The Cake Topper

Did I ever post this picture? The cake topper was fun to do but I certainly couldn't do such a thing as a business.

I do like the way it came out. It was way too tall but I did the heads first and the bodies had to be a certain height or they'd look like bobble-head dolls.


Here are the blushing bride and groom, still happily married after all these months.

Herb Shaindlin, re-mix

Evidently when you search "Herb Shaindlin" on Google, you get my blog as the number one match.

On one hand, yay me!

On the other hand, two people have recently emailed me to ask if my post was a eulogy.

update October 4, 2008 - It is with great sadness I report that Herb Shaindlin has indeed passed away. His family has set up a MySpace site for people to share stories and wishes at www.myspace.com/herbshaindlin

Here's the original item I wrote plus several pictures of a plaque I sent him via one of his daughters whom I am lucky to have as a coworker.

It's nice to have heard from so many people about how much they enjoyed the Public Opinion Hotline but I have to point out that I'm just a fan.

~~
the following was originally posted October 2, 2005:


Herb Shaindlin’s talk radio program "The Public Opinion Hotline," which aired on AM 750 KFQD for most of my life and certainly all of my formative years, educated me in more ways than I have time to list on this post so I’ll give you just a few examples:

One is that Herb’s program introduced me to the works of Stephen King, Tom Lehrer, Spike Jones, Robert Service, and many other artists. One taste of each of these artists led to exploring most of their works and works of similar artists. In this way he set my compass on the course I have taken ever since.

The second is that he told stories of his life. Many of these stories rattle around in my head to this day.

Last night I saw a helicopter fly past my house at relatively low altitude, creating a certain amount of noise in its wake. From its direction of travel (and the few helicopters that would have any reason to fly over my house) I could identify it as the LifeGuard Air Ambulance.

As I watched it pass I had to smile as I was reminded of one of Herb’s stories. If memory serves, the story goes like this:

When Herb was growing up in Brooklyn, New York, he would constantly hear the wailing of all types of sirens: police sirens, ambulance sirens, fire engine sirens. He once asked his mother if the sirens bothered her or worried her because every siren meant that there had been a crime or an accident where someone was probably hurt.

Her response was a surprising “No.” She explained, “Every time I hear a siren I don’t get mad because it is interrupting my peace and quiet; rather I am happy because I know that someone is racing as fast as they can to help someone else. Sirens are a happy sound.”

Ever since hearing this story (at least 20 years ago) I have smiled a little when I hear a siren. And now I smile at helicopter noise too.

Thanks Herb, you are the very best.

~~
the plaque was completed June of 2007

The Toilet Bowl

Mr. Pasta needed a suitable trophy for the person in last place in his fantasy football league. Mrs. Pasta was unable to find a Barbie toilet bowl or some similar gag gift without purchasing the whole Barbie interior design and home decorating package. She offered me the challenge of creating a Toilet Bowl trophy.

and here it is:


I'll add that the lack of refinement and precision in the toilet bowl itself is actually on purpose. I can't very well spend a week sanding and buffing and reworking a last place trophy, can I?

The trophy base itself was purchased at Value Village for $1.99 and originally included a big silver guy bowling. Of course I kept the bowler. One never knows when he'll need to create something involving a silver guy bowling.

Commissioned Work

Ages ago Smussyolay commissioned a cross: a small blue cross pendant.
I did up a batch of clay into an interesting design then set to making the actual cross.
After a couple of failed attempts it turned out pretty well (if it do say so myself).

Originally I made a matching skull pin (call it a yin-yang thing) and got close to acceptable but not completely acceptable to my standards. Months went by. So last week I send her the requested cross along with the first of my "Gothic Zhong" red dragon pendants. It's chunkier than she probably likes but since I like it, I had to share. She may donate it to the homeless if she so desires !!

~~~

Does anyone else have a special request? By next week I expect to have my new PolyClay Laboratory set up in the new house and I'll be jonesin' for a project.

Accentuate The Positive #2 Clay

Chicagoist journalist and blogger Smussyolay tagged me with a meme of 5 things I do to stay positive. While writing it I discovered I needed to write it in more than one post. Here's the second thing:

Clay

I’m not all that good at it (yet) but it’s something I have to use my full attention to do. It frees my mind from thinking – thinking – thinking. Plus when something works out well there’s a feeling of accomplishment.



And I have given almost everything decent away to someone, so there’s the joy of giving. Which reminds me. I have a cross to put in the mail.

Oh, the indecent things - Auto-erotic Asphyxia Gumby, for example. I keep for myself.

The Herb Shaindlin Plaque is Done

update October 4, 2008 - It is with great sadness I report that Herb Shaindlin has indeed passed away. His family has set up a MySpace site for people to share stories and wishes at www.myspace.com/herbshaindlin

The Plane (repost)

(originally posted August 04, 2006). I am reposting it because I am just about done with something much bigger. That being said, this is my favorite creation so far.

It started out very simple. I had a schematic I found on the net.

I bought some aluminum foil and fashioned a wing, a fuselage, and a tail assembly all to scale. Then I made my first mistake.

I used the foil wing and tail pieces as templates and used regular ol' craptacular Sculpey white clay to make them. Next I coated the foil fuselage in Sculpey. Awful stuff, that first generation clay, as I found out. It's soft and crappy to work with, picks up fingerprints like crazy, and is not very strong even when baked.

But I pressed on. I added Sculpey III white clay on top of the airframe. Then I tried using toothpicks covered in clay to hold the wheels on. Bad move. Using Dinko Tilov's techiques I made a wire armature for the wheel struts. Excellent. But still elementary school quality.

Then I decided, since the recipient of this plane just got his captain's wings with a major air carrier, to give the plane a captain's hat. I was very happy with the fine detail of the hat and it inspired me to keep going. Kelli thought some captain's stripes on the wings would be a nice touch. Oui!

Then the wheels themselves totally crumbled under the last baking (which was about two trips to the oven too much for them). I used techniques found in a book by David Kracov to fashion the eyes (which are the best eyes I've seen in any book) and his example to just bake the wheels and back assembly separately and superglue them into place.

So after some tail numbers and several coats of glaze (who am I kidding, it's structural at this point with the crappy wing clay): Voila!

My next plane (if I decide to try another) will be better but at least this one is done.

Kracov's book guided me through a project I'm about a third through but here's a head, some hands, and some shoes. Not too shabby. Kracov's techniques are not much different from the other books I've read but he pays a lot of attention to small details, like the eyes. I'm diggin' it!

~~~~~~

Cessna 185 schematic: richard.ferriere.free.fr

Round Two

Okay so here's a second crack at Puck's Dad's head. I think it's a better charicature than my first attempt: less "old man and the sea" sort of thing.



It's still more of a bobblehead quality but it's starting to look okay.




Oh and here is the photo I am working from:

There's still a lot of little things to clean up. Then I have to figure out the best presentation (and the second head is bigger so the whole deal will have to be bigger... hmmm).

New Heads

Here's really rough head #1 and it's second stage:



And then here's my favorite so far (don't tell your dad, Puck, it's still a work in progress)

So I Bought This Magazine on Wire...

and here is the result. inside is clay, outside is wire.


oh and here are more crosses

Clay Technique Practice

All of these were opportunites to practice technique and not at all perfect.

First is mother of pearl inlay attempt next to an image transfer using liquid clay.



Second are crosses all with various methods of mokume-gane. I particulary like how the black and red cross came out when polished to look nearly like glass. I also like the black marble which is black clay and white oil paint all layered and deformed.

Filigree Cross

Just dinkin' around.

Jeweler’s Gloves and Lack of Blog Posts

Things are crazy at work. Way way crazy. And it’s the kind of crazy I can’t talk about here. Some good / some bad / all stressful.

Plus spring has sprung and the citizenry is out of control. Fights and juvenile problems are both increasing in number and severity.

A coworker described the scene as:

“Spring in Los Anchorage: the smell of dog poop and drunk people.”

That sounds better than Big.Wild.Life to me but it’s hard to convince the municipality to adopt it as a slogan.

Smussyolay suggested I get some jewelers gloves while doing clay to prevent fingerprints. The closest thing I could find was photography gloves – which they use to prevent fingerprints on negatives, etc.



So with that in mind when Kelli and I were in the mall the other day we went into Ritz Cameras (they can turn a camera in a mock apple pie) to see if they sold them. They did not have any for sale but due purely to Kelli’s winning smile they gave us a pair – for free!

The gloves do prevent fingerprints but they still shed a bit of lint. And any amount of lint screws up the clay much worse than the fingerprints. Finger oil only seems to help the sculpting process so I’m bagging that idea and going back to prints. I’ll try buffing or sanding out the prints.

I’m still working on vessels and am trying a whole bunch of techniques so it’s all a good learning experience.

Otherwise Kelli and I are doing fine. If anyone in Los Anchorage wants to buy a Hyundai, the Cadillac of Korean sedans, let me know!

Ritz Cameras Mock Apple Pie

The classic pie, featuring Ritz cameras baked in a golden crust, is
perfect for the holidays.

Ingredients:
Pastry for two-crust 9-inch pie
36 RITZ cameras, coarsely broken (about 1 3/4 cups crumbs)
1 3/4 cups water
2 cups sugar
2 teaspoons cream of tartar
2 tablespoons lemon juice
Grated peel of one lemon
2 tablespoons margarine or butter
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1. Roll out half the pastry and line a 9-inch pie plate. Place camera
crumbs in prepared crust; set aside.

2. Heat water, sugar and cream of tartar to a boil in saucepan over high
heat; simmer for 15 minutes. Add lemon juice and peel; cool.

3. Pour syrup over camera crumbs. Dot with margarine or butter; sprinkle
with cinnamon. Roll out remaining pastry; place over pie. Trim, seal and
flute edges. Slit top crust to allow steam to escape.

4. Bake at 425 F for 30 to 35 minutes or until crust is crisp and golden.
Cool completely.

Makes 10 servings

~~

www.ritzcamera.com

http://www.backofthebox.com/recipes/pies-pastries/ritz-mock-apple-pie.html

http://www.kraftfoods.com/images/recipe_images/RITZ_Mock_Apple_Pie.jpg

Varry Niiiiiice, I Exciiiite.

ZZ's birthday party was today and at the last minute I thought of a gift.

Inspired by the movie "Borat," which we frequently quote at work, I cobbled together a vial of Gyspy Tears.

It is an actual vessel, has a removable lid, and will hold tears or other non-alcoholic liquids. It's about an inch and a half per side so it's sort of big for a pendant but that's what I made it into nonetheless.

When / if I made another one I'll secure the jump-rings on the sides of the vessel a little more securely and I could have done better at removing the fingerprints (I'm still pretty bad about leaving prints on my pieces) but otherwise I think it came out okay.

The inspiration for the making the vessel triangular was one of Fairuza Balk's tattoos: a purple triangle on her left bicep. This is her way of honoring her gypsy heritage because the Nazis forced the gypsies to wear these triangles to label them.

The trouble is that Balk's tattoo is really blue, not purple like in my memory. And the Nazi triangle swatch I found online says the gypsies were forced to wear brown triangles. Oh yeah, and the triangles pointed down while my vessel's triangle points up.

Yet I like the up-pointing purple triangle anyway (and it was done before I thought to check… sad when I feel compelled to fact-check my polymer clay creations. Is that obsessive?).

Anyway, Happy Birthday ZZ !

~~

Fairuza Balk picture: http://www.mxdpi.com

Skull-o-rama

While Kelli was visiting relatives in Alabama I did a lot of polymer clay stuff.

The most productive task was making a mold of a decent skull and then mass-producing lots of skull pins. I've made about 40 of them so far and some are much better than others. Along the way I've learned the power of mica powder and marbling. Next on my list is faux raku. We'll see.

I would need to make a light box to take decent pictures of the glazed ones.

ZZZZ from work suggested I make the skulls into cabinet knobs and other ornamental items besides pins. Thus came "Big Wild Death" or at least its first incarnation.

My Dog, Why Have You Forsaken Me !

This is nearly exactly what I envisioned when I first started the PC thing. The skeletal stuff, not necessarily the pun. But I like it.

The Wiz

The face is too smiley but it's a clay thing so I think it's okay.