Friday, April 14, 2017

The Time Machine – My 2017 Philadelphia Show Gallery Piece

Ah, at last – photos of my finished piece called The Time Machine. I have had such great fun messing about with the Steampunk theme that I decided I would indulge myself again and create something intriguing. Hence, this version of a time machine and its inventor, pictured front and center.

tmm-m2017psgp_1

Who knows where or when he will go when the machine gets going? The lights in the floor indicate everything is working properly.

tmm-m2017psgp_8

The machine is quite complex and only the inventor knows exactly how it works.

tmm-m2017psgp_9

Here is the back outside which might appear to the casual observer as an ordinary building in the factory district.

tmm-m2017psgp_2

tmm-m2017psgp_6

Inside, of course, it’s a different story altogether with pipes, gears, gauges and lights.

tmm-m2017psgp_5

tmm-m2017psgp_4

Here is a close-up of the bear inventor himself. Looks can be deceiving – inside his brain the gears are constantly turning!

tmm-m2017psgp_3

One last quick peek while the inventor is away.  I wonder when and where he went?!

tmm-m2017psgp_7

signature

Wednesday, April 12, 2017

Final Photos before the Photos of the Final – Philly Gallery

This is the beginning of the assembly of some of the various parts.

The brick walls with wood trim – below is a view from the side.

A view of the back with a door for access to the battery packs.

More gears – there were a lot of gears.

The ones above ended up as you see below.

Another set – this turns into a sort of window into the works.

The first coats of paint to create rust patina on some wrought iron railings.

And the last coats.

This bit was the thing that most concerned me – creating an arched ceiling from acrylic.

A few of many, many copper strips that I added that cool greenish copper patina to.

It will all come together in some sort of reasonable way in the end.

signature

Monday, April 10, 2017

Part 2–WIP Photos for the Philadelphia Show Gallery

A few more photos of my gallery piece under construction.  In these you might see it starting to come together.

A little more detail added to the bricks.

A peek at some of the infrastructure.

One of several small projects to incorporate into the piece.

This was the beginning of the most detailed part.  It’s an odd shape.

And lots and lots ‘rivets’ (formerly googly eyes)

Painting – 2nd layer of several.

Background.  I had one piece of paper that I wanted to use from my stash.  “Don’t goof it up”, I thought.

This photo where I was placing some of the parts and pieces is a bit misleading.  It kind of looks like I was just laying stuff down in a way that it would fit together.  There isn’t a photo of the  hours and hours of creating the ‘pipes’, TV style monitor, the ‘wavy’ solution that fuels the operation, the wiring of lights and other bits not shown. 

I have one more set of WIP photos and then I will show the finished piece.  It was both maddening and fun to create – I suppose it helped not knowing what I was getting myself into!

signature

Friday, April 7, 2017

WIP Photos for the Philadelphia Show Gallery

The teddy bear show in Philadelphia is just around the corner. I can’t believe that it is nearly May. What happened to these last few weeks??? Oh, I know, I was thick in the process of creating my gallery piece for the show. I’m only a few (dozen) brain cells down. My, oh my! It was one crazy ride!

In any case, I did take several work-in-progress photos that I will be sharing here on Bearbits. At this point, you see the very beginning of the project (craziness). While I do have a sketchbook where a lot of my ideas get started, sometimes I just grab whatever piece of paper I have handy like in this case.

This clock face was the most fleshed out part of my idea so that’s where I began.

I painted it with several layers of various paints to get a sort of vintage rustic patina. The placement of the gears was like working a jigsaw puzzle. Probably one of the reasons I took this photo was to remember how I had them arranged so I could put them back exactly once they were painted.

Here’s a photo of the gears in the process of being painted.

At this point, I was probably on layer 4 or maybe 5. Thankfully, I seldom think in those terms until after I have finished!

Here they are complete.

And here’s the mostly complete clock face section with a vintage map background. Aw, rats! There are a few more gears that need paint. Trust me, I painted them. I was probably painting gears in my sleep.

Moving on to another part of the project, I decided that bricks would make a good wall texture for this piece. (I really must have my head examined . . .) So I spent several days, off and on, texturing foam core with a raised brick design.

These are the thoughts that repeatedly occurred in my mind. “Careful, careful.” “You’re going to need to mix more texture.” “Leave it.” “Is it dry yet?” “Only 11, 10, 9 . . . more sets to go.” Just put that on continuous play and that’s what I heard.

“Is that all?” you may wonder. No, there is more. I’ll be back with additional photos shortly!

Thanks for reading!!!!

signature

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...