We were fortunate here in San Francisco to have a Louise Bourgeois spider sculpture installed at the Embarcadero. i found out last week that it will be removed tomorrow - it will be shipped to a collector in Houston.
I went down to the water late this afternoon and got a good picture of the shadows cast by this amazing sculpture.
Don’t ever spill water on a Mac. In a moment of klutziness, i spilled a couple of tablespoons of water on my keyboard. This caused several keys to freeze up. Amazingly, I was still able to use all the graphics programs like Photoshop and Poser with no problem. But I was unable to write e mail or type anything with the letters “h” “u” “y” etc. So I finally got it fixed, and I feel like a renewed person.
The BDSM skeleton project is moving along nicely - I’ve been able to recruit some amazing models. Kurt, who posed for several of the skeleton BDSM scenes, looked like a perfect handsome demon - so I had him pose as one of Dante’s (Dore’s) minons, leaning on a sword.
I have two models coming in next week, and will also begin setting up the skeleton to photograph reference photos. I did a “practice run” to see how difficult it is to dress him up. Not bad, except that he cannot wear pants and stand up (the rod that keeps him standing upright goes right up his ass, so he will not be able to wear pants and stand up on his stand)
In between all of this, I’ve been working on final details on the Diomedes painting, and have begun studies for a painting of a chimpanzee mob. I already sculpted two little fierce chimps to use as a reference for perspective, composition and lighting.
As part of my research, I watched this program called “Escape to Chimp Eden.” The fighting, mobbing, and bickering in which chimps are constantly engaged is a bit scary, especially when I think about how similar our DNA is. And in studying their anatomy, they are identical muscle for muscle with us. The only difference is in the hip, neck and head. The arm muscles are so similar (just the proportions differ) that I am able to use a human anatomy book to determine position of major muscles in a chimp. it only convinces me even more that there is a large component of animal in us.
The entire series of graphite studies are now almost finished, and I'm ready to get photos done of live models. I’ve been asking all my friends about finding models. I met one very cool guy who is game to pose, and so i still need to locate maybe one more male model and a female model, all show are willing to be in BDSM scenarios. I may end up posting to a site called FetLife.
I also measure Fredrick for his BDSM closting - both male and female dominants. Next week, we are going to go pick up a full sized ladder so that I can pose Fredrick properly by tieing his limbs to the rafters with fishing line and tacks.
I purchased a horse skull from a seller on Ebay. It’s the real thing, not a cast, and it’s quite beautiful. It will be very helpful reference for painting flayed horses. Tomorrow I plan to do some studies in pencil. It’s rather delicate, so rather than positioning the skull into the desired rotation, I’ll have to do pencil sketches with detailed rendering, and position myself rather than the skull to get the right perspective.
