The Angry Aztec

The weather is now officially getting downright ugly. While on the road today and returning from downtown T.O. Jewel and I encountered some pretty nasty wind and rain. This is not usually a problem as we were in my Dodge Ram which is fairly big and cushy as far as vehicles go but today I was carrying, somewhat precariously I might add, a giant block of styrofoam. Now this block took up the whole truck bed and then some. I found someone on Craigslist disposing of several blocks and I decided to grab what I could for sculpting before they disposed of it as waste. Apparently it had been used as low weight landfill over a below grade building. Now they were excavating and re-engineering the area. My gain whoo hoo. I'm waiting for the weather to calm down so I can take the chainsaw to it and cut it into manageable chunks. This will give me the raw material I need to help me create a new idea I've been planning to start this Winter. I hope to have those pics by next Summer.

Now on to one of last Winters projects. This photo shows a concrete cast that I created originally in clay. It stands around 40 inches tall - quite big. When Summer arrived I moved the clay model from the basement shop to my work area in the garage and created a rubber and fiberglass mold for pouring in concrete. This was my first time building a fiberglass support case and I definitely have much to learn. It worked but I made many rookie mistakes which did affect the cast. I had planned to create this sculpture as a limited production piece in concrete but being somewhat of a perfectionist it might get shelved...which really means it will live out its days in our home garden with all my other experiments and one-offs. Think...'the island of misfit toys'. The finish for this is not complete at the time of the photo but you might be able to see the direction it's going. It will be completed in my 'Rainforest' style finish which is several base colours and washes along with lichen, moss and age spots. I've already done the weathering and 'pitting' to give it that artifact look. He's had several names over the months but looking at him gritting those teeth I settled on the Angry Aztec.