Ellen's costume armor project is finished

At long last, Ellen's costume armor project is finished. Today we had a photo session with Ellen and our horse Elroy modelling the entire outfit.
This is a Medieval, chain-mail type armor. Ellen made all the parts of this costume except the sword and the shield. The chain-mail for this costume is made from beverage can pull-tabs; about 20,000 of them (that's about 3,333 six-packs, and no, we didn't drink them). Ellen is a bartender, and between that and her friends and family saving them for her, she eventually got enough of them. Also, that's one of the reasons it took four years to make this costume. There are also about 2,000 larger die-cut scales used on the horse armor. The horses head and neck armor includes sections made with a faux crocodile leather. The belt, girdle and scabbard cover use this same leather. The cuffs, leg armor and helmet are made with painted and studded Naugahyde. The tunic and cape are made with upholstery fabric.We designed and cast our own buttons and medallions used on this outfit. The findings (studs, rings, buckles) are store bought but everything else is hand made. My gal is a wizard with a needle.
The horses outfit is adjustable and can fit most horses, up to Draft Horse size. Ellen is willing to rent this costume; and just in time for Halloween! Horse not included.

Harmonograph #2

Here's a look at Harmonograph #2, a 3-pendulum device. The 'table' stands about 30 inches high. The drawing surface is about 48 inches high. The black rectangle is where a sheet of paper is fastened. It is on a pendulum which hangs from a gimbal, allowing a circular or elliptical swing. The other two pendulums each swing on a single plane but at right angles to each other. Where these two arms come together there is a hinge which holds the pen (near the red spring-clip). The frequency of each pendulum is determined by the height of the weight on the bottom section of each pendulum arm.
This harmonograph doesn't work as well as my first one, which clamps to a table top. There is too much 'play' and friction in various parts of this machine, which all adds up to dampening and sapping of the energy of the pendulum swings. These problems are resolvable without redesign or rebuild. A smaller, lighter drawing pad. Lighter drawing arms and much lighter hinge. Stiffer legs. Those would all help.
I don't have a video clip of this one yet but I do have a few scans of drawings done on it. See below.

A simple harmonogram (a harmonograph drawing, 8.5 x 11 paper).

A more complex harmonogram

The simplest type of harmonogram, with all the weights set at the very bottom of the pendulum.

 The drawings below were made while I was setting up and tweaking the harmonograph. I made one drawing on top of another to save paper. So the drawings have a kind of child-like imperfection, with wobbly, scratchy, jerky lines, skips and stutters. I thought some of them were interesting, and that I could make them more so by reworking them a bit. A lot of the lines were made with Sharpie pens, so I dribbled rubbing alcohol in spots here and there on the pages, which made the ink dissolve and run in interesting ways. Here are a few examples:

Example 1: these were done on 8.5 x 11 paper

Example 2

Example 3

On Mobile's #2

About half of the sculptures I make these days are Mobile's. I think about them a lot. They are fascinating to watch, challenging to design (a good one), and, I think, much more interesting than they appear at first glance.
A well made mobile' is interesting to watch. It's not just some thing hanging there dangling and jangling in the wind, or some kind of fancy whirligig. A good mobile' will captivate you. Watching one can be a relaxing, soothing experience. Unlike most mechanically driven sculpture, which have repetitive, cyclical patterns of movement, Mobile's move with chaotic unpredictability. There may be a limited variety of movements but they are slightly different each time they happen.
I like the unpredictable nature of a mobile'. They are powered by the natural forces of air currents and gravity, moving in ways that, at times, seem contrary to what we, the observer, are feeling. Yet even when motionless, the mobile' is an interesting sculpture, never (or, with some Mobile's, always) resting in the same position.
Light can be an important factor as well. For most other kinds of sculpture we don't pay much attention to their shadows but for some Mobile's, their shadows add a good deal to the show. Natural or artificial lighting can be used to great advantage in this respect. Add colored glass to the mobile' and you'll get moving, colored shadows that change shape. Make a mobile' out of mirrors, and not only will you have elements that change color as the move, you'll also get a kind of Disco-Ball effect from the light reflecting off the mirrors. If the mobile' is lit by sunlight, it will look different throughout the day, taking on the color of the sunlight as it changes.
I wasn't thinking along these lines when I designed and built it, but I was watching one of my Mobile's one day when it occurred to me that what I'd done is, I made a toy for Nature to play with. I was watching wind, gravity and light play, or as I like to think, dance with the mobile'. Further pondering made me realize that everything we humans make are Nature's toys. Nature: the supreme Quality Assurance Tester. If there are flaws, she will find them.
We don't tend to think of a Mobile' as an engineering project but it is one. A mobile' is a system of linked, balanced objects. The energy in the motion of each linked and balanced section is transferred to the next section as the first one reaches the end of its range of motion, and so on through the succession of links in the chain. Or each section (or only some sections, if you choose) may have complete range of motion, so that each section (or element) is independent of each other, thereby not effecting the ones linked to them. In addition, one needs to decide if any of the elements will collide with each other. It may or may not be desirable. There are so many variables to consider along the way when designing a mobile', it can consume a great deal of thought. I've found Mobile's to be a much more interesting and deeper subject than I expected.
See my Mobile's on my Art web site: Tesserak Mobile' Page

New Mobile': #47

I just finished a new mobile, #47, the 11th one I made this year. It's just under one foot high and about 8 inches wide. It's a pivot-on-point style mobile', made of steel. I used horseshoe nails for the legs of the base. The base is welded scraps of steel, and the mobile' part is a hand-worked bent and twisted steel strap. It's difficult to see in this photo but the steel ribbon is a spiral, with the pivot point going between loops in the spiral. To me, the style falls somewhere between Rustic and Industrial. I don't usually give titles to my Mobile's. I just number them but my wife, Ellen, likes to give them titles. She calls this one "Joy", which is the exact word that came to mind the first time I saw this piece in motion. I plan to clear coat this one instead of a colored paint. I like the look of the steel.
You can see a video clip of this mobile' in motion on my YouTube channel: Tesserak YouTube Channel
You can see the other 46 mobiles at my Art web site at this link: http://www.tesserak.net/html/mobiles.htm

Busy in the studio.

I've had some time to dabble in the studio. As normal, I have several projects going on at any given time. Plus, I've puttered around with a few little spur-of-the-moment projects.
I'm finishing up on the "Harmonograph #2" project. This one being a 3-pendulum device. I doesn't work as well as the original one I made a couple of months back. Still, it works, and as I've been testing and tweaking it, I've made some harmonograms (drawings made with a harmonograph). I've taken some of these harmonograms and further worked them with alcohol which dissolves some of the ink and smears it, making for some interesting images. I'll post some of them here when I'm done working them over. I'd like to donate this machine to one of our local art associations. It might make an interesting interactive art teaching tool.
I've played around making small paper/cardboard sculptures. Some of them are mock-ups for larger projects, and some are just small sculptures. This is a fun medium to play with. You can do so much with it. It is a very versatile medium, and it can be made to look like other materials.
I've been revisiting Mask making. Actually, it's a continuation; an on-going thing. The art object kind, not the wearing kind. I've made scores of them in the past, most of them smaller than a human face. I have over a half dozen that I'm working on bit by bit, here and there.
Of course there's always a mobile' or two in the works. At the moment I'm tweaking and fixing details on the last couple of mobile's I've made.
Ellen is nearly done with the costume armor she's making for her horse. She finished her armor about a year ago and has been working on the armor for the horse since then. It is nearing completion. It is looking pretty good. I'll get photos at one of the fittings sessions with her horse, soon, I hope.
I sold a painting recently to somebody who dropped into the studio unexpectedly. The painting was done in 2001, I think. It was an old one. I do want to make more paintings. I have the wall space in my gallery.
I'd like to make a few welded steel wall sculptures for the gallery too. Making a lot of little sculptures instead of a few large ones.
So, I hope to post some photos here soon showing some of the stuff mentioned above. Show & Tell is always better than just Tell when it comes to talking about Art. 

Dragon Head: update

Here's an update on the Dragon Head project. I added the eyes and a neck frill. Drilled out a hole for the eyes, surrounded with a bent metal washer. I used the same scrap metal shapes for the jaw, horns and neck frill. I'd like to add some teeth to the upper jaw and a few chin whiskers. I don't want to get too detailed with this thing. It's all kind of stylized. Too much detail would get away from that. Now I need to start looking for something interesting to use as a base for this thing. All in all, as an early attempt at welding, I'm pretty pleased with what I've got so far.
(click on an image to see a larger version of the photos)

Some new mobile's: 7/2014

I made a few new mobile's this month. Here are some photos. See more of them at my art studio web site: http://www.tesserak.net/html/mobiles.htm
The first photo is of the "Acrobats" mobile'. The second photo is another new one; red on one side, yellow on the other. The third photo is a small wire mobile' "Wire Man". 

Dragon head

Here's a photo of a work in progress: "Dragon head". Looking through my limited pile of scrap metal with which to work as I practice learning how to weld with my new welder, I came up with this idea. This is made, so far, with a one-foot long piece of T-stake (fencing stake) and some small pieces of scrap metal, which I have a small bucket full, left over from a metal shop (jaw and horn in this photo). I'm just making this up as I go. My wife thinks it would be a nice hood ornament for her "dragon truck", which she has painted with "dragon scales". I'll post more photos as this project progresses.

Hand-carved wooden spoon #5

From time to time, just for fun, and to keep my carving chops up, I like to carve a wooden spoon. I once looked at a nice wooden spoon and thought, "I wonder how hard would that be to make, and how long would it take". So, I thought I'd try.
Well, with the proper tools (a nice sharp gouge, mainly) and a lot of elbow grease, it's not particularly difficult and it takes from two to four hours depending on how hard the wood I've chosen is and how fancy you want the spoon to be. I thought I'd take some photos of the progress when I made my next spoon (that is, this one).
I've made spoons from several kinds of wood that happens to grow in my back yard. So far I've used maple, birch, plum and eucalyptus wood. So far plum made the best spoons. It's a good looking, hard wood that's not too difficult to carve. The spoon I'll be talking about here was made from plum wood.
The first thing I did was cut a slab of wood from a small aged plum tree trunk. On this blank plank I drew the outline of the spoon shape I wanted.

Then I cut the spoon shape out of the blank.

Then I took the cut-out spoon shape and clamped it to my workbench top and started to carve the bowl. This is easiest done if you cut the bowl before you carve the outside of the spoon, so that you have a flat bottom to keep the wood steady while the bowl is carved.

I moved over to a vise because it keeps a tighter grip on my work, and continue carving the bowl.

Once the bowl is roughed out, I give it a rough sanding.

Then I can start on the outside of the bowl and begin shaping it.

 Then I start on shaping the handle.

Next I begin the final sanding, from very rough to very fine sandpaper.

Finally, I finished the spoon with a couple of coats of hand rubbed boiled linseed oil. That is followed by a fine steel wool rub-down and then hand polished with a clean rag.

The final result is a nice hand carved 12" wooden spoon. Time: about 3.5 hrs. over two days.

Mobile #41

I got a welder recently so I could start working in steel. I want to make more sculpture that can be displayed outdoors. It's also a good tool and skill to have. I've been wanting to learn to weld for a long time. I waited way too long to do this. Anyway, as I'm learning, and making some really horrible looking welds, I have managed to stick together some steel. The item above, the first thing creative thing I've welded, is a small mobile'. It's made out of bits of scrap metal; nails, bolts, wire, sections of pipe, etc. . With a lot of grinding, I got it to look half decent, and with a coat of paint it really doesn't look too bad for a first attempt. The photo below is the final result. The paint is called "hammered bronze".

It's a pivot-on-point type mobile', with the top section balanced on the point of an old drill bit. The stand is made from, top to bottom: drill bit, lag bolt, washer, wire, 20d nails. The top part is made from the bottom of a spray paint can, wire, scraps of steel, and half inch slices of 1 inch sections of steel pipe. It's about 16 inches high. It's relatively heavy but it does turn in the wind.

I've started on another welded steel mobile and I'll post it here when it's finished.

Harmonograph #1

Most of the sculpture I make these days moves in some ways. That movement comes from natural forces like wind and gravity. I experiment a lot with different ways to exploit these natural forces. A harmonograph is a drawing machine that is driven by gravity. I've wanted to try to make a few of these for some time (there are several different kinds). There are two or three more designs I want to make. The thing is they tend to be large if you want to draw on full size office paper, or larger sheets of paper. So I designed one that can be taken apart for compact storage, is easy to set up, and can be clamped to most standard height tables.
I would love to make a large harmonograph. One that is, all by itself, a piece of sculpture. Imagine that. A piece of sculpture that draws pictures. Art created by Art.
So, here's a video I made of me demonstrating this first simple harmonograph.

Working with metal

I've been working with metal more and more lately. I'm really liking it. I have a few friends who have forges and I'm always fascinated with working in them. Some of the most creative fun I ever had was a night working (playing) in my friend's blacksmith shop.We made a piece that night that I entered in an art show.
I bought a welder recently so I could work more with metal and make larger things, and things that can live outdoors. I've been wanting to get a welder for a long time. I want to make larger, more durable mobile's for one thing, but I have lots of other ideas too. More on that later.
In the meantime . . .
I saw this braided metal technique, used for making decorative handles, and I wanted to try to see if I could make one. Here is my first attempt. It ended up being a barbeque fork. The fork is an old stainless steel fork, and the handle is made with four strands of braided and twisted wire. The braided part looks pretty cool, and actually is cool, because the braided part doesn't heat up in the fire. The photos were taken before I cleaned it up, buffed and polished it.  It's not easy getting a nice tight even braid and keeping the whole thing straight without putting a lot of tool marks on it. Not too bad for a first attempt though.
This technique would look nice on jewelry as well.
In the meantime I have to work on my welding skills. I'm still a bit sloppy at this stage. Anybody know where I can get my hands on some free scrap metal?

Close up of the braided handle

The finished fork, before clean-up, and polishing.

Mobile #40

Here is mobile' #40. The fourth mobile' I made this year. Still needs a bit of polish, but the construction is complete and it's all balanced. It took a bit of welding to build this one. I've been working in metal more this year. A new medium for me, and I'm liking it.

Mobile' #39

This is mobile' #39, my 3rd one this year.This is the follow-up to the prototype posted a short while back (#38).
This one is made from aluminum flat 1/8"x 3/4" flat stock, shaped, tapered and bent by hand. This is a pivot-on-point type table-top mobile', approx. 17"H x 10"W. I like working with this medium. I'd like to do some more, exploring this type of mobile'. Wind has only a minimal effect on this kind of mobile' but it's still a nice mobile'.

Cartoon of the Week

New mobile', #38

Here's a new mobile', #38 just finished. This one is approx. 14" X 20", all steel construction. Hand-crafted. I may tweak this one a little more (minor issues, really). This is the second one I made this year. I would've made more but for a shortage of time and space. All my mobiles are for sale.
See more of them on my web site:
http://www.tesserak.net/html/mobiles.htm