STUDENT, TEACHER AND ALUMNI CHALLENGE

While visiting the Houston Alumni group  I was able to hear their song and some of their cheers.  Boy, when we are working late nights in the studio, being able to listen to a cheer would be just the thing to get us into that tiger mode. So here is your challenge. Shoot a creative video of yourself or a group doing a cheer and send it to us so we can listen and post it on the blog. Be creative.  Show us something that depicts your school spirit and help to make this tiger roar.

Spending time on the head and paws

Tiger progress, Notice the Prairie View Panther
behind the Tiger? 

We have lots of paws and legs around the studio. I'm alternating from head to paws.  Here is the progress from the last few days.

A paw and claws, work in progress. 

My distractions

I'm not always sculpting.  It is true that I have a life beyond the Grambling tiger, though I have to say, the tiger holds a great deal of my attention, even in my dreams.  My biggest distraction is the birth of my new granddaughter Issabella, but you could say that we sacrificed her to the Grambling Tiger as well. Now don't get upset with me, I didn't come up with this idea on my own. It was my daughter who thought of it as we were wandering around the studio looking at the progress. Christina is a very creative person, and by the way, my photographer from Diliberto Photo and Design. We both kind of ame up with the idea of putting Issa in the mouth of the tiger. 

Presented the tiger process at the Houston Alumni Group

This past Saturday I went to the Houston Grambling Alumni group to present how the sculpture is coming along. The best part was to hear the school cheer.  I think everyone enjoyed the presentation.  I volunteered to come back and to show more slides when it was further along.

"How can we get involved,"someone from the group asked. Well if you are following the blog you know that we have been looking for warehouse space to put the sculpted tiger together.  That means I have to move my entire studio. So we may need helping moving the tiger pieces and the studio to the "temporary" location. Moving within the next week or so.

Sorry I don't have pictures, I thought I saw someone taking pictures, if they want to send them to me I'd be happy to post them on this post.

The Rock

The rock is pretty much complete, thanks to the wonderful milling at Across the Board Creations  They were able to take my digital model of the rocks and enlarge it along with the cat.  It has come in sections so that we can take different sections of the rock down and work on the paws attached to the rock.  We painted the rock to look the same color as the clay.

The foam rock comes in pieces. 

It is like putting a puzzle together. 

There is little that needs to be done to the rock.  I have created
a few sitting ledges for photo opportunities.  I will need to
check these out.  I like the design of the rock digitally, but
seeing it this large gives me an opportunity to inspect how
it works in real life. We painted it the same color as the clay.
This will help both my client and I to see how they
work together. 

Please don't climb the rock.  Note:  The artist is not responsible
for injuries or death caused by interacting with this sculpture.
Do as I say, not as I do.  It is very tempting.

I have taken the top portion of the rock down to see how
it works with the top most paw. 

Here is the digital version of the entire rock
in about the same position as it is in the picture
where I am pretending to climb. 

The head.

We are spending a lot of time on the tigers head.

The foam still needs more detail and I spend a great deal of time
carving and sanding the foam. 

Foundry wax is brushed onto the foam. This gives the clay
something to hold onto and makes the removing of the clay
much easier.  The clay that is going on this cat has been used
in many different projects.  

Each part of the anatomy is looked at very
carefully.  Because this sculpture is so large
and the face is seen from a distance, an artist
must know how to exaggerate features so that
they can read when it is complete, in bronze
and from a distance. 

THe face is taking a tremendous amount of
time, but it is what everyone is going to be
looking at.