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!!!!