lemmy and zoot step by step

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In case you've been wondering what my sculptures look like on the inside, here is a step by step documentation on the making of Lemmy and Zoot. I start out with balled up newspaper inside a cage of chicken wire, then I cover the rough shape with my first layer of paper mache. In the oven I speed up their drying time so I can get to the next step. Paper mache takes a long time to dry, so anything I do has to be able to fit in the oven. Bigger projects have to wait until summer when I can dry them outside.

Next I make some eyes and teeth out of sculpey. My scale drawing comes in handy for that. I make some extra ones, so I'll have plenty to choose the right ones from. Zoot gets a face, together with a second, smoother layer of paper mache. Lemmy has to wait  for his face for complicated reasons having to do with the materials and the height of the oven. Back in the oven they go.

More bits get added. Lemmy's legs  and Zoot's back legs get a layer of aluminum foil and then get covered with Magic Sculpt, an extra hard epoxy that I use for the most fragile parts. Back in the oven with them! I put a sign on the oven so that nobody accidentally pre-heats the oven to 500 degrees to make a pizza and incinerates my kitties. My family knows how to interpret signs like this.

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Lemmy's tail and Zoot's front leg get a layer of a finer, harder paper mache and the lads get epoxy ears.  Haunches get smoothed out. Back in the oven two more times! Zoot has quite the zombie look there.

Finally Lemmy gets his ears and face, Zoot gets a tail and they go into the oven one last time.

Next will be paint!

meeting Lemmy and Zoot

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And the cat theme continues! My friend Eryn, a great cat- and art-lover has commissioned me to do sculpture portraits of her two adorable cats Lemmy and Zoot. I went to meet the two and took some notes on their physical appearance as well as their character. They both have distinct personalities that are very different from each other (which makes my job easy!). Lemmy is long and thin and very shy. Chubby Zoot is extremely friendly, chatty and snuggly and has a funky tail. The two love each other. Eryn provided me with photos of her darlings and I'm going to start sketching. What a fun assignment!

my first class reading

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I visited the 1st and 2nd grade students at Trillium Charter School for my first ever class reading. I had recently met their teacher Aron Nels Steinke, who is a fantastic cartoonist and illustrator himself and he invited me to see how my target audience would like the picture book that I have been working on. It was so fun! The kids had a lot of comments and questions. There were lively discussions about the price of ice cream, favorite flavors and about the height that a single cone could realistically be stacked with ice cream. It got even better when Aron asked the class to design the cover page for me, since I hadn't done that part yet. I always adore kid's art and they had some great ideas. I was also impressed by the visual detail they remembered from just the one reading. Amazing. Those kids are so lucky to have Aron as a teacher. I really think teachers should get paid a lot more for what they do for our children every day. Thank you teachers!

I'm transatlantic!

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On my way to becoming a children's book illustrator I just got one step closer. I am now listed on the Transatlantic Agency website! My wonderful agent Fiona Kenshole has joined forces with Transatlantic and we are off and running. I think that is quite fitting, since I am sort of Transatlantic myself. Can't wait to see all the good things that will come my way! Thanks to Jule for taking that nice picture of me on one of our Sunday hikes! I made her take about 500.

faux gingerbread

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And here is what I used that white hot glue for that I had hoarded for some 15 years before coming up with a good use for it: fake icing on some fake gingerbread cookies. (See my previous post on ancient art materials.) I'll be selling those at the Trillium Arts and Crafts Spectacular and at Crafty Wonderland where you can get your holidays started in style. I'll even be adding some of those guys to the popular Crafty Wonderland gift bags!

ancient art materials

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I was just using some art materials for a project, that have been with me for a remarkably long time. There are the german white hot glue sticks (Schmelzkleber) that have been waiting to become useful for many years. The price- twice reduced, which is probably why I bought them in the first place- is in DM, Deutsche Mark, pre-Euro, but I think they are even older than that, ca. 1996, before I moved to the US. I'll show you the perfect use I found for them very soon!

And then there are these Rowney acrylic paints, big old bottles that I bought when I was living in England, also around that time. They are in amazingly good shape for their age and I use them all the time. The best thing about them is that they smell really good and often the smell reminds me of my time in England, the way only smells can take you back.

They were amongst only a few prized possessions that were chosen to come across the atlantic with me.