If I Only Had a Brain (that fit)
Mike Schwing from Md.
>Finally! First off let me say that I did not intend to paint the brain. I had only intended to give it a little color by adding some toner to the lacquer. Late last night, when I should have not been in the shop, I dumped some transparent red into the airbrush, and before I realized what I had done, I had painted the base! It looked horrible. So I painted it in black and then transparent red on top. It looks odd, but kind of neat, too. I'm OK with it but it wasn't what I had intended.
The pattern on the bug was done by carefully folding wire mesh around the body and head, and then spraying translucent paints of various colors, and then applying a charcoal black over top with the mesh removed. The whole thing was sprayed with a water based lacquer. The interior of the head, it can now be revealed, is carved with veins and colored black, blue and purple, to show that he has no brain. I saved the cutout from the top of his head and it is on the floor beneath him.
I _was_ going to submit this to the AAW jury for the Kansas City Symposium exhibit with the Wizard of Oz theme, but now that I painted the base I'm not so happy with it. Hopefully you can change my mind. There are a bunch more pics as additional posts to this one. Please put your comments, if you have any, here on this post to keep them in some sort of order. I would love feedback, of any sort.
This was the most intense thing I ever worked on. The whole thing stands about 14" tall and is made from one single piece of silver maple - not a good choice for this type of work. The head was turned first and then the rest was carved, shaped, sanded, and painted.
Glad it is done!
