Mid-Week #9: Wired Wednesday Lucky 7

Welcome to what may or may not be the final Wired Wednesday for a while! Since I'm so late posting and sharing masks again, I might as well go with Theatrical Thursday.  If only science had been able to grasp the elusive secret to faster than light travel, I might even have been able to post it Wednesday night on Thursday morning...Moving on...

First up is a mask that I'm hesitant to call complete.  It is loosely based on Balinese masks of the lion-like king of spirits, Barong, the leader of the forces of good.  I really like the extremely expressive masks of both Barong and his evil nemesis Rangda (a mask of whom will also be constructed at some point).  They are recognizable by their exaggerated eyes and mouths.  I will likely add more of a frame to this eventually and give it a nice mane and beard, also made of wire, of course.

 Next is a more Egyptian inspired mask. In case you've missed the context clues throughout my blog, I enjoy the mythologies of various cultures throughout the world.  This, as I said, is a mask of any of the variety of hawk or falcon headed gods of ancient Egypt.  Like the Barong mask above, I will probably add more to this one in the future, but for now I'm happy with it hanging on my wall as it is. I really like the way the feathers turned out in this one. While ideally I could have a three-dimensional image you could rotate to see all the different angles, you at least can get a better view of the feathers from the profile shot I also included.

Finally is one that has a much less mythological inspiration.  It's a goat.  I suppose one could argue that there are several instances of goats in various world mythologies, but this is your basic run-of-the-mill goat. I think goats get a bad reputation from their (admittedly creepy) horizontal slit pupils. In fact, they share that genetic trait with deer, cattle, most horses, and many sheep species all of which benefit with greater peripheral depth perception. The primary difference being that goats have lighter colored irises, so the strange shape stands out more.  You may be thinking "None of that has to do with art or wire," but remember that any artistic reproduction you make with the desire to accurately depict reality must begin with close observation of the aforementioned reality.  Plus, creepy factor aside, their eyes look kind of cool.

Thus ends (maybe) the saga that has been Wired Wednesday. Changes lie ahead for the Hey Mr. H! blog. Starting Sunday, the first of the week posts will now periodically be featuring some of my paintings, so be sure to check back in for that. And don't forget, if you like what you see on this or any other post, share it with a friend. Blogger supports a variety of social media (twitter, Facebook, etc.,) In any case, I hope you have a wonder-filled second half of the week. Until next time.

Stay creative,

AH!

Animal, Vegetable, Mineral, or Some Combination Thereof?

I think that title describes these pictures well.
This first drawing was a way to stretch my wings a bit (if you'll forgive the pun) by drawing a close-up of a hawk's head.  Of course, drawing a bird meant drawing feathers, which is not only a pretty relaxing activity but also excellent practice in drawing repeated, similar shapes. The difficult part is keeping the feathers similar in shape, while still including their natural variations so they don't look artificial.  There's very little shading in the feathers, which is another step outside of my comfort area.  The great part is that the angles of the feathers show the contour of the bird, rendering shading (again forgive the pun) virtually unnecessary.

The tree that is below is the result of the visual artist's equivalent of writer's block.  I can't really complain though, since I ended up with a really detailed illustration of a ficus tree.  The leaves look better in person, but you can see I employed a similar method to that of the hawk's feathers.  The leaves are similar to each other, but show a degree of variation as well.  The difference being that I wanted the feathers to show the contours of the hawk's head. If the leaves were all similarly angled, the tree would look more like a topiary than a naturally growing ficus. I should also point out that this particular ficus is an evil ficus.  You really have to watch out for them, since they look just like any other ficus.

One Sunday morning I had the bright idea to ask several kids in my church's youth group to throw out some ideas for strange things to draw. One of them, Nash R., really delivered. While I'm not sure I'd spontaneously choose to draw a Japanese spider crab, in retrospect I'm glad I did.  Keeping the legs in proportion to each other was a huge pain, but as with any trial, it paid me with experience. I couldn't have asked for a much better result for this decapod.  If you've never heard of these things, I suggest reading up on them. You can't get a much more intimidating crustacean than a 12 foot, 40 pound crab.

In case the fact hasn't become obvious yet, I greatly prefer drawing organic shapes (e.g. animals) to drawing more angular objects with set proportions (e.g. buildings or automobiles). This is an exception to that rule.  This was another requested drawing, and in this case it was one of my students who made the request unsolicited.  He wanted me to draw a robot dog.  Now, those who know me also know that I'm a bit of a pushover when it comes to polite requests from kids (or adults for that matter), so after only a very slight hesitation I agreed. Thus was born (constructed?) the robotic dog. In case he ever happens to stumble across this particular blog post, I'd like to say to him "Thank you, Ethan S. for pushing me outside of my artistic comfort zone.  I really like the way this little pup turned out, and would likely have never tried it without your tenacious coaxing."

That about does it for this episode.  Tune in next post, same bat-time, same bat-channel.

-AH!