Polymer Clay "Wood"

My eleven year old art student has been asking me to let him model with polymer clay so a few weeks ago, he looked through my polymer clay how-to books and picked out a couple projects.

"Wood" polymer clay masks were one of the projects he picked.  I told him I would experiment with making wood and we would try making a mask.

I found directions, each set different, in four how-to books.  Most of them called for using four wood-like colors but one book called for three.  Since this was a my first attempt I decided to use three colors.  One of the other books suggested using metallic colors mixed with the wood colors to give the wood a sheen.  I used that idea, too.

I used scraps of clay from other projects so I can't give you the amounts by the usual method of one block or one quarter block.  I used circle cutters from my box of cutters which I bought on-line.  I chose a large, a mid-size, and a small size because several of the books suggested using different amounts of the various colors.

It took a while to mix three appropriate colors.  Below is the first combination I chose.  I decided the colors were too contrasting and remade colors choosing colors that were a little closer in value (but still contrasting)  I also decided to mix the colors more thoroughly.

Below is the second set of colors I used. Later I premixed enough of similar colors so my art student and I could each make a wood cane.  His class is one and a half hours long, not long enough for him to mix his clays and also make a mask.

All of the sheets were rolled through the pasta maker at the second thickest setting. The largest circle was cut from the mid-value brown, the smallest circle was cut from the deepest value brown and the mid-size circle was cut from the lightest brown.  Approximate sizes of cutters in the photo.

Next I rolled each circle into a ball, and flattened them with a clay roller so I could put them through the pasta maker again.  I rolled the mid-value color first on the second thickest setting.  In order for the lightest brown to be a large enough sheet to cover the first one, I had to roll it through on the fourth thickest setting.  The dark value had to be rolled even thinner.  I stretched the second and third sheets gently to make them the size of the bottom layer.  Now I had the the various thicknesses several of the how-to books suggested.

Next came stacking.  

Cut stack in half.  Lay one on top of the other.  Do NOT lay the dark against the dark. 

 Cut again.  Note the tiny lines where I released the air trapped under the dark layer.

Stack again.  Cut on the green line for yet another stacking.

Note that the stacks are not precise.  This didn't seem to be necessary.  It is necessary to remember NOT to lay dark against dark or mid-color against mid-color.

Form the stack into a rectangular box.

Bend the box.

Bent box.

Form the clay into a rectangular box and bend again.

Repeat until you like the "wood" rectangle you have made.  It took me three times bending and reforming into a rectangular box to get what I liked.

 Final rectangular box.

Sliced box.

Slices laid so the inside cuts are visible.  These are always surprises.

I laid one slice sliced edge up and rolled it thin enough to go through the pasta maker. ( This slice was from a later rectangular box.)

After being rolled through the pasta maker.

Cut an oval that will use about half of the sheet.  The oval will become the mask.  The rest of the sheet can be used for the nose, ears and other additions to the mask.

A drinking straw can be used to cut out the eyes.  The ring in the nose is a jump ring which can be bought in a jewelry craft section of craft stores.

Cut a heart in half lengthwise to make ears.

Lay the finished mask on a sheet of clay rolled at the second thickest setting on the pasta maker.  The first time I didn't do this and the ears fell off.  The backing sheet also adds color to the eyes. Cut carefully around the mask with an Exacto Knife.  It is easier to cut off sections rather than cut around the whole mask in one cut.

Bake at 275 degrees for 25 minutes.
I baked the mask on a curved metal bowl but it could be baked flat.  Fortunately, I remembered to cut a hole at the top with a straw so I could hang the head on a keyring after it was baked.  The hole could be drilled out afterward, also.

Below is the mask my art student made.

Here is another mask, this time with two holes cut into it so it can be hung on a necklace.

Painting a Portrait Using Ideas from Chuck Close Paintings--Part 2

The final painting

Week 4.  From this point on, we had the Chuck Close Face Book to consult.  J. W. was inspired and worked an hour and a half.  He accomplished a lot.

I had downloaded another style of Chuck Close painting because J. W. didn't like the way the bits of color on the lips looked.  In this style each square is one color.  He decided he would repaint his lips in a style which was partly this second style but was also a bit like the first style.

I often find it hard to see what I can do to improve my paintings and it helps to have someone else look at my painting.  J. W. found that the same thing was true for his painting.  After Week 3, I noticed that the shape of the right side of his face ( as you are looking at it)  was not quite like the photo he was working from.  We talked about it.

The simplest way to get that angle right seemed to be to cut out the face from the background of the photograph, lay it on top of his painting and then redraw the troublesome right side by tracing around the cut out face.  You can see the original right side edge and the newly painted one.  The result is an interesting highlight between the two edges, a highlight that is often present when we look at faces.

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He used the second Chuck Close painting for ideas for painting the hair, using three browns that he mixed.  He used the lightest of the three browns to define the chin and neck muscles.  He used ideas from both styles of Chuck Close paintings to further define the eyes.

He had fun painting in the background.  All the colors are mixtures.  I suggested that he not make the edges between the colors definite but mingle the two colors so the transition was gradual.

At this point I was mostly just watching him and telling him, "Great idea."  He knew where he wanted to go.  He was comfortable combining both Chuck Close styles.

Week 5.  This was the week he refined the nose.  I copied a variety of faces painted by noted painters.  He decided the one he wanted to use for inspiration was Blue Boy by Thomas Gainsborough.

Before attempting painting the nose, J. W. drew a sketch of the Blue Boy's nose.

He painted in shadows along the nose in a deeper skin tone and added white to the end of the nose.  He also added the deeper skin tone along the sides of the face, especially along the right side as you look at the painting. He used a bit of the Chuck Close technique of painting two colors in a square to paint the edge shadow between the nose and lips on the right side.

Week 6.  He decided to adjust the lines depicting the nostril holes and added more of the darker skin tone along the right side of the nose.  he also added a bit more white to the center of the nose and the center of the forehead.

He had decided a few weeks earlier that he wanted a T shirt neckline, not the jacket that he was wearing in the original photo.  He had fun filling in those final blocks.  He used Turquoise for the entire T shirt, using varying amounts of water to vary the tones of the blocks.

To see how J. W. started this project go to Painting a Portrait Using Ideas from Chuck Close--Part 1.

Painting a Portrait Using Ideas from Chuck Close Paintings--Part 1

This is the final version of my ten year old art student's self-portrait.  He completed it in six sessions of about one hour each.

One evening when J. W. and his mother came in, she mentioned that the art class J. W. had signed up for had been cancelled.  The students would have been making a Chuck Close type portrait using ink pads and their thumbs.

I didn't  have any ink pads and didn't want to buy any but...I had three shoeboxes of the original type of acrylic paints in tubes.  Since I have switched to the newer acrylic paints that dry slowly I had no use for the older type.  An opportunity to clean off another shelf!

I am fascinated by Chuck Close's huge portraits, ( 100 by 80 inches or about that)  The entire area is a face.  Not only that, squares that make up the painting are tiny abstract works of art.  There is no visible face when the painting is viewed at close range but seen from the entrance to the next gallery the face emerges and the tiny abstract squares disappear.

This is the Chuck Close painting I printed off to show J. W.  He was fascinated by the intricate patterns in each small square and also by the fact that if he stood as far from the picture as he could , the face was visible but the little patterns were not.

I also showed him a portion of his own eye in a greatly enlarged form so he could see the individual pixels and how they varied in color.  So glad I have a computer so I could show him this.  If you click on the photo below, you can see the pixels much better.

This was J. W.'s introduction to acrylics and mixing colors as well as to Chuck Close. I knew this project might become so tedious he wouldn't want to finish it so I had him try the technique on an 9 X 12  inch sheet of 140 watercolor paper. I prepared it for him by marking it off in 1/2 inch squares, again because I thought he might find setting up the page tedious.

He decided to paint a large letter "J" for his practice piece.

The next week he added the background and played around with painting a few designs in the squares.

He was still eager to try his self-portrait.

Using the poster option on our printer, I doubled the size of his portrait.  This made it 11 X 15, larger than life.  You can see the tape which I used to tape the two 8 1/2 by 11 sheets of copier paper together.

Week 1.  He liked the idea of using the T Square to draw the 1/2 inch squares and drew them in so quickly I was surprised.  He used 140 weight watercolor paper.  It was heavy enough to use with acrylics and it was lightweight enough so the photo showed through when the lightbox was turned on.

He traced around his features and was ready to start painting.

I told him to start with his mouth and then his eyes.  The facial features on Chuck Close's paintings are an integral part of the whole, not painted on after he has filled in the squares.

He immediately decided to put some small shapes on the lips.

From this point onward, he worked on the painting for forty-five minutes or an hour each time he came and spent the rest of the time experimenting with the effects he could get using acrylic paints on  various types of acrylic papers.  This helped keep him from becoming bored or discouraged about his progress on his big painting.

Week 2.  He spent a lot of time learning to mix a flesh color.  As I recall, he used orange, white, and burnt sienna.  I think he also used a bit of red and blue.  He mixed enough paint so he would have it for the following weeks and stored it in a recycled plastic vegetable container from Kentucky Fried Chicken.

Week 3.  I showed him his photo in grayscale.  Computers are a real asset for seeing values in a photograph.

He mixed another flesh color because he noticed that the flesh in the photo varied in value.  Again, he spent a lot of time adjusting the color.  We talked about the area around the eyes appearing darker because that area is shadowed by the brow.

This must have been about the time I received the Chuck Close book  I ordered from Amazon.

Chuck Close Face Book, an Abrams Book for Young Readers, is a marvelous book.  It was a tremendous help as I guided J. W. through the rest of his project.  I still haven't read the book from front to back but each time I open the book I come across a new interesting comment or idea .  How Chuck Close works is described by  answering questions from  student artists.

One quote from Chuck Close that I will long remember is, "I think problem solving is highly overrated.  Problem creation is much more interesting."

For the rest of the story of J. W.'s steps in creating his self-portrait, see  Painting a Portrait Using Ideas from Chuck Close Paintings --Part 2