Dia de la Abby #52 - Skull Sculpture.

This is my final piece for the 4.0 year. It's hard to believe, it's been a year already. This sculpture inspired by Nazca and Mayan skulls. I made this sculpture for the Skull exhibition of our Skull Appreciation Day festivities. It will be shown at Gallery 5 from June 3rd till July 8th. It will be available for purchase through the Gallery. This piece combines my love of ancient skull with some skills I picked up while making other pieces for the 4.0 year.

I made this starting with a fairly plain commercially made paper mache skull. I built up the back of the skull using newspaper. I covered the entire skull in several layers of plaster cloth, to make it stable and hard. After that cured for a week (I worked on quilts during that time), I covered it with paper clay. This took the longest, as I was attempting to smooth out the plaster lumps and add definition to the face. The paper mache skull's face lacked a lot of definition, so this was greatly needed.  After that dried over night, I dumped a bag of tea into a small amount of warm water and brushed on the tea, to create an aged effect. Since the tea leaves were loose, this created spots on the skull that discolored it more. I brushed most of it off, but when some pieces wouldn't come off, I decided to leave them, so they added to the aged appearance by resembling dirt. Also, since the paper clay cracked in various areas on the skull, I shoved tea leaves into the cracks, to antique them more, as if they naturally occurred from being buried for centuries. I painted several layers of tea stain on the skull. I used water color paints to create the floral design. I sealed the entire skull with 2 layers of an acrylic matte sealer, so it would protect the color and harden the paper more.

The 4.0 might be over for me, but don't fret. I will be making more things during the 5.0 year, but likely a monthly instead of weekly.

Every week in the 4.0 year, I posted my own Dia de la Abby posts as well as a tutorial with instructions on how I made my piece. Hopefully you feel inspired by my posts just as I was by Noah's Skull-A-Day 1.0 daily project. Need more of me than just a weekly dose, follow me on Twitter and/or Facebook.

Dia de la Abby #50: Chalk Pastel Skull

The design of this piece was inspired by Nazca skulls. This is also a reference for the skull sculpture I'm making for the "Skulls" exhibition of our Skull Appreciation Day event at Gallery 5.

Recently, I went on a vacation with my family. During a stop in Savannah, GA we saw beautiful artwork by the SCAD students, in Forsyth park at the Sidewalk Arts Festival. The use of artist chalk to create the vivid designs, inspired me to make something of my own. Mine is not as vivid, due to using a different quality of chalk. In making mine, it was neat to work with my hands using a medium that I'm unfamiliar with. I used black cardstock, so the white of the skull would be vivid and the shadows darker than they would be on white paper. I wasn't able to find a video tutorial that was similar to how I made my piece. It's an easy medium to work with, so I recommend just experimenting with it. The chalk blends very easily. If you don't want to use your fingers to blend the chalk, you can use a cotton swab. I prefer my fingers as a blending tool. However, a damp cotton swab can be useful to remove unwanted chalk. And, a dry one, to blend small areas. The finished piece has to be be sealed with either hair spray (the cheaper, the better) or a spray matte varnish (like Valspar brand). As normal, I used my handy skull model as a reference for light and shading.


Every week in the 4.0 year, I will post my own Dia de la Abby posts as well as a tutorial with instructions on how I made my piece. Hopefully you feel inspired by my posts just as I was by Noah's Skull-A-Day 1.0 daily project. Need more of me than just a weekly dose, follow me on Twitter and/or Facebook.

Dia de la Abby #42: Skull and Heart Necklace

This piece is inspired by love...heart and head (skull). This is represented by an elongated Nazca skull and an anatomical heart.

I have been hunting for inexpensive glass microscope slides for a while, but have yet to find a small amount of them that wasn't overpriced. I like that these from Inkssentials come in different sizes and have ready made frames in different metals to put them in. Before now, you would have to use copper tape, flux, solder and wire to wrap the edges of the glass. Though, I can do this, I don't want to. I like this faster method better. I used 2 different papers, bridal tulle, water colors and india ink for the pendant art. Since these frames are meant to use two pieces of glass, I made the pendant reversible with two images. I used crocheted the necklace with wire and beads. To learn more about how I made this piece, read the tutorial.


Every week in the 4.0 year, I will post my own Dia de la Abby posts as well as a tutorial with instructions on how I made my piece. Hopefully you feel inspired by my posts just as I was by Noah's Skull-A-Day 1.0 daily project. Need more of me than just a weekly dose, follow me on Twitter and/or Facebook.