Monday, January 28, 2013

Year Of The Snake @ Giant Robot

Serpent (115) 2013
Serpent (115) 2013
Carved carpenter's pencil, wood & graphite
5 7/8"h x 1/4"d x 5/8"w
$850.00

Kick off the Lunar New Year with a "Year of the Snake" art show at GR2!  This has been a running tradition for the past 5 or 6 years, I'm excited to be a part of it this year.  I won't make it to the opening, but I'll be there in spirit.

YEAR OF THE SNAKE
Feb 2 – 20th, 2013 GIANT ROBOT 2
2062 Sawtelle Boulevard
Los Angeles CA 90025
310 445.9276
Opening Reception:
Saturday, Feb 2, 2013
6:30 – 10:00 PM

Featuring artwork from:
Rob Sato, Ako Castuera, Aaron Woes, Jeremiah Ketner, Michael Hsiung, Christine Wu, Jeff McMillan, Cristina Paolos, Mari Naomi, Joe To, Gosha Levochkin, Kohei Yamashita, Theo Ellsworth, Hiro Hayashi, Stella Hultberg, Luke Chueh, Deth P. Sun, Sara Saedi, Dionne Bang, Yoskay Yamamoto, Edwin Ushiro, Audrey Kawasaki, Miso, Sean Chao, Martin Hsu, Bubi Au Yeung, Joe Hahn, Heidi Hahn, Mu Pan, Jen Tong, Pam Henderson, Stasia Burrington, Eleanor Davis, Kio Griffith, Silvio Porreta, Susie Ghahremani, Edwin Ushiro, Andrice Arp, Jeni Yang, Diem Chau, Andrew Hem, Shawn Cheng, Nao Harada, Aaron Brown, Ryuji Oguni, Ken Taya, Saelee Oh, Jeremiah La Torre, Wayne Johnson, Mari Inukai, Shihori Nakayama, Elliot Brown, Kerry Horvath, APAK, Sana Park, Jon Lau + More


Serpent (115) 2013 -back detail
Serpent: back detail
This piece will be on view at the Year Of The Snake show at GR2.  It's carved from a carpenter's pencil, the carving is mostly done on the pencil's wood.  The snake's black coloring comes from rubbing shaved graphite onto the wood.  I like how shiny and black the snake is.  The only tool I used on this carving was an X-acto knife with a number 11 blade.

Tuesday, January 1, 2013

C is for Cortez

Cortez The Cat
I'm in love with Cortez!
This is a recently finished commission for Kevin as a gift to his sweetheart Kate.  Cortez is their kitty who likes to hunt earthworms and has a hook tail.  Thank you so much for finding my work guys!  I hope you enjoy little Cortez. :)

360 View of Cortez
360 view of Cortez
This was another experiment at combining different colors.  I really love how the stripes came out.  Adding color like this is tricky, you can't directly melt the wax onto the crayon.  The wax that is on top will just pop off after it's cooled.  To get this coloring done I have to carve a deep channel where I want the new color to be, then pour in the melted wax.  Think if it as inlay work.  So each of Cortez's dark grey stripes are made of deep cuts in the light grey crayon with melted dark grey wax poured into them.  The excess wax is carved off, then the body is shaped.  It's a much longer process, but the effects are well worth it.
His white snout is also made from carving a deep oval shaped hole, then white wax is poured in.  After the white snout is cooled the nose and mouth features are carved into the white wax and the dark grey wax poured in.  I hope that makes sense?  :P


Viewing Cortez
Kate viewing the crayons. Photo courtesy of Kevin Turco.
Thank you guys!  This was such a fun project!