Father was made this year, specifically to enter the South Ogden City Scarecrow contest.
First saw last year that they had nothing but overly cute entries, I just could not stand for that.
I’ll take that. Was worth all the looks he garnered from passing vehicle.
I have two competing ideas for next year. One can barely be called a “scarecrow”. But then, I lost to a flat board.
2010, birth of the Harvest Party.
2010 began with a whirlwind of activity. I was bound and determined to bring Spider Woman (a native american legend) to life with the yard. There was going to be a temple and everything. A slew of items most of the public never saw were created.
Statues for the temple…
Combining with some local myths in a nearby canyon that rock formations were witches held by spider woman until the shaman could turn them to stone, I was interpreting to make some mini versions for the yard as well.
Bundled mummies were in progress.
Then came August…
A storm took out our gazebo, which was going to serve as the frame for the temple, and with it most of the items we’d spent the year working on.
I didn’t want to just do our field of skulls we had done for several years at the time, and was looking for things I could do with the remaining time and budget.
Several things conspired to push me into the Harvest direction.
1st, I had gotten comments at work on my ‘depressing’ wallpaper (pictures of my yard at the time) and stumbled on this picture, soon changing my wallpaper to it, and it bored into my head looking at it every day…how simple…how awesome.
Then other comments from haunters complaining about people in their neighborhood that put up “Nothing but pumpkins and some corn stalks”.
Combined, I set out to make nothing but pumpkins and corn stalks something neat. To this day, 2010 is one of my favorite years.
Busy couple weekends here.
First, the kids and I took advantage of the Halloween in Summer festival in Magna.
Good to see so many local artists out there making Halloween items.
(Talia practicing her creepy face)
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| From Buildup 2015 |
And so many costumes!
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| From Buildup 2015 |
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| From Buildup 2015 |
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| From Buildup 2015 |
But, back home it was time to get working on Mother.
Unfortunately, I ran out of material fairly quick.
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| From Buildup 2015 |
Some quick orders placed, and a review of my schedule going forward with work projects, back to school, and weekends about to be taken up with canning tomatoes, it come down to a now or never situation for finishing the bulk of work on Mother this weekend. So, we declared it Motherfest, and most my time was spent elbow deep in material, working on Mother Friday and Saturday.
By Saturday afternoon, Mother was mostly finished.
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| From Buildup 2015 |
Only needing a quick wash of black Sunday evening. There’s a bit of work left, but she’s finally presentable.
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| From Buildup 2015 |
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| From Buildup 2015 |
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| From Buildup 2015 |
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| From Buildup 2015 |
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| From Buildup 2015 |
Father is swiftly approaching completion.
Getting some more of the basic form down.
The “clean” nature was bugging me, and even though there was some more form work to do, I had to fix that.
Finally, most form work finished, just a little bit to do on the right arm. Lighting redesign (subtle), and improved form on the left arm. Needs some detail work in places yet, and I need to make a stand for the city contest.
Mother, on the other hand, has just begun work. Finally putting some skin on, and getting a couple babies into place.
As I was finishing up the skin session with light starting to fade (too darn hot to start much earlier), I looked up at the rest, and all that skin was shifting in the breeze…she appeared to be breathing!….how fitting.
Every year, I like to have something of a preview out for Walpurgisnacht.
Mother, while coming along, simply had too much work to even get anything resembling much to anyone done in time, and there are some areas I need to figure out on her. So, I figured why not work on one of the other ones, one that will go together quick.
Talia has declared if the big one is Mother, this must be Father. “Then there will be a whole family.”
It started out simple enough, figuring on just throwing some skin on.
But it really wasn’t meshing with Mother the way I wanted, and I needed to be working on something I can send to the scarecrow contest. Mother is too big to haul around.
So, I started with a 2×4 and redesigned the body screwing bits right to the board. Soon it was coming together.
I actually have a “hand” for the right arm, just haven’t gotten around to attaching it. The left arm I haven’t been able to find a suitable piece, and may end up sculpting one instead.
Still a lot to do, but Father is a suitable preview to mark the half way point.
