6 posts tagged “centaur”
This is the second Shawn/Rooster combo. The prior piece was my first Centaur Chicken, and sold almost immediately. It now lives in England. This one has some additions; the comb & wattle, and spurs. The prior piece joined the legs to the bird at the knees, while this one goes all the way to the hips- it stands at nearly 4 feet tall. All-thread runs the length of the legs and bolts to the underside of
the base. The plaster sub-base was poured in place to ensure stability. I used Hydrostone, a new-to-me kind of high bond plaster backed with hemp- and it is much stronger than my previous Hydrocal/burlap/bandage figures
The base color is established, but still needs patination, while the wood base needs wire-wooled and another coat of stain- but this is as far as it will go for quite awhile as I am heading back to Montana this weekend. I'll bring the laptop and post some Cowboy images when I head in to town.
I created her last spring in my plaster figure spasm, and had some issues with her figure mold beginning to collapse (rubber molds will deteriorate over time) creating weird areas. I thought I'd move on to other things and repair her later- and later became now, a year later. I brought her out of the basement and looked at her anomalies,and determined a triage plan. I ripped down with files and built back in with plaster, and she lived through it all. I painted her a bit differently- and she came out with a stronger metallic sheen than the past few painted forms. I used two layers of thin washed color (vs 1 heavier layer) over the opaque base layer of stainless steel- the stainless steel paint is a craft paint that has real stainless steel suspended in acrylic. The result is a complex French Brown patina.
This hen is a mix of a Polish Chicken, a breed kept as lawn ornamentation that are nervous critters as their vision is impaired by the pom-pom. She also has a V-Comb, which has a nice devil-horn quality. The female form was sculpted from a 24 year old model who posed back in my MFA process (hence the mold being old enough to begin to slump).
As long as I was revisiting work from the summer, I couldn't forget the Centaur Chicken! This is CentauE, holding her egg on her shoulder- now in a nice Bronze color. Now I really need to create a better base for her- without snapping a leg off.
The centaur figures don't require the kind of creative attention and originality that generates a genuine motivation. By this I mean that they are a pre-existent idea that require a skilled process to create, but the process of creation does not significantly inform them or lead anywhere new: I know which figure and chicken will fuse well, which parts I'm putting where, and how it will turn out. There is no risk of failure, no invention of necessity, no real interaction necessary- in other words, they are boring me. A good direction leads into the unknown and has inherent failures- risk and exploration inspire new ideas and new directions.
This piece is in a private collection. It is the first Centaur Chicken- Gallus Porter or Cock Man, as it's owner refers to it.I created this piece after a long period of plaster trial and error in the fall of 06. I finally reached a predicable/stable result with the straight figure. Shifting this technique to the demands of the centaur chicken was a big test/risk of the plaster technique, as the torso creates an enormous cantilever of stress on the legs. I didn't think it would work, and so was happily surprised with its structural integrity.
This is a compilation of a Wyandotte Hen and the Elizabeth figure. I planned to replace the ball with a casting of an Emu egg, but the egg is too large for her hands. Instead I'll build up on the ball till it is egg shaped.
"Saucy" is how Elizabeth describes this one.
