10: Damn Animals

Today I started a larger cradled painting panel. The smaller one I made yesterday came out OK (the glue dried today so I took the clamps off), but I learned that it’s actually a problem that the cheap 1″ x 2″ cradling-boards I’m using are not perfectly straight. There’s a small section of the panel where the hardboard bends away from the support due to a bow in one of the boards. I’ll still use the panel–I think, especially if the panel is framed when completed, the slight curve will not be too noticeable. But, I should find an alternative material to use for cradling.

Then, not wanting to make another drawing, I struggled with some Sculpey while watching Watership Down. You probably know this about me already (sorry) but the floating black rabbit head from Watership Down was one of the things which scared me the most as a little kid, and I like to revisit the movie every so often. I don’t even know how much I like the movie…it’s got a lot of problems…but the black rabbit head is fantastic. But maybe I just think that because of how it affected me as a kid; for most of my childhood I was petrified to look out my bedroom window after dusk because I thought I might see it appear there.

Anyways, I learned that I pretty much hate Sculpey. Ugh. It was so difficult and unsatisfying to use. Maybe the problem is more that I just can’t figure out anything good to make with it. So I just made some little black animal-figures. I don’t think you’ll see any more clay stuff from me this year. It really just wasn’t any fun.

I added another new little painting to my Etsy shop: