some dude

The Grub Mother revisited

A while ago I sculpted a character called the Grub Mother but always felt like it was unfinished for some reason.  She just sat there staring at me in my studio, taunting me.  Anyway, I recently revisited her made her into something that I feel a bit better about.  The Grub Mother is still the same character she was before, a surrogate mother for insects that lay their eggs on her.  She doesn't really want to be a mother to these insects but she is nonetheless and does it with a good grace.

The Grub Mother

some more colour pics

Just trying out some different methods of painting in photoshop

adding some colour

Here is a quick wee paint over of the old venus fly trap dude, done in photoshop.

Sketchbooks

For a long time I thought of my sketchbook as an intimidating place that I had to sit down and consciously make great art in, however I think it took moving away from the page and beginning to work in a medium such as clay to realise the importance of the sketchbook.  I believe that sketchbooks are a place to think in pictures, much in the same way a notebook might be used to think through ideas in words.  They're a place were you don't have to take yourself so seriously and were you can think through ideas without being judged on them.  When I start to work on an idea that I want to make in to a sculpture I find that the first design idea that I have (despite how cool I think it is) almost never turns out the way I wanted it to or at least it never has the feeling that I wanted to convey.  In cases like this I find that working in a sketchbook can be very liberating.  The first drawing almost always sucks but as soon as it's done, ideas begin to manifest themselves in quick succession and soon enough ten more ideas are down on the page.  Before you know it, you'll have scratched away all the dirt from your idea lens and will be able to see the thing that you wanted to create clearly.
Here are some pictures that I scanned of my sketchbook from the last few months, you can see how messy and sketchy they can get!

 

  

It's a trap!

This guy was inspired by the Venus Fly Trap that lives in a pot on our kitchen window sill.  He usually catches his prey by burying himself so that only his trap is exposed but here he is contemplating whether or not he's going to eat these curious moths.

The Frog Eater

This guy sits in the reeds next to ponds and waits for unsuspecting frogs to stumble into reach.  When they do he'll use his long arms to grab them and his smaller front arms to pick them apart and eat them.  He can be seen here with his latest catch.