Themed art shows can be both a curse and a blessing for me as a sculptor. On the one hand, I might not have pieces that fit into a specific theme... on the other hand, this frequently forces me to tackle a new piece that I otherwise might not ever have considered doing. It's a challenge, and I enjoy a challenge. My most recent piece came about as a result of just such a challenge. The theme was 'autumn'. Very suitable for painters (pumpkins, dried cornstalks, colorful leaves and landscapes, etc.), but for a sculptor, not so much! My idea came to me while I was out on an early morning run and had to avoid slipping on a slew of acorns strewn across the road like marbles. Aha! Acorns + squirrel = autumn! I picked up a handful of the little devils and ran home with them.
 Acorns 'au natruel'  Acorns baked, poly'd, painted & caps glued  Basic squirrel armature shaped from 2"x4" | Next I had to unify those elements into a sculptural concept. I went right to my wood scrap pile. It is mostly made up of the sometimes exotic leftovers from my brother's wood projects. In the scrap pile I found an interesting large bowl remnant made from cherry, maple and padauk wood. After trimming off the excess board ends and sanding the wood, I added a small wenge wood platform at the top of each end of the arch, with a heavy bent wire suspended in between them. I attached that structure to a yellowheart wood baseboard, and coated all of the wood surfaces with satin polyeurethane. As for the acorns, I first had to bake them to dry them out. After baking them, I removed the caps from the nuts and I coated both parts with polyeurethane to seal them. I then spray painted the nut portion and epoxied the caps back on. I attached these with wood pegs and glue to the higher of the 2 platforms. Now I was ready to tackle making the squirrel that would be placed on the opposing platform. |  Sanded and trimmed 'bowl scrap' base  Base with platforms, wire and underbase board added  Acorns mounted on base |
 Armature bulked out with styrofoam |  Squirrel shaped with Apoxie clay over armature |  Apoxie squirrel painted |  Squirrel mounted on base |
I used the same technique for making the squirrel as I had used in making the seagull for 'The Prize' ( *see my blog entry for 7/10/13 .) I fashioned a roughed out squirrel form out of a piece of 2"x4" and glued pieces of styrofoam to the sides. After rounding out the styrofoam, I mixed and applied small amounts of Apoxie clay to build up and complete the form of the squirrel. The squirrel was then sanded and spray painted with primer. I used 4 different shades of gray spray paint (including 'Satin Nickel') to color the body and added a touch of black in the eyes. The last step was to fasten the squirrel to his platform with a wooden peg and to add a single acorn to the center of the curve of the base. I was ready for 'Autumn' at the gallery.
 |  'I think I can, I think I can...' |  |
*This piece can be viewed in the juried show 'Autumn', from Oct. 4th through Nov. 7th at River Arts Gallery in Damariscotta.
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