snail in the big world...

Posted by Arna:

A snail's pace. No, this is not about how slow my current storyboard is going. That's maybe a subject for another post. Or not.

This is what I saw on a Go Train platform on a rainy Toronto Sunday morning this week. I hope the little guy wasn't stepped on. It was heading towards the safety of the brush behind the platform. Slowly.

going squirrelly...

Posted by Arna:

A small mangy squirrel is eating our house. The little rodent comes back day after day and gnaws at the rotten window ledge on our decrepit back sunporch. The thing seems to want in. Winter's coming, so maybe it thinks it can make a nest or maybe it actually wants to hang out with our cats. It's really their sunporch. They spend most sunny days sleeping there.

Today I tried to make the squirrel go away by yelling and banging on the window. It's chewing its way into our house after all! I started to growl like an angry cat. I waved around a cardboard poster tube, trying to look ferocious. The squirrel just sat on the ledge staring back at me while I went nuts. But our cat Kiki lunged and grabbed me by the hair. Guess she had enough of my shenanigans.

If you look closely in the drawing you'll see the chew marks on our windowsill. We really have to stop this critter! Anyone have suggestions for getting rid of a pesky squirrel??

Up next...

Posted by Arna:

A random collection of photos all taken at night during Bloor Street walks:

Cast in cement part 2...

Posted by Arna:

Here's the completed mold:

But I spoke too soon! I then added 'handles' of burlap to the outside of the mold:

Two instructors at Central Technical School open another student's mold to remove the clay:

Lining the cement in layers on the inside of the mold:

Here's another view of the two halves of the mold. I built the cement up a bit more, but not too thick. Then (no pictures for the next stage) I added strips of fiberglass soaked in a thin slop of cement, to make the piece strong.

The cement sculpt newly removed from the mold, with the light 'bloom' forming on the surface:

The finished piece stained with a furniture polish and rubbed with a brass barbecue brush to give it a brass patina:

All done.

Cast in cement part 1...

Posted by Arna:

I decided to do my first cement cast piece from a clay sculpture shown in this previous post. The casting process was well worth documenting, even though I only have pictures of some of the steps. It took me ten sessions to do the entire cement cast. Compare that to just three sessions to do the original clay sculpt! Casting takes a lot longer than sculpting. I made this piece at Central Technical School in Toronto.

Here's the first side of the mold built up over the clay figure:

We 'throw' or 'splash' plaster at the clay to form the mold:

Another view of the back:

More to come in a second post...

Dorothy Van Bruggen

1934-2006

Sadly and suddenly, John's mother passed away on September 21st, in her 73rd year. We can't believe that you're gone and we miss you, Mom.