Running Around Town

I have spent a lot of time running around town these past few days. I went to five different comic shops in town to pass out promotional packets for Creator's Edge Press. My comic should be coming out in a week or two. I'll be making my rounds again when that happens.

It was nice getting to talk to some of the retailers around town about how to get books in shops. Everyone I talked to was very friendly and helpful. Most of them said they would put one comic on the shelves and if it sold they would order more. Some said that they would take a stack of five at a time. I'm wanting to contact some of the bigger shops around the states and see if I can send them a couple issues as well.

Today I got to meet Meredith Gran, the creator of Octopus Pie, one of my favorite comics around. Her new collected book, There Are No Stars In Brooklyn, came out a couple days ago and I had to get it. I can't wait to read it. I've only read the first few storylines online. Can't wait to read the rest. She is a very witty writer and I dig her style. Everyone should go to her website and check out the strip for themselves. You'll love it! You can also find her on Twitter.

I also submitted a new piece to Stumptown Underground's latest zine. The theme was Bikes and Other Self-Propelled Transportation. I had some time to work on this one so I decided to draw it in a style I haven't got to use in quite some time. I'm hoping to do more work like this and to synthesize my styles into one cohesive whole some day. It'll come naturally. 8)

My Foundry Work

Here is an old post from 2006 when I was working at a bronze foundry. That was a pretty amazing job. Here is a rundown of the entire process. Pretty involved. I just cut and pasted everything to save time so some of the pics are a lil cropped.

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i've been meaning to post images of what it is i do all day long at the foundry. it is actually pretty amazing when i step back and look at what it is i am doing. i am pretty lucky.

i work at a bronze foundry where we make bronze sculptures ranging from tiny lil things to 15 foot tall monuments. unfortunately we do a lot of horses and such, but i digress.

we get pieces that have been through different stages of the process and only work on them in certain areas, but this is how the process works.

first, we get the original sculpture that is either made entirely out of clay or, if way big, made out of foam covered in clay. these are pics of a horse sculpture we are working on. if the piece is a biggun we cut it up into smaller, more manageable pieces.







we then put shims down the center or down a leg or another high point making it easier to take apart. we then cover it with a rubber mixture.



we then cover it with plaster and remove it from the original. we have a LOT of molds on hand.



this is an original we had finished making a mold of that was lying outside. it is an emaciated dead woman. it has been cut up and set outside where the rain has ran some of the clay off. it looks quite gruesome.



the molds are then taken to the wax room so that we can make a copy 1/4 of an inch thick out of hot, 200 degree wax. the wax has to be painted on and torched to get rid of any air bubbles which will show up in the metal. this is a mold in the wax room.



this is the mold covered in wax.



these are some waxes that have been taken out of their molds. josh and tom in the wax room "chase" or repair seam lines, textures and all that is necessary to recreate the original sculpture. this is mighty tedious work that makes me doze off. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.... i worked in the wax room a bit and much preferred making the waxes as opposed to chasing.



yay. guns. these are for the bigger than life size louis and clark statues we are making.

this is one of the guys here.



here is the wax of the emaciated woman.



the 1/4 inch wax copy is taken to the dip room and dipped in a silica solution multiple times building up a ceramic shell around it. that chap on the left is one of louis and clark's guides.



these waxes are then placed in a kiln where the wax is melted out leaving behind a ceramic shell. we reuse the wax to create more wax copies. i had a lot of fun playing around with the wax. it is amazing how much you can do with it. some artists create a shape out of clay and once it is cast in wax they melt it and reshape it before creating the ceramic shell thereby creating unique pieces.

here are some ceramic shells waiting around to be filled with metal.



unfortunately, i am usually helping with the pour and do not have any pics of us pouring. we wear these reflective suits and face shields and gloves, etc. the bronze is brought to 2000 degrees F. i will be sure to get some pics and post them as soon as i can.

the shells full of metal are then taken to the devest room where joe takes a sledgehammer and a jackhammer and removes as much shell as possible. they are then sandblasted until every piece of shell is removed leaving behind nothing but the bronze.




here are some different horse pieces that were made into a 15 foot tall, 1 and a half life-size, sculpture for the land run downtown.





here is the rider for the horse. the metal guys have to weld everything back together and chase the metal, recreating textures and removing seam lines, pits and other imperfections.



here it is starting to come together



after the metal guys are done, it is sent to me for patina, the coloring process. i check it over and make sure nothing was missed. the metal guys hate to have it returned, which more often than not, there is something they missed. it is easy to do on a three dimensional piece. we all miss things all the time. that is why it is good to have many people overlook every stage.

here is the horse and rider once i have looked it over and have started turning it black. a typical french brown patina starts with a wash of potash sulfate, which smells like ass (sulfur) and turns the piece black. we then wet it and wash back the black leaving the highlighted parts a lighter shade. this patina is a solid black so i don't need to wipe it back.



i had to use the forklift and cherry picker to make sure i hit all the lil hidden spots. this was during the 110 weather we were having as well. whew. lotsa gatorade.

normally on a typical french brown patina i heat up the metal to 400 degrees and spray it with ferric, rusty water, turning it a dark brown. if you do not heat up the metal enough it turns yellowish/greenish and if you heat it too much it becomes red or purple. you can fix a yellowish/greenish but you are screwed if it turns red. it has to be sandblasted and started all over. it is a small window. you also have to deal with varying thicknesses of metal which heat up at different temperatures. touchy stuff.

this was a black patina so i mix black oxide with the ferric creating a more forgiving opaque patina. i then wax it and buff it making it look nice and shiny.



here i am in my metal shop gear. you have to wear sleeves to keep the metal flakes off your arms and a leather apron to keep yourself from being mangled by the wire wheel. there is no a/c and you can get pretty hot in all this. sweat usually drips in my safety goggles or face shield. i usually work through it and when i am done with a piece i wipe it off and drink more gatorade.



these are the various brushes and waxes i use.



here are the various chemicals i get to play with. the nitrates are toxic. the oxides are good for opacity and slight color changes. the nitric acid is used to make the ferric. one of the guys i work with said that the patinuer is the closest thing he has seen to wizard. hell yeah!









here i am in action. you have to heat it up to the proper temperature, making sure not to focus on any one area, creating an oven affect. when you spray on the ferric it cools it down so you have to spray, heat, spray, heat, spray, heat. it is kinda like a dance. i sway left and right, spraying and heating. and spinning the piece around and around. trust me, i have screwed up a few of them. thankfully you can always sandblast and start over.



here is the piece above when i got it. it started out a goldish color.



here it is next to the biggun i finished.



turned black with potash.



wiped back to reveal the highlights. you can control how dark or light something will be by how much you wipe it back. i wiped her skin back a lot so it would be lighter and shinier.



after this i heated it up, sprayed it with ferric, then painted the mane, tail, legs and eyes black using a small brush and oxides while still applying and heating and applying and heating. then i painted her shirt a light blue and her jeans a dark blue. when the metal is too hot the paint will splatter and you have to cover up all those lil dots. i liked this one so it made it a little more fun. the worst is getting a horrible sculpture and having to recreate every horrible detail. ugh. here is the finished piece.



here is the maquette, or small version, of the louis and clark piece. this is a typical french brown.



patina can be lotsa fun. by controlling the temperature, brushwork and chemicals just right you can make bronze look like anything. you can stipple and create rings. you can layer color on color. you can work opaque or translucent. i really want to experiment painting with this process. oh yeah.

here are various other patinas i have done. this one is by shirley thomson-smith. she is awesome. the first thing she said to me when we first met was, " i am the asshole! Ha ha ha!" oh, man. she is a firecracker. she will look at a patina when it is done, say she loves it, then take it home, look at it for days, then decide a color is too dark or that the surface isn't shiny enough. i've had to redo patinas she has had done at other foundries as well. i don't mind. i like her and her pieces. i am doing a 9' one similar to this one sometime soon.



this is a governor from arkansas that i did. i was told that he was a known racist so his daughters got an african-american sculptor to do it. i don't know the validity of this or what i think about it. i do know his right forearm is all jacked up. the sculptor was a nice guy. he wasn't into the piece really. i met him and his daughter.



this is the ballerina that is stepping on the surface of the water in a pretty cool fountain outside the dance school on the OU campus. it is by kim walker ray. she is fun as well.



the bill of rights i did for norman north high school.



this is a farm boy by russ faxon. whew, this one didn't go right. we worked with what we had and got it done in time. not quite like we wanted it, but you also have to work with time sometimes. russ was an interesting guy. i asked him while he was looking at the piece where this was going. still looking at the piece he said, "to a sausage factory." he turned to me and said, "they kill pigs." i giggled. the way he said it was funny. i am a vegetarian.



and finally, this is another shirley piece that is giving me a hell of a time. she wants a shiny rubbed surface which makes the patina difficult to adhere. then she wants a cupric base, which is toxic and touchy. it can go from bright blue to a solid green. then she wants ferric brushed on top making the surface a brownish color and leaving green in the recesses. it'll be pretty once we get it pulled off. i can get a nice cupric base but once i apply the ferric it builds up and rubs off messin' the entire thing up. we've tried it three times so far. i am going to try to weaken the ferric and heat it up a bit more next time. i think that will help. here's the cupric base.



real pretty piece. i'll figure it out.

so, that's my day job. 40 hours a week. i also wash dishes at the service station for about 20 hours a week. i paint all my free time. i have a show this friday, sept 8th, at IAO gallery in okc. here is a piece i finished today that i am entering. i have been painting more, now, working 65 hours a week, than i ever did when i was in school working 20 hours a week. yeah. hope this was enlightening and interesting. i am an artin' fool!!



~hop 8)

Walt Disney Memo From '35

Here's a memo written by Walt Disney back in '35 on training an animator from Letters of Note. Some great advice. The man is a Genius!! (Once you get past the '35 notion of men, men ,men. Different times.)

I especially liked his discussion on the little actions we take while linking major actions. I love to have characters doing something in a previous panel that will lead to an action in a forthcoming panel. It's little things like this that an artist can add to an already amazing script to bring it to life.

I also liked his talk on balance. I am always trying to figure out what to do with the other arm when drawing. Now that the notion of balance has been brought to my attention I want to draw a thousand arms!!

Click on images to enlarge.

Sketching While Watching Movies

I watched the new Star Trek movie again last night. At least some of it. I didn't start till late at night and started falling asleep pretty early into it. It was my like 6th viewing so I wasn't really missing anything. Just watching something as I fell asleep.

Such a great new take of an old classic. It is missing some of the philosophy that I hold dear from the classic version, but it was still a good ride. Here are some quick lil sketches I did before I started falling asleep.