BFA Show Card

This is the card for my final BFA show. March 19th is right around the corner. This weekend will be dedicated to making a lot of art and getting everything ready.

Chonchitos!!!

Chanchitos is Spanish for little pig. The chanchitos from Pomaire, Chile are good luck charms. Their distinguishing characteristic? They only have three legs. 

This is my first attempt at making my own. It needs some work. 

These are authentic chanchitos. Jeremy Datillo, Stephanie Hamilton and I are going to use these little guys for a show about superstitions and good luck charms in which we battle it out to cancel the good with the bad or the other way around.

Although it was on my grandfather 3g IPhone, this is the best photo I have ever taken. It has nothing to do with chanchitos. It is just included for its awesomeness.

Newest Painting Installation of Horacio Quiroga's Stories

One thing that I have learned this week is that I should do more planning. 

Lesson #1- When you buy an old wagon on CraigsList, ask how big it is. I drug a friend out to the middle of nowhere to spend two hours  disassembling it with me to realize it still wouldn't fit in my van.  Now I get to drag my professor and his saw out there to retrieve the remains. 

Of all things, I needed a yoke for a horse. For some strange reason my professor just happened to be getting rid of one! 

Lesson #2- If you want to build a boat, do some research. After building this lopsided frame, I realized the luan plywood could not even bend that much. I destroyed it trying to put it together and loaded it up to throw it away, which led to the following...

Lesson #3- Check and see if the elevator you are using is working. This was me after the 10 minutes of cussing, kicking and being trapped in the corner of the elevator. The motion sensor on the elevator door was not functioning...at all.

I need to take a photo of this installation when it isn't terribly backlit but for now he is a sneak peek at what is going on. I have been combining a few moments from stories by Horacio Quiroga so that I can illustrate them as I imagine with found objects and paintings.

A man dragging a turtle into his house with intentions of eating it. 

Distressing Wood and Building Boats

I wanted to use distressed wood to set the mood in my next installation. Old barn wood is expensive and hard to find so I decided to simulate it. I bought about 12 pieces of picket fence that were about 4 foot long. I used the belt sander to smooth down the corners to make it appear worn down. Next I used the belt sander to sand little groves in places. The fun part was next. I used a hammer and a chisel to basically beat the down. I used the back of the hammer to splinter the top and put notches in the surface and the chisel to scratch the wood up. I also hammered a bag of screws on top of the wood to create little indents. 

After I finished that I used a dark oak stain and barely brushed it on the wood with a sponge brush. Next I used a light maple stain to fill in the gaps.

After that I mixed up a gross-looking blue green using Cerulean Blue and Raw Sienna acrylic paint. I watered it down and applied it with a sponge brush.

Finally it was time for construction. This is the beginning of my installation. 

                                    It will include this painting which is in progress in this photo.

The next part of this project is to build a small, rough canoe with wheels being pulled by a horse. This is the beginning of the construction. It still doesn't look like much but I am on my way to do some more building as soon as I post this!