Sunday, September 4, 2011

Roots

This week's effort was focused on making roots for the Tree of Life commission,

I began by inscribing the design for the roots with a pointed wood tool. This is an orange wood stick of Meg's - it seems to work great with plastilene because the clay doesn't stick to orange wood oil.

I cut the background out with a loop tool.

Then, I just "get into the zone" and start forming roots. Sometimes, you can see improvements to make while it is in progress. Sometimes, you step back and realize that you got to change it, and do it over. It goes on and on...this is the progress on the back side.

This is how the front side looked at the end of this week.

Now, I've got to 'switch gears' and prepare for the installation of my hand sculpture at Purdue University next week. This is my biggest and most involved personal sculpture to date - and 'Anxiety' is the flavor of the week.

"Where is Steve?" The crane truck got some much needed T.L.C. It has a lot of heavy things to move this coming week.

4 comments:

Tina said...

beautiful....

Tina said...

A but what I dont like is the dove in your draft. I had to read the posts before to realize what is it, thinking it was something like a sword. A part of a antique weapon. (Don t know the word). I think a dove should be a sign of peace and freedom and flying away. More lively. Not so stylistic. Just on the point of spreading its wings to fly away up to heaven. Apart from that its magic. I hope you dont mind.

don lawler said...

Actually, your comment is welcome and timely. I'm creating final scale drawings for that portion this week. Your feedback gives me pause to consider alternatives, to address the issue of it looking like a weapon. In fact, my neighbor pointed out that the dove looks like an archaic arrowhead point that was made in our region between 4,000 - 7,000 years ago called a "Dove tail". I make sculptural designs using the ancient art of "Flintknapping", and they tend to be weapon-like. I believe that your opinion is correct.

Tina said...

Oh Dove tail. Didn´t know that that exists. Very interesting.