Mercy! Mercy! That Dang Nabed PERCY!

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Clutter

For those of you who follow this blog, there was a period where I posted pictures of my workstation. It was littered with a myriad of figurines of all types. The only criteria I use for acquiring them is the “Wow” factor. Regardless how cheap or expensive, if one hits my WOW button and I can afford it, I add it to the collection.

There was a movie produced in the past couple of years, I don’t even remember the exact name… something like Night at the Museum with Adam Sadler. He was the night watchman and every night the characters would come alive. My characters do the same thing but it’s in my imagination. The more vivid the details on the casting and the more mind boggling the paint job, the greater the impression they make. On on a good dream night I get to see them interact. Usually when I wake up the recollections are all too fleeting, like fairies that scurry away with the dawn, but during the day, when I look closely at one, as I’m seated at my writing desk, I remember things about them that I couldn’t be making up for the first time.

My Cousin, Alec, came over yesterday while I was taking a nap. Napping is becoming more of habit as I grow older. It doesn’t bother me nor is it particularly reassuring. It’s just something that happens more and more these days. Anyway Linda told him she’d get me up and he said “No.” Alec likes to drop by and see what I am doing. Last week he saw the cement yard statue I was working on and it must have intrigued him. It is a statue of a peasant girl in a classic theme carrying a water jug. It must have been originally intended for a garden because it has a water line that runs up from the base to the jug on her shoulder. The piece was badly pitted and cracked but originally it was a good casting when you consider that cement was media that was used. The original art work, used to make the mold, was about one-half scale which makes her about three feet tall. She is so heavy I can't lift her without a mechanical aid.

I decided to finish (restore?) her using my auto body techniques for restoring old car bodies. So I blew off all the old accumulation of grit and grime, gave her a good scrubbing with degreasing liquid and began sanding the rough spots. Then I applied a glazing compound to fill in pitting and cracks. Then it was time to practice with my air brush. The idea here is to begin with the flesh using a dark skin tone and then layer it with a lighter tint. It doesn’t matter if you get paint on her hair or dress because that will be dealt with later.

I watched a girl doing it on U-Tube and that gave me an idea for the process. Alec told me that there is a great debate going on over whether or not the Greeks painted their statues. Little unexplainable flecks are being found in some of the crevices of famous pieces. I suspect they did because they were big into realism and tried to make their statues as lifelike as they could.