Monday, 5/17

Mostly full day in the studio.

Unusually anxious and depressed today, which made for slow going. Still, I've got elbow surgery coming up next week, and I'm trying to put in some good work this week so I can be molded and done before we leave for Maine. All of which is to say, this is no time to mope around.

First of all, realized that I needed to get the bow and arrows started. I've been thinking that I would make them after molding and casting the main figure. It wasn't sure how I was going to get all the pieces to register and look right, but I figured I could figure it out later. As I looked at it, though, I realized that almost no matter what I did, I was going to want the bow to go in front of the leading leg, which means getting it in place now. Glad that I did. Turns out to get the angle of the bow right I had to shave probably half an inch of clay off the rear leg, along with all the folds I've been screwing around with and getting wrong over the last couple of days. C'est la vie.



I'm not sure this is how the bow is going to be in the end, but it's a start. In my research on bows and arrows, I found a bunch of pictures of Amazonian tribesman hunting with tiny bows and incredibly long, almost spear-like arrows. These aren't those, but I might try that out tomorrow. Hopefully it will be warmer. I've got to work out some of the details in the feet, but on a 60 degree day on a concrete floor I just couldn't stand to have my shoes off, which meant I had no reference. Better to wait. It takes so much longer to get what I think I remember to look right than it does to just take a few minutes and look.

Here's a shot at the beginning of the bow and arrow, with me in for a sense of scale. Despite what it looks like, I don't dress like a monk in the studio. That's a sweatshirt with the sleeves rolled up, under my excellent Finish Line Apron.



And here's the piece as it stands.