Category: Uncategorized

Gardening and strange sights.

Been rather quiet recently. A lot of behind the scenes stuff, mostly just stressing over the pumpkins.

Figured starting seeds should have been easy, heck they practically exploded like weeds in the garden last year as volunteers. But, I wanted specialty varieties, so we’ve been killing all those and trying to start seeds.

Direct sowing seeds didn’t work last year, so we got a window box seed starter kit, threw a bunch in…nothing.

Added some grow lights to make it a more controlled environment and started a second batch…4 sprouts out of 25 seeds.

So, it started the line of suggestions. Scoring the seeds, floating seeds to see if they are viable or not, soaking prior to planting, and the old wet paper towel in a baggie.

That paper towel/baggie combo is MOST effective, I must say. A day later, most the seeds sprouted. transferring them over to the little pots, another 2 days, and they had fully broken through.

Near 100% germination after a couple more days, and so we tranplanted a ton of pumpkins into the garden this week.

However, I’ve had to leave the tending of the little pumpkins in the hands of my boys, as I’m on the road.

Didn’t expect to run into this in the middle of nowhere.

Image source.

Will try to stop and get some more comprehensive pics on the way back through, I was heading the wrong direction with no good place to turn around/stop.

 

Mask: Day 1

There is something a little creepy about having your son staring at you…

From 2011 buildup

Now, the normal process for making a mask at this point is to use clay to sculpt said mask on top of your lifecast here. Then you make another mold of THAT, and cast it in latex.

Well, I’ve never been one for normal. I actually have all the tools to DO that, even. But, 2 reasons we’re not:

1: I only need a very basic form for ‘stage 1’ of this mask.
2: I really enjoy playing with latex.

One of the first things that really got me hooked on the holiday was my ability to create my own monsters. From about 9 years old, I’ve been playing with liquid latex, making my own latex appliances.

This mask, really, is just an extension of that. And the life cast is nothing but the perfect subject. Holding perfectly still, not moving…oh, and there’s that whole synergy where plaster dries latex super fast to speed things up.

So, a couple layers latex, both drying almost instantly, and we attached the back cloth for the mask with just more latex.

From 2011 buildup

In what is probably a superfluous step, I even added a layer of cheese cloth across the whole thing. This will make sure that any tears that occur, or trimming cuts I have to make do not turn into a major tear in the mask as a whole.

Drawing on those years of playing with latex makeup, we began the construction in the traditional cotton ball method. (sorry, apparently the camera doesn’t want to focus whilst held by one slimy latex covered hand)

From 2011 buildup

Not bad for a day. We have some touchup work to do yet, and I need to decide whether we’re sculpting on the lower half or not, then we can begin stage 2…