Since I Was Last Here . . .

It has been a crazy summer so far. I still have photos of Sebastian at Disney World that he has been bugging me to post but that might be put on hold for a bit. The bear has the patience of a saint I have to admit! I told him I wasn’t sure if anyone really wanted to see even more photos of him. He looked at me like I had just said the most ridiculous thing he had ever heard followed by the biggest eye roll in history. He makes his opinions quite obvious. Okay, Sebastian, here are just a couple for now. (He gave me the bear equivalent of two thumbs up.)

We all love Olaf and were especially excited to visit him again in his summer surroundings.  Here I am showing Olaf Sebastian’s pin lanyard with lots of Olaf and Frozen pins.  Sebastian is a huge Olaf fan!

Here’s Sebastian eating up every minute of being with Olaf and posing for a photo!

So, what have else I been up to since I was last here? I have been slowly working on bears for the Teddy Bear Artist Invitational (TBAI) show taking place in August at its new location in Syracuse, NY. I’m excited to be visiting a new place! With that end in mind, I have put a lot of time and thought into my piece for this year’s gallery and did a little dance last week when I was able to call it complete.  The theme this year is “Critters Galore . . . Bears and More!” 

In my customary practice, I took photos of my piece while it was under way. And then, I lost myself in the construction of it in the middle part so there are some gaps but I think you will be able to grasp most of the process from the ones that I did take.

I will be posting those photos over the next few weeks here, on Instagram and on the piece parade Facebook fan page. In fact, when I get buried in work and obligations, I will often post a quick photo of a bear or friend I have under construction at one or both of those places since it is quite easy to do from my phone. I just have to unearth it from beneath the chaos I call my work table. If you want to check either Instagram (pieceparade_g.brame) or Facebook, you might see a few photos that I haven’t posted here.

With that little update out of the way, I am happy to share a few photos of the beginning of the process.

This is how this project began – a sort of vague idea, a sort of vague way of getting there and two pieces of styrofoam.  I quickly determined that I only needed one and it wasn’t either of these.  Go figure.  Anywho, I like to keep the size of my pieces under a certain limit because if I didn’t, it could easily get out of control and who can house a house-sized gallery piece?!

My next step was to draw a sort of free form shape which would be the basis on which I would build the foundation.  I pretty much stuck with this shape although by the time I finished I had gone through at least four incarnations of it in styrofoam.

Then there was this:

It’s a fairly ordinary and recognizable thing, isn’t it?  A grapevine wreath.  Whatever made me think this was a good idea I have no clue.  Had I given it some real thought and turned it over in my mind more the the 50 times I had already done so, I might have gone a different direction.  But then this would be a different piece in the end, so I have to admit, crazy or not, this grapevine wreath was critical.  There’s more to come so stay tuned.

As always, thanks for reading!!!