was very talented at, sculpture. Green Whisker Works was born.

Green Whisker Works is my New York City-based sculpture studio, committed to creating indelible sculpted pet portraiture.  My purpose is to deliver high-quality custom artwork to those looking to have a lasting portrait of their beloved pets, not just by creating an accurate physical representation, but also conveying every animal's unique essence and personality in the sculpture.

After Dawn and Barbara asked for some guest bloggers, I suggested to Barbara that I could open up my studio to everyone out in DRL land. Show them how an unintended shake up was  perhaps a lifeline to a dream.  She thought it would be a good idea as insight and inspiration are certainly themes around the lounge. 


Recently Green Whisker Works, my NY-Based studio, had a contest on FaceBook. The contest was simple, go on the Green Whisker Works page do the "like" thing and then post a picture of your pet. After the deadline, I put everyone's name that posted in a hat a randomly pulled out one lucky winner. The winner was Brenda Dungan Edmonds and her little dog Nacho. So she sent me lots of wonderful pictures of this cute little guy and I set to work on immortalizing him.

Day One

 I start the sculpture by building an armature. This is made from a wooden base and a wire frame and balled up newspaper roughly shaped like the subject, in this case Nacho. It serves to reduce the overall amount of clay needed to make the sculpture and it also acts like a skeleton to provide a strong stable foundation for the sculpture.

Using a few of the photographs I begin to add clay to the sculpture. I don't need many photos at this point, mainly the mug shots front and side as well as a couple of 3/4 shots. I am not worried about details at this point, so I don't need many. Later I will use more of the reference photos provided  (and you can not have too many pictures of your subject) toward the end of making the sculpture when I am working on the details. At this point I begin to rough in the clay. It can look a bit creepy at this point missing the eyes and the structure not really being there yet.

Here I have him roughed in a bit more and I'm getting ready to add the eyes. I feel the eyes are very important in creating a sculpture. That quote about "being windows to the soul." I feel is the foundation to figurative sculpture. This is true if I'm making a human or an animal. Maybe even more so with our pets. I know much of our communication with our pets can be expressed through eyes. So I take the time to measure using the photos as reference and transfer that to the clay sculpture.

So here is Nachos progress after day one, not there yet, but you can see he is starting to emerge from the clay.

ART GALLERY OF DREAMS

In the Studio with Garyo - Day Two

If you haven't tuned in on Day One. Recently Green Whisker Works, my NY-Based studio, had a contest on FaceBook. The contest was simple, go on the Green Whisker Works page do the "like" thing and then post a picture of your pet. After the deadline, I put everyone's name that posted in a hat a randomly pulled out one lucky winner. The winner was Brenda Dungan Edmonds and her little dog Nacho. So she sent me lots of wonderful pictures of this cute little guy and I set to work on immortalizing him.

Nacho's progress today is a bit more subtle than what I did on day one. Here I'm working on the forehead and eyes, tightening up the structure of the Chihuahua. Nacho is proving a bit challenging because his fur is so light it is sometime hard to see the different planes in his face.

Here I am working on improving his snout and muzzle. Nacho has a wonderful doggie smile that I want to capture. A dog's nose I find is much like a finger print in that no two are the same. So I work on getting just the right shape for the nose.

  More eye work again. Starting to get more detailed with the eyelid shape. I try to move on from spending too much time on one thing and loose overall focus. So I will work a little on something and then come back for another pass from time to time. I find this helps resolve the piece better over time.

Day Two of Nacho's progress this time a profile shot. I feel the clay is starting to look more like him now and should be able to move on to details and fur at some point on Day Three